Knight Oblivion

Aren't shardblades and shardplate technically invested to a high degree? I'd imagine it would go as well as a misting using the metalmind of their counterpart getting to burn. That is, nothing happens.

When it comes to objects in the cognitive realm, the two most definitive works we have on it are The Emperor's Soul and SH. As revealed in the former, each object has a sense of self which is the sum of how it has been perceived by more invested beings (all life basically with sapient beings being most impactful due to the innate investiture needed for sapience) and the history of physical interactions with it. This is the basis of Forgery as the art uses investiture to convince an object that its history is different to enact a physical change (as an aside, Soulcasting apparently involves having the strength of will and investiture to force an object to change its cognitive identity, often by changing the material). Now consider Kelsier's time in Scadrial's sub-astral of the Cognitive Realm. Essentially everything is there as it would be in the Physical Realm with the exception of the inverse of fluids/solids. If an object could have a different cognitive aspect based upon some individuals having a different interpretation of it, then books would be stupidly noticeable as many people have different ideas about the contents of books (South Park had a great episode making fun of this). Now maybe the sub-astrals of the Cognitive Realm have different mechanics but I would assume some kind of uniformity between them all relating to the amount of Cognitive identities an object has as it's a rather fundamental concept. Now, my idea is that an object's Cognitive identity changes based upon an input of energy from one of the other two realms in conjunction with a cognative aspect. Using the cake example above, it doesn't really matter what a relative few people think of a temporary object because just thinking about the cake in such a limited fashion doesn't have enough energy to do much. Now, if a chef were to come by and decorate the cake more then we have physical and cognitive energy enacting a change. If said chef Soulcasts the cake to chull dung then you have spiritual (investiture) and cognitive energy enacting a change. Basically, cognitive acts impart significantly less energy than acts involving the other two realms. For spren, they're not really physical to begin with. They're more malleable than a stick because of that lack of physical substance and since they're representations of more abstract and general concepts.

Well, at least one of the stars around Taldain is invested. Don't know too much about that second star behind its particulate cloud.

What if Vorinism was corrupted by Odium and its agents to view seeing the future as a bad thing because the ability could foil its plans?

It's preserving the investiture of the individual from use by fueling the magic through Preservation's own power. The metals burned are the focus of the magic in essentially the same way an Aon or Aon formula focuses the power of the Dor in AonDor. A bad metal will have a deleterious effect on the Allomancer much in the same way a bad Aon formula will mess up an Elantrian or its target. This seems to be a feature of end-positive magic systems that bluntly channel the external power. As for Feruchemy and Hemalurgy, both arts actually store power/attributes (this is essentially what Hemalurgy does by ripping chunks of one's spiritweb and grafting it to an individual) for later use instead of shaping raw investiture for use. The metals are thus containers that can store specific things in these arts. Presumably, using anything outside the basic 16 metals (and God metals with their various alloys) for them stores something less noticeable like ability to produce insulin or the ability to produce the electric jolt tht allows the heart to pump. However, we suffer from a lack of perspective from a new Hemalurgist or Feruchemist and an apparent lack of WoB (I haven't seen one through some brief searching). Allomancy has the advantage in that regard thanks to Vin. We simply do not know what happens because all the characters that use Feruchemy and Hemalurgy we see know the basics of the Metallic Arts and about their abilities. All we have is speculation.

Thanks for the response! My method of combining the two systems was more of a quick and dirty "this would be a definite thing" than messing around with planetary Connection which might effect or negate Allomancy giving sDNA. I guess Hemalurgy could work too now that I'm thinking about it.

I thought that this would be due to gold savants being able to intuitively know more about their cognitive shadows and thus be able to Forge more accurately if they were from MaiPon, Sel. Of course, such a person would need to either hack Forgery or be Selish and use the gold-Lerasium alloy to get allomantic gold. Anyways, other than that, I doubt that any of the more fantastical things in this thread would be possible. There's little support. Touching one's gold shadow probably does something mildly disappointing like causing awful cognitive dissonance while being a savant would cause multiple personality disorder.

