Lord Ruler....

[Steel Inquisitive Artifabrian]

Me and my brother were talking about the Lord Ruler and how much foresight and effort it would have been to build the storage caches. Caning all that food, hiding it in caves, and repeating every few years. All the time keeping it secret from everyone but the workers....

At which point my brother asked in a confused voice: "the Lord Ruler didn't do it all himself?"

 "No" l said, now confused myself. "You thought the Lord Ruler, god emperor of the Final Empire, was canning food in his basement?"

 " Well... I thought that was why he looked so tired in book one. " 

Now I can't get the image of the Lord Ruler stocking shelves in a Wal-Mart uniform out of my head

 

[Invocation Mistborn]

What else are you gonna do when the embodiment of the universal sense of destruction and decay is talking to you, right?

[Nathrangking Prime]

8 hours ago, Steel Inqusitive said:

Me and my brother were talking about the Lord Ruler and how much foresight and effort it would have been to build the storage caches. Caning all that food, hiding it in caves, and repeating every few years. All the time keeping it secret from everyone but the workers....

At which point my brother asked in a confused voice: "the Lord Ruler didn't do it all himself?"

 "No" l said, now confused myself. "You thought the Lord Ruler, god emperor of the Final Empire, was canning food in his basement?"

 " Well... I thought that was why he looked so tired in book one. " 

Now I can't get the image of the Lord Ruler stocking shelves in a Wal-Mart uniform out of my head

 

Rashak clean up on aisle 3.

Edited November 13, 2018 by Nathrangking

[Gavtyven Noble]

6 hours ago, Steel Inqusitive said:

Now I can't get the image of the Lord Ruler stocking shelves in a Wal-Mart uniform out of my head

 

Can someone draw this?

[robardin Bondsmith]

This is hilarious, but also reminds me of something serious.

What Rashek did in arranging the caverns was pretty remarkable from a purely administrative POV, really.

It even justifies, as a purely practical matter (and not simply egotism), why he had to eliminate all other world religions and institute himself as the God King.

For hundreds upon hundreds of years, there were operations diverting the atium mined at the Pits with decoy coins while moving it immediately to the kandra Homeland next door, plus those involved in the ongoing preparation and maintenance of the storage caverns that were hidden in richly metallic areas - all to keep Ruin from seeing what was really going on.

These operations were commissioned to his obligators with instructions he wrote in sheets of metal, also so that Ruin wouldn't know what was going on.

Even if he'd wanted to, Rashek himself couldn't personally do all these things with massive bursts of F-steel or something and still keep Ruin from knowing what was happening, as he was subject to Ruin's surveillance and whispering 24/7 (and he never got to sleep after his mortal lifetime should have ended, either, so he acknowledges he's quite possibly mad).

He needed agents to do all this work, but also, agents who eventually would have to leave the "metallic shielded zones" at the Pits and within the caverns. The obligators who did the day to day organization of these operations were not slaves who were never to see the light of day again, like the wretches who did the brutal work of harvesting the geodes themselves. Yet they shared his burden of secrecy, never to speak or to write of these matters while away from the caverns/pits, lest Ruin be able to overhear or to read about what was going on.

And... It worked. Hundreds of years of a tightly kept operational secret. Because those obligators BELIEVED in their work.

Perhaps Yomen was not so unusual a specimen in his devotion - just in his leadership ability.

[HSuperLee Shardbearer]

Really, as much as I make fun of Rashek for being the Cosmere equivalent to Superman and yet getting killed so easily, we can't ignore that he was an administrative genius. He may have not been a good leader or king, but when it came to paperwork, the dude was amazing.

Granted, he probably was able to do some scouting via allomancy. Flying across his empire to take note of areas of super high metal ore and all that. But still, the man was very good at what he did. 

[Quantus Most Ancient]

Ya, all it took to keep his secrets was war and a violently downtrodden populace and lots of human experimentation. 

