The Lord ruler smart ?

[Blue-phoenix186]

I’m currently re-reading mistborn for the second time and I was wondering what’s up with the Lord ruler like sometimes he makes smart decisions like the vaults or how he kept Atium from ruin but then other times he makes really bad and dumb decisions like the final empire in general  it literally says it in that book that Ellen has that it should be better than it is and for a  another example he made it so the skaa what have a bigger population than the nobles which in my opinion basically made it inevitable that they would rise up and actually win you could make the excuse that ruin was influencing him and I feel like that does make sense for later in his rule but I also feel like that doesn’t excuse the bad decisions he made earlier in his rule idk does this make sense to you guys? 

[+Oltux72 he/him]

5 minutes ago, Blue-phoenix186 said:

I feel like that does make sense for later in his rule but I also feel like that doesn’t excuse the bad decisions he made earlier in his rule idk does this make sense to you guys? 

• He determined much of his rule during a few minutes in the Well of Ascension, during which he at first had to fix the Deepness and deal with fundamental relevations about the nature of the universe
• During later times he had the advantage of enormous experience and zinc compounding

[alder24]

The simplest explanation is the best - he didn't care. He had almost god-like powers from being Fullborn, he could deal with any army or uprising himself if needed. He had the army of koloss at his disposal. The only thing that mattered to him is that everyone is submissive to him.
Moreover he was Terrisaman, jealous of what other countries had, and how they were superior to Terris. So he took that away out of spite, changed them to be biologically inferior, and only a few selected ones became the first great houses. He wanted to have full control, in his mind, the best way to achieve this is by creating a slave society.

He wasn't a god, he was just a jealous shepherd that accidentally touched the power of god.

[Frustration]

He also had zero experience in governing up to when he started the Final Empire, the increadible thing was that he was able to wing it so effectively.

[Treamayne]

The Lord Ruler was also psychologically and emotionally tortured by Ruin during the course of his 1000 yr empire - and more than a few of his decisions were manipulated by Ruin to be "bad."

It is mentioned in the Fadrex Plate in the storage cavern, by Sazed in the Epigraphs and final letter to Spook, and also discussed in WoBs:

Spoiler

 

Anusien

Why did Lord Ruler not destroy the logbook knowing what trouble Ruin could cause with it?

Brandon Sanderson

A few reasons. First, Ruin had his fingers in the LR’s soul by then already. Subtle things are easier to influence.

He played off the LR’s natural nostalgia and desire to hold onto something so important to his past.

 

[cometaryorbit]

Yeah, he makes very smart and very stupid decisions. By the time of the book he's pretty unstable. Immortality is weighing on him, and Ruin's influence is also messing with him.

He was like 20 at the beginning and full of anger and envy (he hated Khlennium "with the passion of envious youth"). He then got godlike power and an expanded mind, temporarily ... but still his own motives. He made some really bad decisions in those moments with the Well that he was stuck with for the next thousand years (messing up the planet's orbit when the mist killings would have gone away in any case; the noble/skaa split; the whole Feruchemy mess).

I don't think the greater skaa population made a successful revolution inevitable, though. That really took Ruin influencing Kelsier and Preservation backing Vin. Without the clue given by the eleventh metal + Vin's ability to burn the mists the skaa rebellion would have failed: TLR would have killed them all and basically had Luthadel rebuilt.

(The skaa/noble split was still a really stupid move, though.)

[Returned he/him]

On 1/11/2023 at 6:23 AM, alder24 said:

The simplest explanation is the best - he didn't care. He had almost god-like powers from being Fullborn, he could deal with any army or uprising himself if needed. He had the army of koloss at his disposal.

I also think that this was it. His actual capabilities don't matter very much when he can compound-- with enough zinc he can intuit information in a flash without any real forethought. In a pinch, he'd be able to duplicate the results of the smartest people ever toiling for their entire lives over figuring out some issue or other. And even if he didn't bother and his plans failed, he was a deific, unstoppable killing machine. He almost certainly had the option of accessing unlimited Fortune, if he cared to, with the knowledge of physical science we know he gained during his brief ascension. At his leisure he could be both lucky and good.