People often bring up Roshar's advantage with supplies but why are their logistics ignored? You have many, different, disparate cultures with different forms of warfare (look at the Reshi) that you have to coordinate. One such people, the Azish, would most likely require some ridiculous bureaucratic nonsense like movement orders in triplicate. You also have another nation were the peoples' religion prevents them from going anywhere but their own homeland on their world.Compare that to the fairly cultural and linguistic homogeneity of the Final Empire.

I'm pretty sure it's not canon. When it gets properly written, there's no guarantee that it will be the same.

Another idea to chew upon is that the original vessels that Shattered Adonalsium were seeking self-determination. Adonalsium most likely had a plan for the Cosmere as suggested in the response letter in WoR. Maybe the original vessels felt that the people of the Cosmere had their fates controlled by Adonalsium and wanted freedom from said control. The point being that we don't even really know what Adonalsium was. It might be the self-sapient source of investiture (similar to how Splinters can gain awareness) or it could have been a biological being in control of vast power similar to how the Shards work. All we really know is that it was powerful, viewed as God by some, and apparently had some kind of plan. We don't even know if it would be effected by Intent paralysis like Sazed is starting to experience. Adonalsium, for all we know, could have been a full being not plagued by inaction similar to how humans are.

For the latter part, I'd imagine the Scadrians would be willing and able to impress any Mistings and Mistborn to help against any war for survival. You have the entire Steel Ministry to enforce this.Anyways, what everybody also seems to forget is that Scadrial has a higher gravity than Roshar (the former an Earth analog so it would likely have the same gravity as Earth while Roshar is 70% that) and that Scadrial is more culturally homogeneous. Since humans in both planets seem to be of similar relative strengths, this would mean that Scadrians are 43% stronger than Rosharans mass per mass (alternatively Rosharans are 30% weaker, it depends on the frame of reference). The cultural homogeneity would make logistics and orders much more simple for the Scadrians. The Rosharans have a ridiculous mess of cultures and languages that they would have to cobble together to be a unified world fighting force.

So, with number one, we have only seen those with access to the Surge of Transformation actually being able to actually go partially or fully into the Cognitive Realm using Stormlight. In the rough draft scene that shows what happened to Jasnah Kholin after her apparent death in Words of Radiance, it apparently requires help from her spren. It's not 100% set but it can give us some framework to deal with. Number three is also problematic because it assumes that holding/using Stormlight in and of itself allows for access into the Cognitive Realm, which we have no evidence for. From what's been written, it's number two through the Surge of Transformation at least. We don't really know how the Surge of Transportation works. Here's the link to that rough draft story. http://www.tor.com/2014/08/06/stormlight-archive-scene-after-words-of-radiance/ Anyways, Ruins shardpool was underneath the Pits of Hathsin.1 Apparently destroying the Atium geodes interfered with the stability of the perpendicularity so that it wasn't a stable junction into or out of the Cognitive Realm. The term "junction" comes from that short story I linked above. It apparently refers to points that one can travel to and from the Cognitive Realm. Judging from that story, partially entering Shadesmar allows Surgebinders with the Surge of Transformation to return to the location in the Physical Realm where they left the rest of their presence. However, entering completely removes the junction created which then requires another stable one to reenter the Physical Realm. The concept of a "stable" junction is actually interesting. It would imply that there are unstable junctions that were unsafe or incapable of allowing transport between the Cognitive and Physical Realms. It would also help explain why destroying the atium geodes caused the Pits of Hathsin to be an unsuitable entry point into Scadrial despite Ruin's shardpool not necessarily being untouched. The destruction probably caused the junction due to the perpendicularity to become unstable. Also interesting is how Ivory doesn't first mention that one requires a perpendicularity but a stable junction then listing Honor's perpendicularity as the most likely candidate. This implies that shardpools or shard perpendicularities aren't necessarily the only means of entering or exiting the Cognitive Realm. As for Hoid traveling fast using Worldhopping, I think it's due to his ability/skill/experience manipulating the Cognitive Realm. Presumably, it's easier to dump oneself into the Cognitive Realm than it is to create a stable junction to leave it outside of perpendicularities and other stable junctions. 1. http://www.theoryland.com/intvmain.php?i=691#15