[Gavtyven Noble]

31 minutes ago, Quantus said:

Ya, all it took to keep his secrets was war and a violently downtrodden populace and lots of human experimentation. 

Sacrifices must be made. #rashekdidnothingwrong

[HSuperLee Shardbearer]

Just now, Gavtyven said:

Sacrifices must be made. #rashekdidnothingwrong

Certainly that's what Fuzz seems to think.

[Gavtyven Noble]

Just now, HSuperLee said:

Certainly that's what Fuzz seems to think.

While it's mostly a joke, and I'm not saying that magically enforced tyranny is a good basis for a society, there is a point of truth to it. TLR tried his best, especially when he first held the power of Preservation. As he became aware that the only way to stop Ruin was to not release the power, he had to stay in power, which he did. Sure, he may have been a manipulative son of a mistwraith, but he did kinda save the world with it. The end justifies the means, I guess? 

[HSuperLee Shardbearer]

6 minutes ago, Gavtyven said:

While it's mostly a joke, and I'm not saying that magically enforced tyranny is a good basis for a society, there is a point of truth to it. TLR tried his best, especially when he first held the power of Preservation. As he became aware that the only way to stop Ruin was to not release the power, he had to stay in power, which he did. Sure, he may have been a manipulative son of a mistwraith, but he did kinda save the world with it. The end justifies the means, I guess? 

I'm fairly certain the first Radiant Oath stands against that idea entirely.

Let's just be clear for posterity. None of us are advocating tyranny. Sanderson himself is not advocating tyranny. We're just saying, in the case of an immortal packman who briefly ascended to godhood in order to prevent the destruction of an entire planet, and then enslaved the world to ensure that said destruction continued to be averted, it kind of all worked out in the end.

When you put in text, Rashek's plan really does seem rather overly complicated and random.

Edited November 13, 2018 by HSuperLee

[Gavtyven Noble]

3 minutes ago, HSuperLee said:

I'm fairly certain the first Radiant Oath stands against that idea entirely.

 

Certainly true, but who's to say they're definetly right.

 

3 minutes ago, HSuperLee said:

When you put in text, Rashek's plan really does seem rather overly complicated and random.

Truth, but I'm not sure I'd fare much better, given half of the power of creation.

 

And yeah, in this specific case, it kinda worked out. Hurray. So, the point stands. #rashekdidnothingwrong 

[Ripheus23 Truthless]

27 minutes ago, Gavtyven said:

#rashekdidnothingwrong

Hashtag of the millennium

[robardin Bondsmith]

 

34 minutes ago, Gavtyven said:

Certainly true, but who's to say they're definetly right.

Truth, but I'm not sure I'd fare much better, given half of the power of creation.

And yeah, in this specific case, it kinda worked out. Hurray. So, the point stands. #rashekdidnothingwrong 

He did not make a mistake. The Lord Ruler had not ever made a mistake. However, it was time for a change.

Edited November 13, 2018 by robardin

[Ripheus23 Truthless]

5 minutes ago, robardin said:

However, it was time for a change.

Hemalurgic Obama... Obamalurgy  (I need poorly edited pictures of Obama as an Inquisitor, stat! OR, of Obama as Hemalurgic Spikes, in someone else...?)

[kenod Truthless]

15 hours ago, HSuperLee said:

I'm fairly certain the first Radiant Oath stands against that idea entirely.

Nope.

Quote

AndrewHB (paraphrased)

Is Niccolò Machiavelli's political theory--the ends justify the means--incompatible with the Knights Radiant's First Oath?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

No. Although many of the Orders of Knights Radiant would find Machiavelli's theory, that the ends justify the means, incompatible with additional oaths and/or values of that Order, there are some Orders who could accept a Machiavellian. (Brandon said that the Skybreakers are where a Machiavellian could find a home.)