To the extent that he had an ongoing goal it was resisting Ruin, and he did so brilliantly: his preparations were vital in opposing him and preserving people through the final cataclysms. He deceived a god, one who had millenia of experience and far greater access to all of the powers that Rashek did, sufficiently to lead to that god's downfall even though Ruin was able to arrange his demise.

His rule started by letting him express his rage unfettered at the same time his ability to impose his desires on the world expanded radically. By the end it seems like he was very apathetic, not caring much about anything at all (outside of resisting Ruin) and so not really bothering to do much. He didn't care about the quality or nature of his empire, save that he be in charge of it and be able to use it to oppose Ruin. He didn't care if the skaa rebelled, because the nobles and his armies could generally crush them (they always had before!). He didn't care if the nobles thinned themselves out with internecine conflict. He didn't care if life was easy or hard, pleasant or brutal, or anything else. I don't think he was a good ruler, by any definition of "good" I would use, but his empire was how he wanted it to be and accomplished the things he wanted it to accomplish.

[AleStaar he/him]

I'd say he was pretty smart, all things considered. Though I bet part of it was remembering the future visions seen during his Ascension.

Rashek created vaults and the atium distribution process, which were not only able to make Ruin cautious and block his senses (and thus negatively affect his future sight). but conveniently played into Preservation's master Plan. The vaults are even more impressive due to being created during the 8th century of Rashek's rule. Morally speaking and perhaps logically speaking, the Final Empire was not a smart decision at all. But since his goal was creating a stable society that wouldn't release Ruin, in that sense it was pretty smart. Even with the wars between Great Houses, they were never bad enough as to completely destabilize the empire.

Paalm was Rashek's personal agent in toppling rebellions and kingdoms, the koloss were powerful enough to slaughter armies of non-Metalborn, Inquisitors were constantly hunting skaa Mistings and Mistborn, and Rashek himself was a one-man army.

Rashek was really smart. But he was simultaneously really stupid, because he was a glory hound that didn't consider working with nations to counter Ruin. I'm sure there's a more nuance to Rashek and Kwaan's feelings towards Khlennium, than what Brandon cared to write. And persecuting the Terris definitely created guilt, regret, and stress for him. Things that Ruin took advantage of. But even then.. yeah Rashek should've let go of some of his feelings. 

[SwordNimiForPresident the sword/that sword]

He's as dumb as a rock. Dumber in fact.

He could have given the other Lerasium beads to Ferruchemists and repopulated Scadrial with a race of Fullborns.

Imagne the look on the rest of the Cosmere's face when they decided one planet wasn't enough.

[AleStaar he/him]

1 hour ago, SwordNimiForPresident said:

He's as dumb as a rock. Dumber in fact.

He could have given the other Lerasium beads to Ferruchemists and repopulated Scadrial with a race of Fullborns.

Imagne the look on the rest of the Cosmere's face when they decided one planet wasn't enough.

I'm going to take a hunch and say Rashek knew that would've been a fundamentally bad idea. We know from Sazed in TLM that Preservation created the lerasium beads "millennia ago," and from WoB that he created them knowing certain people would need them. Presumably as part of his long game to defeat Ruin. I think Rashek, with the information and future sight obtained through the Well's power, knew he needed to give nine beads to monarchs. So that the Final Empire's existence would play into Preservation's master Plan.

Edited August 4, 2024 by Ale the Metallic Conjurer

[Trusk'our he/him]

1 hour ago, SwordNimiForPresident said:

He's as dumb as a rock. Dumber in fact.

He could have given the other Lerasium beads to Ferruchemists and repopulated Scadrial with a race of Fullborns.

Imagne the look on the rest of the Cosmere's face when they decided one planet wasn't enough.

Rashek wasn't really a altruistic man, for the most part.

Yes, he wanted the world saved, but he wanted to run it a particular way (which is probably what most people would want, realistically if they were suddenly given godlike power).

Giving his powers to an entire population would have ended with one of them deciding one day to murder him with their own Fullborn powers. 

Can you imagine if someone like Cett or Straff could just be born with that kind of power? Rashek would have to constantly be paranoid about a rival getting fed up with his rein and wrecking everything he built, killing him in the process. 

