How Trell plans to destroy not just Scadrial, but Harmony as well

[Ixthos he/him]

Are you (probably) a Shard or Avatar (or Splinter), possibly created specifically as a weapon against another not-quite-as-Harmonious-as-the-name-implies Shard? Want to blow up its planet as well? Well, Trell has just the solution for you!

Based on information from the blurb, Chapters 15 and 17 of The Lost Metal previews, how Vin and Ati killed one another, and why Sazed didn't.

 

Step 0: Check to make sure your rival is fully invested in their planet - this will be crucial if you intend for there to be a massive light show.

Step 1: Get your only mostly stable rival into a state where the two halves that compose their power and essence are in extreme conflict. A war between its peoples should suffice, especially if your opponent is driven to both Ruin and Preserve, and they genuinely care for the well-being of their people

Step 2: Approach your rival in the Spiritual Realm where the division is most prominent. If the point of greatest division is in the Physical or Cognitive Realm, approach them there instead.

Step 3: Apply your power to this junction. Note that this step will only work if, by your nature, you repel other forms of Investiture

Step 4: Watch as the now-in-conflict halves of your opponent, polarised against one another, annihilate each other, releasing enormous amounts of power into the planet, destroying it.

(Note: if you were specially made to enact this event, it could well be you were not intended to survive it, but that is a small price to pay for the light show.)

 

... So, yeah, I think the explosion is going to be more than just a massive polarised harmonium / trellium explosion to wipe out Elendel, as the blurb implied Harmony ultimately saw nothing if Trell succeeds, which implies that, and makes the most sense if, Harmony was himself also destroyed. It also seems that, if Trell doesn't eliminate Harmony, then Trell would also always face the threat that Harmony posed, only now free to use his full power to avenge his people, or meddle elsewhere.

 

Some relevant sections of text:

The blurb / Tor book announcement:

Spoiler

[...] Harmony's vision of future possibilities comes to an abrupt halt tomorrow night, with only blackness after that. 

[...] If no one steps forward to be the hero Scadrial needs, the planet and its millions of people will come to a sudden and calamitous ruin.

- From https://coppermind.net/wiki/The_Lost_Metal#Synopsis

 

Vin and Ruin's final moments:

Spoiler

[...]

She rose, gathering her power. She forced it against the power of Ruin, as she had the other times. Yet, this time was different. When Ruin pushed back, she didn't retreat. She didn't preserve herself. She drove onward.
The confrontation made her divine body tremble in pain. It was the pain of a cold and hot meeting, the pain of two rocks being smashed together and ground to dust. Their forms undulated and rippled in a tempest of power.
And Vin drove on.

[...]

She didn't shy back, though the conflict of opposites ripped her apart. Ruin screamed in terror as the force of her power completely melded with Ruin's.
Her consciousness—now formed and saturated with Preservation—moved to touch that of Ruin. Neither would yield. And, with a surge of power, Vin bid farewell to the world, then pulled Ruin into the abyss with her.
Their two minds puffed away, like mist under a hot sun.

- The Hero of Ages, Chapter 81

 

Sazed becoming Harmony:

Spoiler

[...]

The powers were opposites. As he drew them in, they threatened to annihilate each other. And yet, because he was of one mind on how to use them, he could keep them separate. They could touch without destroying each other, if he willed it. For these two powers had been used to create all things. If they fought, they destroyed. If they were used together, they created.

[...]

- The Hero of Ages, Chapter 82

 

Extract from The Lost Metal, Chapters 15 and 17: 

Spoiler

[...]

Harmonium was pliable, more so when heated. When softened like this, it seemed to react differently to the air—no longer as volatile. As if… as if it were becoming something else.

[...]

after a few moments the metals started to rearrange. The glob of harmonium on the left side began to glow a blue-white. The one on the right adopted a stranger air, growing silvery and reflective. It almost seemed liquid, like mercury—the surface incredibly smooth.

[...]

“If you cut it in half right now, when the metals cool you’ll just have two bits of harmonium. Yet in this state, the metals almost separate. 

[...]

“It always looks like it wants to divide,” Steris said. “That it’s arranging itself to do so.”

“Ruin and Preservation,” Marasi whispered. “Atium and lerasium.”

“I think that’s the reason harmonium is so unstable,” Wax explained. “Harmony has trouble acting, right? He’s mentioned it before: his two aspects work against one another, leaving him indecisive, impotent.”

[...]

- Chapter 15

 

[...]

“Investiture,” VenDell said. “The essence of the gods. Everything has an Invested component, normally inaccessible without certain abilities. When you burn metals, Lord Ladrian, you pull Investiture directly from the Spiritual Realm and use it to do work. Much like energy does work in those lights. But here is the key idea: Investiture, matter, and energy are all the same, fundamentally. [...] And states can change from one to the other. Energy can become Investiture. This is the soul of Feruchemy. Investiture can become matter. That is where harmonium comes from. And matter can become energy.

[...]