All the powers? I assume I would have a renewable source of Stormlight, Hallendren God King levels of Breath, and a source of atium and other metals for the Metallic Arts as you said that the powers are at my fingertips which wouldn't be true without them. Following that logic, I assume I have full knowledge/skill/use of Hemalurgy and the Selish arts of AonDor and Forgery. Also, Forgery and AonDor won't have their location dependency due to a hack that makes them work everywhere. I'm ignoring potential shardic powers pbecause I still want a physical presence. Anyways, I wouldn't do anything petty or small time. With all the Surges (somehow keeping the separate oaths from interfering), full Allomancy, full Feruchemy, Hemalurgy, Forgery, AonDor, and the Tenth Heightening I would conquer Earth as I'm essentially the Lord Ruler, Susebron, a Knight Radiant of at least half the orders, Raoden, Shai, and a master Hemalurgist not yet seen all rolled into one person with less scruples. I would start by creating a horde of Hemalurgy constructs (which would include awesome karate bears) to serve as my general forces/distractions. Then use the overpoweredness of fullborn compounding and all the other abilities to subjugate humanity. Once that is done, I'd set up friends, family, and acquaintances that I felt did me right before my virtual godhood as administrators of my domain. After that, I'd gather those who have intentionally and maliciously hurt me and their loved ones. I would then use their loved ones to make spikes to shove into them. Once they're essentially Hemalurgist constructs I'd use emotional allomancy to essentially make them mildly hit themselves while I say "Stop hitting yourself." Besides that I'd probably use a combination of feruchemical aluminum to store my identity, allomantic brass to make people care less if they notice me, and Lightweaving to escape notice of people only to shut it all off to surprise/startle people. Basically, mess around with my subjects like the malicious and capricious God-Emperor I would almost certainly be. God, looking back at that... I'm a horrible person. A monster. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry.

I don't have my copies of the Mistborn Era 1 novels anywhere on hand right now, but I think this is wrong. We have instances, if I recall correctly, of Ati/Ruin outright saying he created Scadrial (implying that everything but humans, including rocks, was half from him and half from Preservation) and, if I again recall correctly, Vin and Saved both comment on it once they ascend.I don't recall if anything is mentioned in Secret History though. I've only read it once and am just now working on reading it again. Anyways, I feel that the OP's questions and thoughts have been answered/corrected already. I have nothing to add to that.

Woah, woah, woah. First, not all men are "thugs" on Roshar. We don't see a whole lot of different professions due to the focus of the novels but it is an incredibly unfair generalization to make upon the men of Roshar. One of the main viewpoint characters was trained as a surgeon by his father whom abhorred killing. The city of Kharbranth is known for its surgeons which I'm fairly certain includes men. Stormwardens use complex mathematics to produce fairly accurate meteorological predictions for Highstorms and seem to be scientifically minded as Navani included them in the group watching her Reverser test. Many men are simple farmers, Thaylen men are seen to be traders, Horneaters only have certain children become warriors, the Shin essentially view soldiers as slave and thus seem to value more cultivating trades, the Reshi appear to mostly yell and boast when they "war", the Azish have an emphasis on their bureaucratic theocracy (or theocratic bureaucracy) and generally don't seem warlike or thuggish (too much paper work to be violent and have a civil war), etc. That's not even mentioning the fact that Ardents seem to be fairly well-educated, Alethkar has male silversmiths and presumably blacksmiths, and the book that's the basis of the pseudo-religious male/female dichotomy presumably has more professions that are either acceptable trades for men or trades without gender basis like horse groom. Also, the claim to illiteracy also seems to be fairly untrue. It appears that it's mostly the eastern Vorin polities that have a general restriction on men reading. It's mostly taboo though some certainly learn it, like ardents and Taravangian. That's not even mentioning the fact that many well-educated men can read the iconographic glyphs and Stormwardens have created their own script outside of the women's script. Then, as you start going west, the literacy of men appears to go up. You have the Thaylen merchant in Kharbranth, Artmryn, of whom Shallen suspects can read but has his wife do it to protect her Vorin sensibilities. You have Szeth, a Shin, writing Gavilar's final words in the women's script. The entire succession of the Prime Aquasix in Azir involves the applicants to write essays and such, many of the applicants shown being men. But that digresses from the point. In my opinion, Jasnah's sexuality could be asexual, bisexual, homosexual, heterosexual, or any multitude of others given the lack of any information we have indicating it. What I always got was that she was just focused on her research and saving the world to the exclusion of much else. We have that scene on the Wind's Pleasure showing just how hard she works on it. Honestly, as a graduate student, I can relate.