Really, giving power and knowledge to others isn't something he was keen on unless it ultimately benefited his own ends (which is honestly pretty smart considering his desires);

Spoiler

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/270-the-hero-of-ages-annotations/#e8037

Brandon Sanderson

Chapter Seventy-Four

Allomantic Secrets

Some people have asked me why the Lord Ruler was so careful to keep secrets about Allomancy. What would it have mattered if he let out that there were atium Mistings?

Some of the secrets offered a sizable tactical advantage. Keeping back duralumin and aluminum gave him and his Inquisitors (the only ones told about those metals, other than a few select obligators) tools that nobody knew about. Very few Inquisitors could burn duralumin (and most who did it gained the ability through the use of spikes reused from previous, dead Inquisitors—and those spikes were therefore much weaker.). However, those who did have the power could appear inordinately skilled in Allomancy, enhancing the Lord Ruler's divine reputation.

Beyond that, knowledge is power. I believe that. And I think that if you're the Lord Ruler, you want to keep a few secrets about your magic system. Mistborn are very rare. Mistings among the nobility—particularly in the early centuries—were not rare. If they'd known about atium Mistings, it could have upset the balance by creating too many superwarriors.

Plus, if there are unknown superwarriors to be had, then you want to keep them for yourself.

 

[alder24]

8 hours ago, SwordNimiForPresident said:

He's as dumb as a rock. Dumber in fact.

He could have given the other Lerasium beads to Ferruchemists and repopulated Scadrial with a race of Fullborns.

Imagne the look on the rest of the Cosmere's face when they decided one planet wasn't enough.

And then they would have overthrown him and released Ruin next time. Rashek was the only one who knew about Ruin, even Kwaan only suspected there was something trapped in the Well that manipulated their religion. Rashek knew the full truth. But he was rejected by Terris after his return from the Well, treaded as the usurper, rather than the real Hero of Ages. They didn't believe him, they didn't trust him. They were uncontrollable. By giving them Lerasium beads he would have signed his own and the whole planet's death sentence. 

Moreover it's mixing of Allomantic and Feruchemist genes that gave life to Ferrings - giving full Feruchemist Lerasium beads would result in total disappearance of both Fullborn and full Feruchemists in just a few generations.

And of course, Rahsek was a jealous and petty man. He wanted power and control, he wasn't an altruist. He would have never given up that power to those who would be able to threaten him. Mistborn and Great Houses were controlled by his Atium, Inquisitors were kept in line by their devotion and the linchpin spike, Kandra and Koloss can be Hemalurgically controlled - Feruchemists with their copperminds can't be controlled. Both Sazed and Tindwyl proved this. 

HoA ch 30 epigraphs:

Quote

Originally, men assumed that Rashek's persecution of the Terris religion came from hatred. Yet, now that we know that Rashek was himself a Terrisman, his destruction of that religion seems odd. I suspect it had something to do with the prophecies about the Hero of Ages. Rashek knew that Preservation's power would eventually return to the Well of Ascension. If the Terris religion had been allowed to survive, then perhaps—someday—a person would find their way to the Well and take up the power, then use it to defeat Rashek and overthrow his empire. So, he obscured knowledge of the Hero and what he was supposed to do, hoping to keep the secret of the Well to himself.

HoA ch 56 epigraphs:

Quote

In those moments when the Lord Ruler both held the power at the Well and was feeling it drain away from him, he understood a great many things. He saw the power of Feruchemy, and rightly feared it. Many of the Terris people, he knew, would reject him as the Hero, for he didn't fulfill their prophecies well. They'd see him as a usurper who killed the Hero they sent. Which, in truth, he was.

[...]

He could have, I suppose, kept Allomancy secret and used Feruchemists as his primary warriors and assassins. However, I think he was wise to choose as he did. Feruchemists, by the nature of their powers, have a tendency toward scholarship. With their incredible memories, they would have been very difficult to control over the centuries. Indeed, they were difficult to control, even when he suppressed them. Allomancy not only provided a spectacular new ability without that drawback, it offered a mystical power he could use to bribe kings to his side.

 

Spoiler

Travyl (paraphrased)

Why do the Twinborn in Alloy of Law have only one Feruchemical power, when all previous Feruchemists, in spite of breeding programs, could use all the metals? 

WetlanderNW (paraphrased)

Or were Ferrings always part of the system and we just didn't meet them in Mistborn?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

The Ferrings are a new development since Mistborn, as the Feruchemists have been interbreeding with the Allomancers. Basically, the Allomancy genes interfere with the Feruchemy genes, breaking it down and creating the limitations we see in Alloy of Law.