Footnote: A follow up question was asked in the signing line.
source

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/35/#e2525

[goody153 King's Tester]

Quote

At which point my brother asked in a confused voice: "the Lord Ruler didn't do it all himself?"

 "No" l said, now confused myself. "You thought the Lord Ruler, god emperor of the Final Empire, was canning food in his basement?"

 " Well... I thought that was why he looked so tired in book one. " 

This is now my headcannon. And nothing will ever dissuade me from it. 

Not even logic and reason.

Edited November 16, 2018 by goody153

[robardin Bondsmith]

Well, it is true. Despite having infinite F-steel and F-zinc to think about things to do and then to do them at blinding speeds, plus infinite F-bronze to stay awake 24/7, we don't see him do a whole lot. He comes out of Kredik Shaw to supervise the occasional skaa slaughter, while Super-Soothing everybody in a show of power; and for a special reason, like to personally smack down Kelsier, after he fought and killed an Inquisitor. Otherwise, as far as we can tell, he just kicks around Kredik Shaw waiting to taunt any skaa prowlers who dare to show up.

...or is he busy canning food in his basement?

I mean, he admitted he never thought of a way to defeat Ruin, even given over a thousand years' time and vast mental capacity to do so; only to plan how best to survive when Ruin would finally escape from his trap (likely without him alive any more). I don't think he actually thought all that time about it. More like someone giving up on a frustrating crossword puzzle, after maybe 100 years of thinking about it, he just thought to himself, By Preservation's ghost, I'm done - I can't think about this any more, I'm just gonna go full survivalist until that Well fills up again.

Edited November 16, 2018 by robardin

[Gasper Misting]

Rashek was basically just playing problem wack-a-mole during his brief stint as Preservation. All of the rest of the time was spent playing catch up to try and negate the damage he did. Also, it is likely that due to the damage holding a Shard does to you, he was probably running on autopilot most of the time.

[Friendshipspren Spinner]

On 11/16/2018 at 10:29 PM, robardin said:

Well, it is true. Despite having infinite F-steel and F-zinc to think about things to do and then to do them at blinding speeds, plus infinite F-bronze to stay awake 24/7, we don't see him do a whole lot. He comes out of Kredik Shaw to supervise the occasional skaa slaughter, while Super-Soothing everybody in a show of power; and for a special reason, like to personally smack down Kelsier, after he fought and killed an Inquisitor. Otherwise, as far as we can tell, he just kicks around Kredik Shaw waiting to taunt any skaa prowlers who dare to show up.

...or is he busy canning food in his basement?

I mean, he admitted he never thought of a way to defeat Ruin, even given over a thousand years' time and vast mental capacity to do so; only to plan how best to survive when Ruin would finally escape from his trap (likely without him alive any more). I don't think he actually thought all that time about it. More like someone giving up on a frustrating crossword puzzle, after maybe 100 years of thinking about it, he just thought to himself, By Preservation's ghost, I'm done - I can't think about this any more, I'm just gonna go full survivalist until that Well fills up again.

I have this theory that Rashek was using copper compounding as a drug. Living in the past when times were good. When the sky was blue , when kwaan lived , when lutha was alive , etc. 

[Honorless Lord Ruler]

On 4/7/2020 at 6:42 PM, PrinceGenocide said:

I have this theory that Rashek was using copper compounding as a drug. Living in the past when times were good. When the sky was blue , when Kwaan lived , when Lutha was alive , etc. 

That actually makes a whole lotta sense

[Kalak_ Awakened Object]

On 07/04/2020 at 2:12 PM, Friendshipspren said:

I have this theory that Rashek was using copper compounding as a drug. Living in the past when times were good. When the sky was blue , when kwaan lived , when lutha was alive , etc. 

I love this theory, it adds so much depth to the character 

[Aspiring Writer Twinborn]

On 11/13/2018 at 10:02 AM, Gavtyven said:

Sacrifices must be made. #rashekdidnothingwrong

Lord Ruler simp for life!