Well, assuming the Listener forms of their gods are a type of voidbringer with the ability to voidbind (Nightform is implied in the Song of Secrets to be focused on prophecy) then other powers might be lightning/storm generation and control (Stormform), maybe some kind of plague/decay powers (Decayform), and intangibility or the ability to obtain a sapient, vaporous form (Smokeform).

The OP solved that by only having their state at the end of their current novels taken into account barring Scarial which presumably is in the time of the Final Empire right before the first Mistborn trilogy.

Oh, so you're just tossing the political realities outside the door and vastly modifying the end state of each world as per their most recent novels, novellas, and short stories. That's significantly less interesting and involves more rampant speculation for the vast number of polities with which we have little to no information on their numbers. The lack of unity for all worlds besides Scadrial's Final Empire was part of the reason I found the prompt so interesting. It stretches disbelief a bit too much to imagine the Derethi or Korathi actually cooperating (since the former wants to see the eradication of the latter) or the Listeners/Voidbringers with the human and not-so-human Rosharans. Also, I took your lack of highly invested characters to mean they're not included in the battles. If you'll notice, I didn't include the Lord Ruler as a factor for Scadrial's military strength. He is necessary, however, for the continued existence of the Final Empire as a polity. Susebron is also important to count as, at least, a leader of Hallandren despite his invested status due to the fact that he seized a more direct control at the end of Warbreaker (part of the point of Lightsong's sacrifice). I feel like I wasted a fair amount of time and effort creating my post now.