Footnote: Brandon's response was very enthusiastic. He noted how perceptive the question was, and obviously enjoyed the discussion. The reporter has expressed their regret at lack of an audio recording to share his enthusiasm.
Alloy of Law Seattle Signing (Nov. 11, 2011)

[SwordNimiForPresident the sword/that sword]

@Ale the Metallic Conjurer

Preservation's plan depended on Rashek being dumb and greedy with the power. He had to work with what he had to achieve his ends. A smarter person wouldn't have just started swatting a planet around in space like a toddler in a bounce house. When Saze grabbed the power, one of his first thoughts was basically "I don't know what I'm doing". That is the reaction of a smart person. Also, SA spoilers.

Spoiler

Ditto for Tarravangian when get gets his Shard. He doesn't just start doing wild stuff, he takes a second and observes his surroundings.

@Trusk'our

The thing is, in a society of super beings, there isn't any reason for anyone to be a "ruler". No one has any needs. There aren't any resources to horde or control. These would be people that could survive in any environment with nothing but a few flakes of metal. Their society would effectively be Elantris. Every thousand years they could just use the Well to stockpile metal and then go back to living their own lives.

In my opinion, Rashek's greed for power is a symptom of his lack of intellect.

@alder24

The Terris people wouldn't have existed in my hypothetical. There would have been six males and females all chosen by Rashek. The only other people after that point would be their offspring, and only the ones that were Fullborn. There wouldn't be anyone to overthrow because there wouldn't have been a government. Just a small group of equals.

No argument that he would be consigning the normal people of the planet to death, but frankly what he ended up doing to them probably wasn't much better. If I have to choose between death or death+suffering, I'll probably choose the former.

1 hour ago, alder24 said:

Moreover it's mixing of Allomantic and Feruchemist genes that gave life to Ferrings - giving full Feruchemist Lerasium beads would result in total disappearance of both Fullborn and full Feruchemists in just a few generations.

I'm not familiar with this, could you link a source? My understanding was that the Inquisitors killing all of the Feruchemists is what lead to the suppression of those genes. Also there isn't a need for more generations, the first one is immortal and has no limit on it's fertility. Perhaps their descendants will be unable to breed true, but that wouldn't matter if the originals are still around.

Rashek's negative traits are, in my opinion, symptoms of how dumb he was.

edit: It's also worth noting that Rashek's actions still resulted in the death of almost everyone on the planet. They just had to suffer for a 1000 years first.

Edited August 4, 2024 by SwordNimiForPresident

[Trusk'our he/him]

18 minutes ago, SwordNimiForPresident said:

 

@Trusk'our

The thing is, in a society of super beings, there isn't any reason for anyone to be a "ruler". No one has any needs. There aren't any resources to horde or control. These would be people that could survive in any environment with nothing but a few flakes of metal. Their society would effectively be Elantris. Every thousand years they could just use the Well to stockpile metal and then go back to living their own lives.

That could potentially happen, theoretically, but humans are humans; someone else will want power either for selfish reasons or because they believe that they will do better. 

Plus, I do want to point out that while they can Compound fit sustenance, they need metals to do that in the first place; bendalloy specifically wasn't discovered yet. Rashek could have manifested a stockpile with the well I suppose, but that entails that he was feeling like giving up his personal power over others, and while the First Kandra generation shows he was willing to share immortality with his friends, he doesn't seem happy to deal with competition. 

26 minutes ago, SwordNimiForPresident said:

In my opinion, Rashek's greed for power is a symptom of his lack of intellect.

Rashek's negative traits are, in my opinion, symptoms of how dumb he was.

Fair enough. 

I would say those traits are more selfish than directly unintelligent, but the end results of his actions certainly led to more harm than there otherwise could have been had there been a more altruistic person (assuming that they didn't accidentally release Ruin as Vin did).

[SwordNimiForPresident the sword/that sword]

8 minutes ago, Trusk'our said:

(assuming that they didn't accidentally release Ruin as Vin did).

That's another point I should have made I guess. If he had made it common knowledge that there was an evil force being held prisoner that needed to be contained, then even in the event of his death Ruin could have been kept locked away. He basically decided that if he wasn't around the whole world could get stuffed.