“Harmony is… worried.” VenDell paused. “Trellium has a repulsing effect on other forms of Investiture. Merely touching it to harmonium is dangerous—but doing as you did, heating and stretching the harmonium first, created what he called ‘an Invested matter-energy transference.’ That’s… very bad.”

[...]

- Chapter 17

 

Based on these, I think the following is in effect:

• Ruin and Preservation are among the most naturally polarised Shards, and as Vin and Ati showed, when their powers are directed in opposition to one another, they annihilate one another.
• When Vin killed Ati only their minds touched - while their powers were in opposition, at the time only their Cognitive selves made direct, destructive contact, thus the bulk of the Shardic investiture remained unaffected
• Sazed took up both powers, but by being the mind directing them both, and by being - at least in theory - in harmony, the powers could function together. If Sazed ever lost that harmony, he would be instantly killed, just as Vin and Ati had been, and the Shards would - similarly, if harmonium begins to polarise ...
• The war puts immense pressure on the two halves of Sazed's power, and is the closest equivalent to a Spiritual or Cognitive "heating" of the Shard, and polarisation of its two halves, to Ruin and to Preserve, especially coupled with Sazed's commitment to protecting the planet, yet also letting it find its own way.
• Shards can't be destroyed, just broken into smaller pieces. I don't want to go into Cosmere spoilers here at the moment, but it seems much more likely that Harmony, though a single Shard now, would splinter, and not necessarily into Ruin and Preservation, but completely and totally. Harmony would be gone, but so to would Ruin and Preservation, leaving only splinters ... and a massive wave of energy. No Cosmere spoilers, but this is I think obvious.
• Harmony is deeply invested in the planet. If Harmony is destabilised, then the conflict within the investiture suffusing the planet - as it was made by both powers together, see the underlined text extracted from when Sazed took up the two - would be functionally equivalent to the polarised harmonium / trellium explosion. The two powers, driven as close to conflict as the possibly can be before hand, suddenly allowed to act against one another, all facilitated by a being whose metal repels other investiture.

Thus Trell will destroy Harmony and the planet by replicating either in the Spiritual Realm, or all three Realms simultaniously, the same experiment Wax did - and indeed, pulling a Vin at the same time, touching the core of the Shard, or a point of division. Harmony will self-annihilate, and in so doing would do so more completely than Vin and Ati did, and thus release all the power of the Shard, or most of it, as an explosion centred on Scadrial.

 

What do you think? Do you think Trell plans to turn Harmony into a planet-busting bomb, or to primarily use their metals for the task?

[Requiem17 she/her]

Okay I hope Trell's plan is your plan, because that's a much smarter plan to combat Harmony himself than nuclear holocaust (terrible for humanity but how terrible exactly for Harmony? Harmony is still the dirt and the water and the air etc.), only counter argument is if Trell is invested in Scadrial anywhere at this point. If he is, he wouldn't want the planet destroyed right? 

[Ixthos he/him]

7 minutes ago, Requiem17 said:

Okay I hope Trell's plan is your plan, because that's a much smarter plan to combat Harmony himself than nuclear holocaust (terrible for humanity but how terrible exactly for Harmony? Harmony is still the dirt and the water and the air etc.), only counter argument is if Trell is invested in Scadrial anywhere at this point. If he is, he wouldn't want the planet destroyed right? 

It depends. I think, if Trell is invested in Scadrial, and isn't planning to commit - or was designed to be a suicide weapon - it likely would survive the planet's destruction, though possibly weakened. Though I don't think Trell is invested in Scadrial, but has hacked hemalurgy somehow, possibly due to incorporating some of Ruin into itself - if trellium contains traces of atium, that might explain how its spikes can function if it isn't invested in the planet, and if Trell is invested in the planet, that implies there is a fourth Metallic Art.

[Arkangel he/him]

What a thorough theory! It seems like a terrifyingly solid plan to destroy Harmony and Scadrial. I'm just glad we already know that there's going to be an Era 3 and 4!

 

3 hours ago, Ixthos said:

It depends. I think, if Trell is invested in Scadrial, and isn't planning to commit - or was designed to be a suicide weapon - it likely would survive the planet's destruction, though possibly weakened. Though I don't think Trell is invested in Scadrial, but has hacked hemalurgy somehow, possibly due to incorporating some of Ruin into itself - if trellium contains traces of atium, that might explain how its spikes can function if it isn't invested in the planet, and if Trell is invested in the planet, that implies there is a fourth Metallic Art.

According to the book blurb, it would seem that Trell may be invested in Bilming at least.

[Isilel]

What a brilliant  - and horrifying, plan! I do think that turning Scadrial peoples against each other, exploding the Basin and causing nuclear winter everywhere else as a consequence, are all part of weakening Harmony for the coup de grace.

Since WoBs suggest that Trell will continue to be a problem in Era 3, something needs to change about Harmony to make him less vulnerable. I really, really hope that it isn't a change of Vessel, but rather Sazed integrating his powers better and learning to use his excess Ruin against the outside threats to Scadrial.

Ettmetal will also need to change - MAD can't work if one of the sides would like nothing more than mutual annihilation and it is that easy to achieve! Nor can Harmony just withhold it entirely,  since it is the foundation of Scadrian magitech.

