What would it take for Harmony to intervene directly?

[king of nowhere]

Harmony is virtually omnipotent as far as scadrial's inhabitants are concerned, and he's bent on protecting his people. However, he also tries hard to not intervene personally, least he takes away free will from people. So, for example, bloody tan was free to kill his victims, and wax's uncle to pursue his evil plans and have women kidnapped and raped, without harmony doing much.
I have to say I kinda agree with him, mankind would never progress culturally or technologically if a godlike being solved all the problems, but that's beside the point. the point is that, as the ultimate protector of mankind, harmony would actually intervene if something really big happened, wouldn't he?
Of course his first attempt would be to subtly influence events. for example, he manipulated wax so that he would fight the vanishers. but wax failed to rescue the women, or to stop his uncle, and harmony didn't intervene directly.

So, let's assume that his attempt to intervene subtly did go wrong, and the only solution left for harmony is to do some real supernatural shard mojo or just sit and watch.

I devised a few scenarios (spoilered for brevity) and a poll where you can vote which of them are more likely to cause a direct intervention. Most of them are divided into three levels of severity, with the first causing millions of death but not putting human society in danger, the second causing a significant amount of the world population to die and partial collapse of society, but with a good chance to recover, and the third threatening human extinction or regression to stone age.

1) War

1a) Local war

Just a war, like there had been thousands on our world, but there hasn't been a single one of those on scadrial since the last ascension

1b) global war

A war extremely widespread and destructive, like world war II.

1c) Nuclear war

The intercontinental missiles are already flying in the sky

"Are we still alive?"

"Yes mr president, the enemy missile fell just over our bunker, but didn't explode"

"We've been incredibly lucky"

"Five missiles hit the city, and none of them exploded either. And now we're getting satellite reports, our own missiles are hitting enemy ground without exploding!"

"What the-"

CONGRATULATIONS, YOU JUST MANAGED TO BLOW UP YOURSELVES, boomed a voice. it seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere at once LET ME INTRODUCE MYSELF: I AMM YOUR GOD, AND I'M PRETTY DISAPPOINTED. I THOUGHT YOU WERE MATURE ENOUGH TO TAKE CARE OF YOURSELVES, BUT MAYBE I SHOULD GO BACK TO WRITING LAWS ON STONE TABLES UNTIL YOU GROW SOME BETTER JUDGMENT...

 

2) Alien invasion

2a) Cultural assimilation

Despite what we see in movies, this is the most likely scenario. the aliens don't really want to destroy us, but they see us as a bunch of primitives living in a land rich and almost untapped. they think hundreds of billions could live on our planet with their technology, so they just bring in colonists until we are far outnumbered, forced to live in reserves and to adopt their uses because we cannot sustain ourselves with our old ways. IT would be a bit like the colonization of north america, just with different technological levels. eventually we'd end up a smal minority, our planet dominated by aliens, we confined in reserves and forced to be assimilated in the alien society, our traditions only enacted for the enjoyment of tourists.

2b) Extermination

That's the scenario we see in movies. The aliens want to wipe us out so they don't have to share our lush planet with us. unlike what we see in those movies, the side with the huge technological advantage generally wins.

 

"Commander, the fleet is ready for the invasion"

"Excellent. those primitives barely achieved orbital flight, I don't expect any problem"

"Commander, a representative of the natives is asking to talk with us"

"Is he offering cooperation in exchange for sparing his pitiful life?"

"Actually, he claims to be god, and says that if we don't retreat, he will 'discharge his excess of ruin on us', whatever that means"

"He claims to be god? Why are you wasting my time for a lunatic?"

"Because the lunatic in question happens to be ten thousand miles high, and completely impervious to our best weapons"

The alien commander looked out of the window

"Uhmm... errr... retreat?"

"If I may say it, commander, that''s the best order you ever gave in all your career"

 

3) Ecological catastrophe

3a) Serious

Roughly what we risk if we can't convert to clean energy fast enough. sea level rising by a couple of meters, desertification, hundreds of millions of refugees. However, it's not a huge threat to human civilization as a whole. there will be hardness and there will be strife, but society is unlikely to collapse, green energy is already enough to keep going after oil, and eventually we'll come out of our predicament

3b) catastrophical

Complete melting of the ice cover, with sea level rising 40-50 meters. vast areas around the equator becoming too hot to be inhabited. floods, hypercanes, famine claiming millions of victims. widespread wars for the few remaining resources. subartic countries invaded by hordes of refugees until they collapse. green energy not developed enough to do much good after oil runs out. World population receding to preindustrial levels. Vast areas of the world likely to fall back to middle age level. However, science and civilization manages to survive in a few places, and eventually, after a few centuries, mankind can recover what it lost

3c) irreversible

Like 3b, but renewable energy has not been discovered, or the technology has been lost in widespread conflict for resources; the few remaining reserves of fossile fuels are burned in the war to conquer or defend them. all mineral reserves are depleted also. Mankind as a whole will fall back to the middle age with no chance to ever pull itself up again. Sort of what happened to the drell in the mass effect universe.