[alder24]

1 hour ago, SwordNimiForPresident said:

The Terris people wouldn't have existed in my hypothetical. There would have been six males and females all chosen by Rashek. The only other people after that point would be their offspring, and only the ones that were Fullborn. There wouldn't be anyone to overthrow because there wouldn't have been a government. Just a small group of equals.

No argument that he would be consigning the normal people of the planet to death, but frankly what he ended up doing to them probably wasn't much better. If I have to choose between death or death+suffering, I'll probably choose the former.

So he should have killed everyone on the planet and left just 12 people alive? Should they have taken the Habsburg surname too? The inbreeding happening with 12 people would drive them all to their death in a very short time period - F-gold would not have helped them. 

Spoiler

[...]

Brandon Sanderson

Basically, yes. They can heal their body to match their spiritual ideal, but some things (like some genetic diseases, and age-related illnesses) are seen as part of the ideal. Depends on several factors.

Stormlight Three Update #5 (Nov. 29, 2016)

You're forgetting that Rasher moved the planet, make the Ashmount and change the environment, which forced him to genetically modify all Scadrians - he wasn't sure if his modification would turn out to be fatal or successful (that's why he left a control group at the south pole), leaving just 12 people with untested modifications would be very stupid.

Nature abhors a power vacuum. Sooner or later someone would grab all the power and fill that vacuum. But that's against Rashek's character, he wanted to have that sweet power all to himself, he wanted Terrisan to rule, he wanted to rule himself - he would have never created a scenario when he was not in power. 

1 hour ago, SwordNimiForPresident said:

I'm not familiar with this, could you link a source?

I provided a WoB in my previous post.

1 hour ago, SwordNimiForPresident said:

edit: It's also worth noting that Rashek's actions still resulted in the death of almost everyone on the planet. They just had to suffer for a 1000 years first.

On the other hand he saved 300,000 people. If he hadn't been killed by Vin, nobody would have died. He was outplayed by a higher force and in your scenario, with nobody in control Ruin would have had an even easier job to find someone to manipulate. It wouldn't have mattered even if he had told everyone the truth about Ruin, it's too easy not to trust him - he killed everyone, why would you trust him? 

Edit:

1 hour ago, SwordNimiForPresident said:

Rashek's negative traits are, in my opinion, symptoms of how dumb he was.

Yes, he was stupid. Or rather he was young, jealous, hateful and inexperienced, of course he was stupid, that's the whole point of his Ascension. He was making mistakes after mistakes, trying to fix problems he created. 

Edited August 4, 2024 by alder24

[SwordNimiForPresident the sword/that sword]

6 minutes ago, alder24 said:

So he should have killed everyone on the planet and left just 12 people alive? Should they have taken the Habsburg surname too? The inbreeding happening with 12 people would drive them all to their death in a very short time period - F-gold would not have helped them.

No, he should have just let them die. The planet was no longer habitable non Invested humans. Torturing them and their descendants for 1000 years is just sadistic.

Why would there be inbreeding? There wouldn't likely be future generations beyond the second or third given that the probability of a Fullborn child from later generations would be increasingly small.

9 minutes ago, alder24 said:

You're forgetting that Rasher moved the planet, make the Ashmount and change the environment, which forced him to genetically modify all Scadrians - he wasn't sure if his modification would turn out to be fatal or successful (that's why he left a control group at the south pole), leaving just 12 people with untested modifications would be very stupid.

Nature abhors a power vacuum. Sooner or later someone would grab all the power and fill that vacuum. But that's against Rashek's character, he wanted to have that sweet power all to himself, he wanted Terrisan to rule, he wanted to rule himself - he would have never created a scenario when he was not in power.

I certainly did not forget those things. Nothing you say will convince me that it was a good idea, so I'll agree to disagree.

There would be no need to modify other than giving them Lerasium beads. A Fullborn could survive in almost any environment so long as they have access to metals.

There isn't any power to grab. There are no people to rule. There are no resources to horde (other than metal I guess? but that seems fairly abundant). The fact that these things are against Rashek's nature, in my opinion, point to him being a small minded buffoon. An intelligent person would have tried to figure out how to make the best future for as many as they could, not horded power and knowledge for themselves so they could lord over everyone else.