Before I discuss further, I'm going to state some assumptions I'm going to consider when dealing with this premise. I'm going to assume that this sea separating the worlds is a magical thing that has a border between the worlds that prevents weather systems endemic to their worlds and certain natural features of the planets (such as gravity) spread out randomly. That means that things like the Final Empire's ashfalls and Roshar's highstorms only effect said lands. Also, if a character that's important to one world at the end of their most recent book is in another that's chronologically later then that character is in the more recent world. I'll discuss it a bit when dealing with the next quote. Well, technically Roshar has Nightblood and Vasher as well. Since this could potentially lead to Nightblood vs. Nightblood or Vasher vs. Vasher, I would consider only the later planet/books chronologically to have them. Otherwise, you could have time paradoxes which could destroy the Cosmere. So, by planet in published novels/novellas: First of the Sun: I haven't actually read Sixth of the Dusk yet so I'll refrain from commenting. Nalthis: Currently dealing with vast international instability and on the brink of another "world war". The strongest kingdom, Hallandren, has had two revolts/coups/insurrections with the past year or so at the end of Warbreaker which required the annihilation of their main military force by their hidden "elite" force in Kalad's Phantoms. They're going to look awfully weak and I doubt that any nation on Nalthis would be willing/able to project their power past their planet in this "Cosmere Sea" we have going on. They'd be nice targets if any nation could project its power across the Cosmere Sea. Roshar: Well, as of Words of Radiance, the entire planet is being faced with a potential extinction-level event with the True Desolation and Everstorm. Once the Everstorm circles around to hit the western end of the supercontinent, much of their population might die (not to mention that they'll have to deal with highly aggressive Voidbringers). Their magic users are currently small in number while also lacking in general training, they'll probably be able to prevent the mass extinction of humanity on Roshar but it looks like an uphill battle. Compounded in this is the fact that Roshar is explicitly stated to have a gravitational force of 0.7g (which partially explains bridge warfare on the Shattered Plains and its unusual fauna). I assume that the other planets have similar gravity to Scadrial (which is an Earth analogue) judging by the fact that Worldhoppers don't seem over-encumbered by being there. All these reasons would make projecting power across the Cosmere Sea extremely difficult, if not impossible, while making Roshar essentially a non-factor in any conflict because it's essentially a "hot mess" that nobody would want. Scadrial: I'm a bit biased towards this planet since I love its magic systems but I'll try to be as least biased as possible. Essentially, the Final Empire would probably be the single polity that could project its power across the Cosmere Sea by my estimation. It is, by far, the largest and most unified Shardworld and polity in the premise of the OP. It's led by what is essentially an immortal God-King (The Lord Ruler) who rules a squabbling and fairly magical nobility through the use his terrifying monster priests (Steel Inquisitors) and his general priesthood and, through those nobles, a massive and beaten down peasant base. Magic is common and relatively inexpensive in Scadrial though much of the magic users are illegal peasants that are hunted down internally and often used to make more monster priests. The peasantry can also give rise to a decent professional base. Also, most rebellions by the peasantry have been squashed and, since it's just a Final Empire not necessarily during the events of the first book, they're largely quelled and ineffective. The main problems with Scadrial is that the world is essentially on the slow march to death and agriculture is incredibly difficult due to the ash that falls much of the time. The main question then becomes: would Scadrial even be willing to war? After all, its God-King has been living for about a thousand years and that has to be wearisome. Sel: Sel also has problems with being politically not unified. Assuming that The Emperor's Soul is about 15-20 years after Elantris, things might not be too bad with Teod and the nations on Opelon. Teod has probably recovered from its invasion by the Fjordell Empire and Arelon has probably recovered from its invasion and the end of its disastrous decade spent as a plutocratic, merchant republic pretending to be a feudal kingdom. However, both would be more concerned with the larger and more aggressive Fjordell Empire with its battle priests and monster monks (Dahkor monks) as it's a bigger threat to their existence than trying to project power over a Cosmere Sea. The Rose Empire to the far north appears to be more inwardly focused for the time being and would most likely not have ambitions to spread to another world along the Cosmere Sea. The Fjordell Empire would probably be willing to spread Jaddeth's glory and Shu-Dereth to the other worlds. They're the only real expansionist power on the planet and most likely the only one able and willing to project power onto the other Shardworlds while trying to continue to try undermining Teod, Arelon, and Shu-Korath. They're main problem, though would be keeping up a decent supply line. Threnody: Threnody is seemingly not unified with most polities being fort-type city-states. These city states would probably have a great deal of trouble projecting power across a Cosmere Sea due to the highly limiting nature of the Simple Rules. Their issues with Shades would be a major obstacle to building up a military base to attack the other nations. However, the shades and Simple Rules would largely help dissuade attack by an outside force. Conclusion: Threnody would probably eat up a few expeditionary forces due to its natural dangers. After that they probably would be left alone though Forest Homesteaders might try to immigrate to another world due to the relative ease of living. Roshar is essentially fighting an apocalypse and has problems of its own so it would most likely be ignored by most other worlds due to how much it currently is screwed. Nalthis is politically unstable and most likely unable to project much, if any, power across the Cosmere Sea. However, its political instability would potentially open itself up to invasion/insurrection by the only two polities I feel would be able and willing to project their power, the Fjordell and Final Empires. Yes, with the discovery of lands that aren't screwed up by the Lord Ruler's ascension, he might be willing to invade and subjugate the other lands to preserve humanity. While the Final Empire lacks in military technology, I feel that the ingredients are there for the Lord Ruler to create an amazing army like Prussia did after the 30 Years War. The class system and obedience through the Steel Ministry is definitely there. The humans of the Final Empire also need fewer nutrients than pretty much any other human race and they have canning technology. They'd most likely invade Nalthis and Sel as they're the few worlds that aren't incredibly difficult to live in. Meanwhile, the Fjordell Empire would most likely attempt to spread its religion across the entire Cosmere Sea as Shu-Dereth is a very expansionist religion. They'll probably, at least, keep a minor presence on Roshar and Threnody while actively attempting to convert the Nalthians and Selish. Scadrial would be harder as their god is an actual sliver, with real power (that super Allomancy the Lord Ruler gave himself on top of his native Feruchemy)... insane amounts of power. They'll probably have to contend with whatever Steel Inquisitors and forces the Lord Ruler leaves at home to keep things sane. The Fjordell Empire, however, would probably have supply problems as I doubt they have something as amazing as canned food and their best way of transporting stuff would involve killing people off with their Dahkor priests. While people are always making more people, it takes about a dozen years to two decades for them to become wholly useful. So, the main fighting would be between the Final Empire and the Fjordell Empire. While I think initial skirmishes would end in favor of Wyrn due to their experience, eventually Scadrial would be able to get its act together due to irregular troops like the koloss, Steel Inquisitors, mistings/mistborn, and kandra giving the human/skaa armies a chance to survive and become experienced. Then Scadrial would be able to at least push the Fjordell Empire out of whatever lands the Final Empire conquers.