[CognitiveShadow he/him]

Just gonna leave this here (intro / summary for the book on audible)

Quote

“Return to #1 New York Times bestseller Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn world of Scadrial as its second era, which began with The Alloy of Law, comes to its earth-shattering conclusion in The Lost Metal.”

Might be onto something here with this theory!

[Frustration he/him]

So, the planet isn't necessary invested itself. And besides that something happening to Harmony would have minimal impact on anything that wasn't the shard itself, even if they ran on his Investiture.

[Ashbringer he/him]

The trellium-harmonium reaction seemed to only convert the metals' mass into energy, not their Investitures. I don't know how that would work on the Invested plane. That, and it assumes trellium is the pure essense of Trell, which the constant mentions of red corruption seems to indicate it's not.

That being said, Autonomy sending Trell as an Avatar on a suicide mission to blow up Harmony would be something I can imagine happening.

 

(We also know an Era 3 and Era 4 will exist from a meta perspective, but that doesn't mean exploding Scadrial can't be the plan, just that our intrepid adventurers are likely to stop it.)

[Ixthos he/him]

3 hours ago, Frustration said:

So, the planet isn't necessary invested itself. And besides that something happening to Harmony would have minimal impact on anything that wasn't the shard itself, even if they ran on his Investiture.

True, but note the sections I highlighted from The Lost Metal pre-release chapters. If Sazed were to be affected in this manner, it likely would result in the transformation of the Shardic investiture into something, and Sazed is heavily invested in the planet, and if that Investiture self annihilates, it has to change in some manner. If that investiture suddenly changes state, the most likely result would be a Physical or Cognitive realm explosion. And even if the result only is Spiritual Realm related, it would likely Splinter Harmony, and no Cosmere spoilers, but a splintered Shard would likely be almost as bad as a Physical Realm explosion.

 

2 hours ago, Ashbringer said:

The trellium-harmonium reaction seemed to only convert the metals' mass into energy, not their Investitures. I don't know how that would work on the Invested plane. That, and it assumes trellium is the pure essense of Trell, which the constant mentions of red corruption seems to indicate it's not.

That being said, Autonomy sending Trell as an Avatar on a suicide mission to blow up Harmony would be something I can imagine happening.

 

(We also know an Era 3 and Era 4 will exist from a meta perspective, but that doesn't mean exploding Scadrial can't be the plan, just that our intrepid adventurers are likely to stop it.)

Trell may itself actually be made of corrupted Investiture, so the red may be part of their nature by default. Also, the metals are, I think, much close to being Investiture than matter, but either way I think Trell is primarily focused on performing an equivalent act on Harmony, which Hero of Ages implies is a risk Sazed faces if he ever, even by himself, lost his harmony with the Shards.

Also, yeah, I also doubt Scadrial is doomed, but knowing the enemies plans - or trying to work them out in advance, certainly is fun 

[Ashbringer he/him]

I could see a world where Space Age Cosmere has a group of people hunting through space for those who destoyed their homeworld. Whether it’s Scadrians or not gets a bit cosmerey, but it could very well happen.

[IndigoAjah he/him]

On 07/11/2022 at 11:02 PM, Ixthos said:

It depends. I think, if Trell is invested in Scadrial, and isn't planning to commit - or was designed to be a suicide weapon - it likely would survive the planet's destruction, though possibly weakened. Though I don't think Trell is invested in Scadrial, but has hacked hemalurgy somehow, possibly due to incorporating some of Ruin into itself - if trellium contains traces of atium, that might explain how its spikes can function if it isn't invested in the planet, and if Trell is invested in the planet, that implies there is a fourth Metallic Art.

It's possible, based on conjecture about who Trell might be, that Trell has more than one personal embodiment/ "corporal" form, and as the Harmonium splitting doesn't seem to rely on equal amounts Trellium and Harmonium, that Trell could split/explode Harmony using just a distinct aspect of his power. 

 

That way he could destroy/split Harmony without it being a true suicide attack as most of him would survive 

[Anomander Rake he/him]

On 11/8/2022 at 0:45 PM, Frustration said:

So, the planet isn't necessary invested itself. And besides that something happening to Harmony would have minimal impact on anything that wasn't the shard itself, even if they ran on his Investiture.

Wasn't Scadrial, as a planet, created by Ruin and Preservation working together? That makes it, so far as I'm aware, the only planet not made up of 'general' investiture - maybe the combination of the two powers outside of a vessel doesn't make exactly Harmony's investiture, but I feel like Harmony's destruction would effect Scadrial at least in some way.

[Frustration he/him]

3 hours ago, Anomander Rake said:

Wasn't Scadrial, as a planet, created by Ruin and Preservation working together? That makes it, so far as I'm aware, the only planet not made up of 'general' investiture - maybe the combination of the two powers outside of a vessel doesn't make exactly Harmony's investiture, but I feel like Harmony's destruction would effect Scadrial at least in some way.

Not in any way that would be different than if any other shard was splintered.