16 minutes ago, alder24 said:

I provided a WoB in my previous post.

Thanks, I missed that on my first read of your post. I generally don't keep up on WoB's because I prefer to get info organically from the books, so that's the first I've heard of that.

 

18 minutes ago, alder24 said:

On the other hand he saved 300,000 people. If he hadn't been killed by Vin, nobody would have died. He was outplayed by a higher force and in your scenario, with nobody in control Ruin would have had an even easier job to find someone to manipulate. It wouldn't have mattered even if he had told everyone the truth about Ruin, it's too easy not to trust him - he killed everyone, why would you trust him? 

I mean if you think what he did was good, then we will never find a middle ground on that issue. He is the worst. Full stop. An incompetent idiot at best, a greedy sadist at worst.

Why would someone need to be in control? There's only a few hundred people in the entire society at most. Everyone would have absolute knowledge that Ruin exists. They would know that Hemalurgy is a tool Ruin can use against them and they would have basically not need for it since everyone has all of the powers anyway. The on;y real questions they would need to address as a society would be who is using the Well when it fills back up.

[alder24]

3 minutes ago, SwordNimiForPresident said:

No, he should have just let them die. The planet was no longer habitable non Invested humans. Torturing them and their descendants for 1000 years is just sadistic.

That's what "killed" means. Rashek would have been the sole reason for their death. But he didn't want to kill everyone, he wanted to save them from Deepness, save them from death and Ruin.

4 minutes ago, SwordNimiForPresident said:

Why would there be inbreeding? There wouldn't likely be future generations beyond the second or third given that the probability of a Fullborn child from later generations would be increasingly small.

Because even Rashek had many children. It's natural to want to have offspring. There would have been many generations and much inbreeding.

7 minutes ago, SwordNimiForPresident said:

There would be no need to modify other than giving them Lerasium beads. A Fullborn could survive in almost any environment so long as they have access to metals.

Melting point of aluminum is 660 degrees C. The fact that after Mists disappeared, as soon as the sun rose every tree self-ignited seems to indicate that the temperature on that close orbit exceeded 300 degrees C - at least. Give it a few more decades, boil the oceans away and a runaway greenhouse effect might have reasonably raised the temperature above that of the melting point of aluminum - worse than what's on Venus. Tin melts at 232 degrees C, pewter at just 170, zinc at 419, cadmium at 321 and bendalloy at just 70 degrees C. The environment created by Rashek after moving Scadrial closer to its sun was literally unlivable to Fullborn. The only reason why he opened Ashmounts is because he wanted to save all people from death. You want to kill them all.

18 minutes ago, SwordNimiForPresident said:

There isn't any power to grab. There are no people to rule. There are no resources to horde (other than metal I guess? but that seems fairly abundant)

There are people to rule over - other Fullborn and their descendants. There are resources to horde - metal sources and the land itself. The conflict would have arisen very quickly between those 12 Fullborn. Absolute power corrupts. People are flawed, driven by emotions and desires, they would have been fighting with each other, they would have been killing each other, they would have been competing with each other. Isolation and boredom would have just worsened the condition of everyone even more. This is a real problem faced by people working in remote locations, like research stations on Antarctica - in 2018 there was an attempted homicide on one of the Antarctic research stations because someone spoiled the ending of a book (I can't blame him) and that's just one of many crimes committed in such an environment. Rahsek himself was severely affected by his own isolationism. Conflict among your 12 Fullborn is inevitable.

21 minutes ago, SwordNimiForPresident said:

An intelligent person would have tried to figure out how to make the best future for as many as they could, not horded power and knowledge for themselves so they could lord over everyone else.

You're contradicting yourself. You claim Rashek was stupid because he should have just let everyone die, leaving 12 people alive, yet you say things like this. Rashek literally tried to figure out how to make the best future possible for as many as he could. He did this by saving everyone from Deepness and in his mind the system he created was perfect. How is killing everyone and leaving 12 people behind a sign of intelligence? What is it, was he stupid because he didn't kill everyone, or was he intelligent because he saved countless lives?

26 minutes ago, SwordNimiForPresident said:

I mean if you think what he did was good, then we will never find a middle ground on that issue. He is the worst. Full stop. An incompetent idiot at best, a greedy sadist at worst.