I'd imagine that it would depend on how far the coin penetrates into Kaladin's skull. If it goes through the brain then it would probably interfere with the cognitive aspect required for Stormlight to heal oneself. There's also that rough story of Jasnah's time between her "death" and the Epilogue of WoR where she mentions that her spren, Ivory, told her that a crushing blow to the head would kill a person with enough Stormlight in them. It's not much of a stretch to assume that damaging the brain by shoving a coin far enough through the eye would do the same. Then again, it isn't the best source (both the story itself and Ivory since we know little of the latter). http://www.tor.com/2014/08/06/stormlight-archive-scene-after-words-of-radiance/ <--- That's the link to the story. Anyways, as I keep mentioning in the threads about Roshar vs. Scadrial, the location of the battle is incredibly important for determining the outcome of the battle. Remember that Roshar has a gravitational force of about 0.7 g while Scadrial is an Earth analogue and can thus be fairly assumed to have a standard gravitational force of 1 g. I don't know if Stormlight would be capable of wholly compensating the increase in gravity for a Scadrial-based battle while providing its default strength/speed boost. Kaladin's sense of self is related to his connection to Roshar so Stormlight's effects might be muted on Scadrial. He does get to skirt past the breathing issue that standard Rosharans would definitely have due to Stormlight allowing one to not require to breath (and it's detrimental to the Surgebinder/Radiant in general since it just adds another avenue for Stormlight to leave). Outside of the reminder about gravity and the importance of environment, I also feel like Vin shouldn't get Bendalloy, Cadmium, Nicrosil, or Chromium. In her era, there was no knowledge of these metals nor their effects. Now, let's talk about weaknesses. Vin's are obvious. Much of her maneuverability depends upon their being metal in the environment so she can use Steel and Iron, Allomancy doesn't grant a healing factor similar to Stormlight (or one even in the same league), she needs to ingest metals to use her powers, Kaladin's gear would be heavily invested and thus require Duralumin pushes and pulls to even effect, and she's not the most physically imposing person. Kaladin, meanwhile, has a few obvious weaknesses and some not so obvious. Much of Kaladin's powers (the Lashings) are dependent upon actual touch barring the use of the Basic Lashing on himself and Stormlight's passive effects, his abilities are dependent upon Stormlight for which his body is a porous container (not to mention that he cannot infinitely store it like we've seen and external containers, gems, are heavy/bulky), gravity issues if the fight is on a planet with gravity higher than Roshar's (which opens him up to be stalled until he runs out of Stormlight), he actually has follow his Order's Ideals meaning that he has to be protecting somebody to fight/kill Vin or else Syl dies and his powers go away (not to mention that his ability to use them starts to come and go as seen in WoR), and he's still vulnerable to intense trauma to the head regardless of Stormlight. However, several aspects of this match-up are pure speculation. For instance, we don't know if emotional Allomancy has an effect on people with a Shardplate helm on their heads. We also don't know how long a full Windrunner can hold Stormlight for while using their abilities and healing besides that they seem to get more efficient in its consumption when using their powers. Hell, we don't even know how "living" Shardplate works in conjunction with Stormlight's passive abilities. I wish we did, but for now I'll ignore those questions rattling in my mind. In a straight fight, say somewhere on a Scadrial-esque planet with similar amounts of metal in its cities to even the maneuverability field, with both of them knowing each others capabilities I'd say Vin would win the fight. Besides her innate strength in Allomancy with respect for her time, Vin's main strength is how she seems to be extremely skillful in using her powers even in new ways (she learned that complicated horseshoe traveling trick within like a half an hour and picks up fairly advanced uses of her powers extremely quickly during her training). She would probably know to stall out Kaladin until he runs out of Stormlight pretty quickly following that part of the OP's premise. It basically comes down to Surgebinding requiring direct investiture that can only be stored in bulky/heavy and porous containers while Allomancy requires easily portable metals as a focus to allow them to directly access Preservation's power. Vin could just use a bandolier or two of vials to keep her topped off since she, ideally, wouldn't have to worry about attacks from Allomancers. Once out of Stormlight, Vin just needs to find Kaladin and deal with him. Of course, this is based upon a planet with Scadrial's gravity and cities with decent concentrations of metals. Without the metals or even out in the open, like a plain, Vin is in trouble and would most likely lose. Only a lucky steelpush of a projectile through a Shardplate helm's eyeslit or a lucky shot through the upper portion of the head without it would defeat Kaladin. In a plain or without the metals, Vin essentially loses much of her maneuverability which would limit her ability to stall Kaladin out. If the planet the fight takes place on has gravity akin to Roshar's than stalling out would become less viable due to Kaladin being physically adapted to such a world. Then again, Vin would be a bit stronger and faster so who would win would thus, once again, become dependent on physical location.

