The Technovore

I've been unconsciously leaning toward @therunner's idea on the second, although I've never put it into words. I don't think sprenplate would be able to just not require stormlight in combat, however the main thing with sprenplate is that its made from living spren. Spren are bits of living Investiture. It's Honor's investiture, same as stormlight, but always there, not fading and being consumed, which makes me think that plate functioning won't require stormlight, although plate repairing likely will. Also note that Rlain says that the plate is apparently "always there". Kaladin isn't constantly on stormlight outside of combat, and he's not constantly wearing gems either. The sprenplate is independant of stormlight, instead working off of the Investiture inherent in the spren. Thus, it seems likely that any ol' windspren could do for replacing a piece of shattered plate. I'm not gonna run around assuming I'm right, but that seems to be most likely and plausible to me.

Kaladin and Szeth would definitely be Mistborn, the sheer amount of "combat protagonist" that permeates them just fits it. Kal's the biggest hero, Szeth's the scariest threat. Shallan is 100% a Soother, Soothers are the Lightweavers of Scadrial imo, so this one is clear to me. I like to imagine the Singers as Feruchemists, or perhaps some Heramlurgic constructs with access to a lot of Feruchemical powers. They swap out spikes until they Venli gives them the Trellium spikes and they turn to Voidbringers. Teft would be a Crasher. I think most of Bridge 4 would be either Iron or Steel Mistings, Ferrings, or Twinborn, except Rock. Rock is a Bloodmaker or Archivist imo. Okay honestly there's a lot of Feruchemical traits I'd give Rock, so maybe he's a Feruchemist disguised as an Archivist. NGL I see Breeze more as a Lightweaver. Kelsier's surgebinder crew would need a Lightweaver, and the sort of amoral nature of the order would fit him well imo. Tbh though the major reason I say that is so Breeze can be even more annoyed when Hammond gets his Cryptic going about philosophy.

Heh, it's all in the name I'm not going to add any more the more personal aspect of this debate, there's a lot I could and want to say, but I think it will be counterproductive. I will mention that the problem with aluminum and your idea Bendu is that Feruchemy specifically is NOT about storing other attributes, only your own. Mistings can't burn metalminds they didn't make. That's the super cool thing about unkeyed metalminds is that it allows for you to access power others stored. But that doesn't mean you store someone else's speed in your steel, or someone else's identity in your aluminum. I'm not up to Era 2 on my re-read of Mistborn yet, so let me do some looking on the coppermind and hope that it won't lead me astray. Btw, the coppermind can be unreliable about a lot of things, because it's just written by the fanbase, not Brandon, and because of that a lot of things get misinterpreted. Anyhoo... ...Okay, so from my understanding, storing away all your Identity lets you use Identity-restricted magic so long as you have the Investiture. "Blank" Feruchemists can use anyone's metalminds, and "blank" Mistborn can burn anyone's metalmind, which makes me think an F-Aluminum medallion would be a great thing for a Mistborn with Ferring friends to have. (Good grief I think I just created a Fullborn.) That's the extent of F-Aluminum. Identity shenanigans are not the same as connection shenanigans, and while perhaps in future books Brandon might reveal that you can hack Feruchemy to store/steal other's attributes, we have no hints of it today, therefore we can't base hypotheticals off of it. I must've missed that "Quicksilver" was fighting a shardbearer, not a Radiant. That makes it more plausible for sure. That killing shot is still near-impossible, but there are plenty of ways to skin a cat that doesn't breath stormlight. I still think that you're underestimating the Skybreaker. Division can make a lot of smokescreen, flight keeps him away from bullets and swords, and all it takes is a solid stormlight-enhanced with a SprenHammer to break Quicksilver's armor. Then, since Division works on flesh... well. Plus you're asking Scadrial to coat a man in armor that's worth more than its weight in gold to make an insanely dangerous journey just kill a Shardbearer and a Radiant. Quicksilver will not and can not get a Nahel bond for multiple reasons, Edgedancers and Truthwatchers can literally revive the dead so long as their spirits don't go to the Beyond, and where one Radiant will fail, three more will do the trick. They're just that strong. Okay, I want to bring up one other thing. Ettmetal, right? We've been talking a lot about bombs, but I think that's thinking too grandiose. How about Ettmetal bullets and grenades? Those previously useless Pulsers, come equipped with a couple ettmetal "grenades", can lob one at the feet of a surgebinder or shardbearer and abruptly stop their killing spree. Even if it only lasts for a couple seconds, it gives the rank-and-file Scadrian Infantry time to focus their aim. As soon as the Cadmium drops they're overwhelmed by a hailstorm of bullets. It might not kill certain Oath 4s but it'll put any one person in serious danger. Similar bamboozlement can happen with Leecher grenades, Tineye grenades, even Auger grenades. Also--ettmetal bullets. They explode in contact with water. You wouldn't want the entire bullet made from it but if the shell is infused with it suddenly you have explosive ammo that will take a chunk out of anyone it sinks its teeth into. That's any Oath 3 Radiant suddenly in grave danger just from infantrymen, and Oath 4 Radiants checking their sprenplate integrity much more nervously. I think that puts the chances of a Scadrian army much fairer against a Rosharan one.