I didn't say he was good, I said he did some good. He did the worst possible things for the greater good. He wanted to save his people, he cared about them enough to prepare a contingency plan just in case he were to die. When he Ascended his first actions were done to save people from Deepness and death. What you're proposing is far worse than anything Rashek had ever done - full extermination of all life on Scadrial. 

And in case you missed:

1 hour ago, alder24 said:

Edit:

2 hours ago, SwordNimiForPresident said:

Rashek's negative traits are, in my opinion, symptoms of how dumb he was.

Yes, he was stupid. Or rather he was young, jealous, hateful and inexperienced, of course he was stupid, that's the whole point of his Ascension. He was making mistakes after mistakes, trying to fix problems he created. 

 

[SwordNimiForPresident the sword/that sword]

@alder24

Your response is giving off hostile vibes. I'm out.

[alder24]

33 minutes ago, SwordNimiForPresident said:

@alder24

Your response is giving off hostile vibes. I'm out.

I'm sorry if you felt that way. I can assure I meant no hostility, or any negativity in any of my responses. I enjoyed this discussion about such a fun scenario, even though I disagree with it.

[AleStaar he/him]

16 hours ago, SwordNimiForPresident said:

Preservation's plan depended on Rashek being dumb and greedy with the power. He had to work with what he had to achieve his ends. A smarter person wouldn't have just started swatting a planet around in space like a toddler in a bounce house. When Saze grabbed the power, one of his first thoughts was basically "I don't know what I'm doing". That is the reaction of a smart person. Also, SA spoilers.

 

I think you're trying to say being smart is the same as being humble. That's not true imo. You can be smart but not humble. You can be humble but not smart. Plus... smart in what way? Even though there were definitely some unknown aspects to Rashek's motives, he was a glory hound. He wanted to be the hero, to slay the oppressor, to be the world's ruler. And he wanted to create a society that wouldn't be felled by rebellion or release Ruin. And for those goals, Rashek was pretty smart. If it wasn't for Preservation and Ruin backing Kelsier and Vin, their rebellion would've been another blip in Scadrial's history.

You say that a "smarter person" wouldn't have swatted the planet, but that's not true. Using Shardic power isn't about being "smart," it's about experience and insight. When Vin used not a crumb of Preservation, but Preservation itself, to undo Rashek's Ashmounts she accidentally almost burned the planet down. If it wasn't for her rotating the planet 180 degrees, all life would've burned near instantly. Even then when the sun rose ~12 hours later, Preservation's desired Hero and all other life would've been burned to death. If not for the said Hero taking the powers at the right time.

Sazed was humble but he would've done the same mistakes as Vin and Rashek. If not for him tapping his copperminds right at the moment of Ascension.

[SwordNimiForPresident the sword/that sword]

@Trusk'our

I’m not conflating intellect and humbleness. It is certainly possible to be dumb and humble.

Ive actually never considered Vin to be particularly intelligent either. She’s certainly not dumb, but I’ve always considered her to be more instinctive than intelligent. She has a look before you leap mentality that nearly destroyed the world. Luckily that was part of Preservations plan so it all worked out.

Sazed wouldn’t have made the same mistakes because he immediately recognized that he didn’t know what to do. Rather than just doing any random thing, he paused and considered what his options were. 

[Trusk'our he/him]

56 minutes ago, SwordNimiForPresident said:

@Trusk'our

I’m not conflating intellect and humbleness. It is certainly possible to be dumb and humble.

Ive actually never considered Vin to be particularly intelligent either. She’s certainly not dumb, but I’ve always considered her to be more instinctive than intelligent. She has a look before you leap mentality that nearly destroyed the world. Luckily that was part of Preservations plan so it all worked out.

Sazed wouldn’t have made the same mistakes because he immediately recognized that he didn’t know what to do. Rather than just doing any random thing, he paused and considered what his options were. 

Did you mean to tag @Ale the Metallic Conjurer instead?

[SwordNimiForPresident the sword/that sword]

1 hour ago, Trusk'our said:

Did you mean to tag @Ale the Metallic Conjurer instead?

I surely did, thank you.

[Trusk'our he/him]

4 minutes ago, SwordNimiForPresident said:

I surely did, thank you.

Anytime