 

From the first appendix to the words of founding, as appeared suddenly in every internet page, in every letter mail, and scribbled as graffiti on the walls in every city, at 3:15 of 12th vinuarch 592 a.l.a.

"And it shall come to pass a time, when oil and coal will run low, and glaciers will melt, and crops will fail, and human race will be called to face its greatest challenge so far, that of sustainable development. And lo, mankind will totally screw up, and it will not try to manage its dwindling resources, but will instead spend what littled they have left in an attempt to steal from their neighbors, and they will modify the climate so that they could not thrive anymore in their world, and they will weep with hunger as the oceans can't feed them, barren of life from pollution and overfishing.

Seriously, I was more optimistic about your skill at resource managment. I took the freedom of cleaning up the air, water and ground so that pollution is at preindustrial levels. following are the schemes of a solar panel with a 50% efficiency that can be made with a cost of 100 $ per square meters. In the future I want to see you treating your planet with more responsability, or I will revert the changes I did and let you deal with it"

 

 

4) Politics

4a) Mafia rules the world

World power is in the hand of a few economical elites that are using it egoistically to reinforce their position. those in power act with total impunity from law, and the official government are powerless. Sort of like, take all the grievances of the "occupy" and "no global" movement, then suppose that all plot theories regarding illuminati or bildenberg group or some other obscure power actually ruling the world (instead of just having a lot of influence), then multiply it all by one thousand.

 

4b) 1984

Just like in that book. A worldwide dictatorship is keeping the population in perpetual war and doing its best to strip people of all that makes them human, to prevent them from ever rising up.

 

Sender: Harmony

Receiver: The big brother

Object: political program

Reinstate freedom of expression withing 6 months

Start a program of mass scholarization within one year (real school, no indoctrination)

Allow a multiparty system to arise, leading to free elections within 5 years.

Step down from power, publicly apologize for abusing power, and face trial for crimes against humanity.

Follow this program, and you will be spared an eternity of suffering.

Sincerely,

your god

 

5) Asteroid impact

5a) local

An asteroid that will destroy a few cities, kill some millions, but have no big effect worldwide

5b) extinction event

An asteroid that will make a crater of hundreds of kilometers of diameter, will likely trigger massive vulcanism on the opposite side of the world, and will raise enough dust to impact hugely the climate and cause mass estinctions. Like of the dinosaur asteroid. Now, as tool-making makes us humans supremely adaptable, we are much likely to survive and recover, but we're still facing billions of deaths and society disruption on much of the planet

5c) bigger extinction event

The kind of asteroid that kills 99% of all living species. As we humans are supremely adaptable and spread all over the world, we have passable chances of being in that 1% along with the cocroaches. Good luck with it, and have fun picking yourselves up from the rubbles.

 

Two asteroids coming to crash against earth at the same time, and then crashing onto each other and pulverizing into fragments small enough to burn in the atmosphere without damage. really, what were the chances?

 

6) Pandemia

6a) Tragedy

A virus capable of killing tens of millions worldwide, but not to such levels as to threaten human society. Like the spanish influenza of 1918.

6b) Depopulation bomb

An epidemics capable of killing around half the people worldwide. Like the black death of 14th century, but not confined to a single continent. Society is going to succesfully recover within a few generations

6c) risk of human extinction

That's the kind of virus that could wipe out human race altogether. there's bound to be a few survivors, but their sons won't have immunity, and the virus will persist over time. Something with the lethality of HIV and the ease of transmission on influenza. Or maybe the T virus.

 

For unknown reasons, it seems that wearing a steel earring makes one completely immune to the virus

 

7, 8) Free for future use

If some other idea of a potential catastrophe get suggested by many, it can be included in the poll

 

Start the vote!

Edited June 17, 2014 by king of nowhere

[Moogle]

Harmony isn't willing to roast a serial killer, so I doubt he's willing to take part in any wars directly beyond the usual subtle machinations via kandra.

 

He hasn't provided advanced medicinal technology to save thousands of lives from diseases, birth defects, etc. so far as we've seen, so I doubt he'd interfere in the case of a plague or some such.

 

External threats? Well, Odium is afraid of him, so perhaps he'd handle asteroids/aliens.

 

Threats like global warming? If humanity saw these problems coming and didn't act to save themselves, I doubt he'd help. And if he would, you have to question why he wouldn't stop serial killers or save people from disease.