Being paranoid and having the fourth heightening, knowing that there are constantly people and living beings around you... watching you... waiting for you to let your guard down.

I like your analysis but there are a few things that bug me and a few questions I'm curious to know. Issues with your points: Numbers: Going by your math of the Scadrian human numbers, you're saying there are 5 Dominances. There are actually 10 Dominances in the Final Empire. I assume you're forgetting the Crescent, Terris, Remote, and Farmost Dominances as well as the Southern Isles. It's okay since most of them are barely mentioned if at all. However, by your assumption that the Lord Ruler can raise 100k per Dominance, there should be 1 million Scadrian soldiers. However, I'd argue that the Terris Dominance wouldn't send troops due to their oppression and stewardship programs while the other outer Dominances probably have a much smaller population than the core five. The number would most likely be more than 500k foot soldiers for the Scadrians. Communication: Now, you also bring up spanreeds as enabling a fantastic advantage of instantaneous communication. While I agree that it is an advantage, you don't seem to mention the disadvantages of them. Spanreeds can only function when both users are stationary which does add a limit to the instantaneous communications. However, a bigger problem is that the Rosharan forces would be taken from the entire super continent. I'll ignore the fact that the Aimians appear to be hated by most people on Roshar. The main issue is that the people of Roshar are by no means similar to each other in both language and culture. You're going to have a great deal of problems communicating from the Alethi high command in your scenario and the troops of other polities. One of the biggest things would be the language barriers as there doesn't seem to be a set lingua franca amongst the inhabitants of Roshar. Even with spanreeds, the Alethi would probably need a much expanded system of multilingual,female runners to spread messages among the troops. The other issue would be dealing with the many cultural quirks of their fellow nations. You'd have to essentially retrain the Reshi to have a different culture of warfare, deal with the overly bureaucratic Azish (who would probably require a stack of forms in triplicate to even act), deal with the lack of care for time the people native to the Purelake region seem to have, and more. It would be a logistical nightmare. Of course, the Scadrians wouldn't have it too easy themselves since the nobility often bicker and have been known to war. However, Steel Inquistors and Obligators might be able to give a unified sense of command. The Final Empire is definitely more culturally homogenous than Roshar which should count in their favor. Questions with commentary: Gravity and Physiology: This is actually a fairly important issue with the setting of your analysis. What is the gravity of the third party planet that you base your analysis on? I'll start this off by saying that, based upon my reading of the novels, humans appear to be of similar average strength (relative to the gravity of their home planet), capability, and intelligence as standard humans in reality. Sure, there's some weird genetics going on with the Rosharans (such as inheritance of hair and eye color) but they seem to be similar to baseline real humanity. Now the issue comes with the gravity of the combatants' home planets. We know from a WoB that Roshar has a gravitational force that is roughly 70% that of Earth. We also know, from a different WoB, that Scadrial is an analogue of Earth (pre- and post- Final Empire when it comes to flora and fauna). It is not an unreasonable assumption that Scadrial has a similar, if not the same, gravitational force as Earth. This is where the general strength portion of the Scadrian and Rosharan physiology comes into play. Rosharans are adapted to living in a lower gravity environment that Scadrians. This would put them at a distinct disadvantage regardless of whether the third-party planet has a gravitational force similar to, higher than, or lower than either Scadrial's or Roshar's. Assuming it's one or the other, there would be different advantages to the Scadrians. If the third-party planet (which I'll call the battleworld because it sounds cool) is closer to Roshar's gravity then the Scadrians will have a strength and endurance advantage over the Rosharans since their muscles are adapted to work with a higher amount of gravitational stress upon them. It would require some moderate adjustments to get used to the lack of gravity. However, this advantage would be temporary as the Scadrian muscles and bone density would eventually atrophy to be of comparable strength with the Rosharans within a year at best. The counter to this would be increased physical training which would stress the Scadrian supply lines though I'd doubt Scadrians even up to The Bands of Mourning would know this. The situation is worse for the Rosharans if they're fighting in a world with Earth's gravitational force. Suddenly they have to deal with about 43% higher gravity which would make even breathing among their entire ranks difficult. I doubt that even shardplate would allow them to breath easier. The Rosharan forces would be essentially crippled as their physiology is not equipped to handle such an increase in inherent gravitational forces. They're not Feruchemists or Skimmers. Intense physical training would potentially help mitigate the effects of such a higher gravity, which would vastly hurt the Rosharan supply line as all their forces would essentially be body building, but I doubt that they could overcome it in general. Most of what this paragraph is about is based upon my knowledge of biology and the effects of microgravity environments on astronauts, but Rosharans are adapted to living in an environment no real human society has had to live through. Timeline: Okay, this will be less of a huge block of text. When in recent Rosharan history, with respect to the novels, are we talking about? Is it pre-War of Reckoning with Gavilar alive? I feel like an Alethkar with Gavilar commanding the High Prince's fear/respect and with the two strongest (Sadeas and Dalinar) loyal to him would have the best chance against the Scadrians. Anything else during WoK or WoR would have too fractious an Alethkar to be of use to have Alethi forces leading the Rosharan troops. Anyways, with all that said, I really do respect and appreciate your analysis. Besides the omissions and errors mentioned, I feel like it is one of the most well thought out and fair analysis of a Scadrian-Rosharan war I've seen between this and the thread about Era 2 Scadrial vs. Roshar.

