  We apply for the first time fission yields determined across the chart of
nuclides from the macroscopic-microscopic theory of the Finite Range Liquid
Drop Model to simulations of rapid neutron capture ($r$-process)
nucleosynthesis. With the fission rates and yields derived within the same
theoretical framework utilized for other relevant nuclear data, our results
represent an important step toward self-consistent applications of
macroscopic-microscopic models in $r$-process calculations. The yields from
this model are wide for nuclei with extreme neutron excess. We show that these
wide distributions of neutron-rich nuclei, and particularly the asymmetric
yields for key species that fission at late times in the $r$ process, can
contribute significantly to the abundances of the lighter heavy elements,
specifically the light precious metals palladium and silver. Since these
asymmetric yields correspondingly also deposit into the lanthanide region, we
consider the possible evidence for co-production by comparing our
nucleosynthesis results directly with the trends in the elemental ratios of
metal-poor stars rich in $r$-process material. We show that for $r$-process
enhanced stars palladium over europium and silver over europium display mostly
flat trends suggestive of co-production and compare to the lanthanum over
europium trend which is often used to justify robustness arguments in the
lanthanide region. We find that such robustness arguments may be extendable
down to palladium and heavier and demonstrate that fission deposition is a
mechanism by which such a universality or robustness can be achieved.