[Curiosity he/him]

From the Alloy of the Law Annotations, Chapter 3 (if you haven't already read them):

 

You should know that holding two opposed Shards of Adonalsium has made Sazed more . . . zen, if you will. Not inactive. However, he has taken a belief that both Ruin and Preservation are important in people’s lives, and doesn’t feel that interfering is something he should often be doing. He sees his primary role being to encourage people to be better, to keep an eye on the other Shards, and to make sure the world keeps working as it should.

 

There was more there, but this summarized the main point that I think is relevant to this discussion. 

[SmurfAquamarineBodies he/him]

I would say that so long as humanity survives the danger and the planet isn't going to become too messed up, he will not interfere. In the case of alien invasion he can just make both sides play nice, by killing anyone who acts aggressively ( they would learn sooner or later ).

[Shaggai]

Nuclear war, probably. It's so much Ruin that he would probably have to intervene in order to preserve Harmony. World war... well, maybe. It depends on what scale. The one certainty is attack by another Shard. As per the aforementioned WoB.

Edited June 18, 2014 by Shaggai

[Jaxx_The_Edgedancer]

I think that the one thing big enough for Harmony to directly intervene in Scadrial was if another Shard was wreaking havoc or going to wreak havoc on Scadrial.

[Left he/him]

I would agree with Jaxx.

Harmony can intervene very well using puppets like Wax and the Kandra without having to go all Shardic on people.

[Swimmingly he/him]

You know, I wonder how many Nicrobursted Coinshots it would take to deflect an asteroid... Considering that the force would be transferred directly to them, I'm guessing that they'd just be smashed to nothing slightly quicker. Perhaps Wax could do it, with a massive feruchemical metalmind charged by Harmony personally.

[Lightsworn Panda he/him]

Hmm... Someone who has been Feruchemially storing weight for all of their life, before suddenly tapping into all of it one day. THAT should do it. 

 

Or maybe someone who did the above, except they were a Twinborn Coinshot-Skimmer, and pushed the Iron core of the planet. That should also do it. 

[Swimmingly he/him]

The thing is, I don't think Feruchemical iron helps with range at all - you would need to be an inquisitor, with every spike granting Allomantic steel, or something else crazy like that - maybe nicrobursting.

[Lightsworn Panda he/him]

The thing is, I don't think Feruchemical iron helps with range at all - you would need to be an inquisitor, with every spike granting Allomantic steel, or something else crazy like that - maybe nicrobursting.

 

Yeah, pretty much do everything you can to store a megaton of weight and then suddenly release it. Harmony HAS to intervene to stop you from dropping right into the center of the world 

[king of nowhere]

You know, I wonder how many Nicrobursted Coinshots it would take to deflect an asteroid... Considering that the force would be transferred directly to them, I'm guessing that they'd just be smashed to nothing slightly quicker. Perhaps Wax could do it, with a massive feruchemical metalmind charged by Harmony personally.

it depends on how much time you have. if you are in a sspaceship and can slowly push over time, then you can easily deviate the asteorid enough to make it miss the planet years later. if you are on the ground waiting for the asteroid to arrive...

well, for start, it will never work: allomancy has a limited range, and by the time the asteroid is close enough to push against it, the heat it made by friction with the atmosphere already turned any coinshot waiting for it on the ground to ash.

Discounting that, an asteroid would move at speeds of around 10 km/s. so you only have a couple hundredth of a second ffrom the moment you can push to the one you are dead. not enough for human reflexes.

and even if we assume that somehow all those coinshots can survive long enough to push and can push at the right time, then the kinetic energy from the asteroid would be instantly transferred to the allomancers and from them to the ground... resulting in exactly the same effect that the asteroid would have made. sometimmes, the law of conservation of energy sucks.

 

Oh, and personally I think harmony would intervene for whatever would directly threaten the survival of the human race and civilization. so I''d say the bigger cases of asteroid, pandemia and aline invasion. I am a bit uncertain on ecological catastrophe and 1984 scenario, as both do not threaten the survival of the human race, but would effectively prevent it from further progressing.

Edited July 23, 2014 by king of nowhere

[Lightsworn Panda he/him]

Hmm... Alien invasion... It'd make for a hilarious book. I wonder if aliens could use Allomancy, Feruchemy or Hemalurgy?

 

Oh wow. Just imagine a PULSER CHESTBURSTER. That just became my worst nightmare.

[The Shadow he/him]

I picture Harmony as behaving like the God Bender meets in Futurama. He's frequently at work, but in subtle ways.

[WaxnWayne]

I would think he would react if another shard visited Scadrial