Assuming all the Highprinces would believe in the threat or wouldn't try to strike a deal with them in return for more power. It would be especially problematic if Dalinar or Elhokar try to get them to fight together.

Going by the section of the OP I quoted above, it seems the topic is the entirety of the Elendel Basin (assuming Bowiespoon accidentally used Elendel instead of Scadrial since the Basin's geography isn't really described by a dichotomy between north and south nor is the City of Elendel). As for the border issues, there are definitely some outside border issues with Jah Keved and, if I recall correctly, some of the Reshii. It's not just the highlords squabbling with each other internally (potentially for their Highprince's benefit). Which actually brings up the issue that the Alethi army isn't really a unified army but a loose coalition between 10 smaller armies which often work against each other. There would most likely be some infighting and betrayals within the Alethi forces. EDIT: Forgot more words. Stupid exhaustion.

First, looking back at the OP shows that the premise is just Alethkar versus Elendel (no mention of city or the Basin though Basin is implied). That removes Jah Keved from the equation and removes one of my questions based upon the premise. Secondly, I'm fairly sure the 100k soldiers in the Shattered Plains (now mostly in Urithiru) were essentially the bulk of the Alethi military might and definitely their better soldiers. Having much of their military away from Alethkar proper is why the kingdom is having increasingly persistent border issues. Thirdly, how many Knights Radiant/Surgebinders would the Alethi even have? This brings the question of when such a war would take place again since putting things squarely in the Mistborn Era 2 Scadrial brings us into pure speculation with Roshar since the Stormlight Archive takes place about a couple decades before it. That's not to mention that there would almost certainly be problems for any Alethi/Rosharan coming to Scadrial due to the 43% higher gravity. Even with the Surgebinders having access to Stormlight to potentially remain functional, the minute innate investiture of Rosharans would most likely not counteract the effects. Heck, Stormlight might not even heal Surgebinders properly because, by their own cognitive idea of themselves, nothing is wrong. They would have some problems similar to, but not to the same degree as, long-term astronauts returning to Earth.1 1. http://www.space.com/21413-hadfield-astronaut-health-return-earth.html EDIT: Fixed some spelling and grammatical issues caused by rushing this post while eating dinner.