SMH I can't believe I just read all this. I'm not going to address the hypothetical because it's based in Benduluke's version of the Cosmere, not Brandon's. Point 1: We're not assuming Roshar in RoW, we're looking at Rosharan magic vs Scadrian magic, but if anything we're looking at some point 10 years in Roshar's future compared to some 2-3 years in Scadrial's future. If we're going to be using limitations from the books, then Scadrial doesn't get to have medallions or airships or ettmetal bombs because North and South Scad have no relationship, nor do they get a standing army of metalborn, because 'according to the books' there's no evidence that North Scad has an organized military beyond their police force. Point 2: ...dude, are you seriously polarizing this conversation into "Rosharites" vs "Scadrites"? This is not that cut and dry, and to be completely frank it's insulting to accuse over half the contributors of this thread of disingenous bias, just because we don't agree that F-Aluminum can store other people's identity (Feruchemy doesn't work that way), that f-Iron can make black holes (Compounding can't reach those numbers), or that steelcompounding can break mach 20 (too many other environmental factors prevent that and Brandon has said so). If you're going to try and label us into camps and polarize this convo, if that's the direction this conversation is moving, this thread is going to get locked within four pages, I guarantee it. This is not supposed to be dividing the community, this is supposed to be a healthy debate between two major book series within the same narrative universe. Please don't ruin it for everyone. Point 3: No, Shardblades are not essentially sharpened mist, you would know that if you actually read the SA books. Shardblades are the bodies of spren manifesting in the physical realm as godmetal. It is pure investiture in the form of matter. With Investiture drained they aren't anything at all because they wouldn't exist anymore. This is a basic fact in SA, it's a literal plot point. Point 4: Anyone who fits the ideals of the relevant spren and who can convince a spren to bond them. If a Scadrian's plan is to kill a Radiant and immediately bond their spren, they're going to be sorely disappointed because spren have sapience, and we established pages ago that "United Roshar, United Scadrial." If Roshar isn't united and you can just steal a spren bond, then it won't take much for to convince the Set or some scholar to divulge all the secrets of the metallic arts. Point 5: Vin broke her leg in TFE by being thrown against a wall. Pewter didn't let her stand again. Pewter didn't stop her leg from breaking. She was helpless until the mists came and boosted her. Point 6: I'm perfectly happy to discuss how a Mistborn can kill a Radiant. Three pages ago I gave an actually plausible way for a Mistborn to do it. I think that a Mistborn can trump any inexperienced Oath 3 just by virtue of Bendalloy+Electrum+Chromium and finished with a nice swing to the head via hammer or mace. Similarly any Feruchemist with a decent store of Pewter+Steel+Iron+Gold can blitz an Oath 3 or even an Oath 4 and do serious damage. You don't need to make up your own version of the Cosmere to make it work. Again, let's not make this into a "Rosharite" vs "Scadrite" thing. All we need to make this go well is some intellectual honesty and some knowledge of the material in question. Unrelated Bonus Point: We know there was no attempt to balance the magic systems by Brandon, but by definition the Shards and Vessels are largely equal. Could we say that if Harmony saw Scadrial was in trouble (if Roshar found a way to get Radiants off-world, perhaps), he could rally a sizable army of metalborn? If we say he doesn't make a ton of Fullborn (because we ALL know it'd be an overwhelming Scad victory if he did), how many numbers in Mistborn and Feruchemists could we imagine him mustering? How could Roshar compete if suddenly their knights were outnumbered 2 or 3-to-1 against metalborn?

I'm not sure this line of discussion is going to be particularly helpful to the hypothetical at large. If this was 2015, before Bands of Mourning came out, would we be fighting about how it doesn't make sense to use allomancy to try to fly, because there's a series of fundamental problems that can't be solved with the information from Shadows of Self? Yet it happened, and it's generally accepted that it works, because the author tells us that it does. It's not fair to give Scadrial airships that have frankly a lot of handwavey "look, it works because it works, okay?", but because Brandon has yet to give Rosharan airships the same treatment, we can somehow prove that it's not going to work and its not possible. Getting into the nitty gritty of the mechanics and saying that because we can't make it work it's not possible is like the Vorin church deciding Radiants were charlatans because their priests couldn't slide on stone like it was ice. Bridge Four is a significant plot point that's gotten a lot of attention. Navani and her "Project Manhattan" in Urithiru is a major plot point. Rosharan technological advancement is a plot point. All that adds together to mean that what we see in airships today will be much better and more advanced in 10 years by BoM.

So I was thinking about weapons a mistborn would use around Radiants. You'd want something Invested for sure, but also something non-Invested that you can push/pull. I think they'd have a TerrisShield Buckler (made from either Iron or Steel that's been filled with Feruchemical power) they can take from their back, or alternatively some sparce TerrisPlates on their arms and legsand two iron maces. These maces would be protected by a covering so that they couldn't be directly lashed before the Mistborn uses them. This way the mistborn has a heavy metal weapon they can send flying around to batter the Radiant, and can use it with pewter to damage the plate. The plate/shield would function as a way to block the blade, the blade would cut it eventually but it would prevent the Mistborn from dying too fast, and heavy bludgeoning metal weapons could actually do something against that pesky sprenplate. Plus you can combine the maces with either durapewter or durasteel to force the Radiant from fighting to healing, which, if they don't have Gravitation, I can see turning the tide of a duel. A Mistborn burning pewter, tin, and electrum can probably survive CQC for a little bit, add in some copper and they might be resistant to having themselves lashed. I can see a tactic developing where you get close, bash the plate open with dura-pewter, then use dura-chromium to completely wipe their stormlight and stop them from summoning the plate. Then you just find something to stab them with and wait for them to die like a normal human. Again, for any Oath 4 Radiant the Mistborn is definitely the underdog, (gotta have a little bit of plot armor) but I can see electrum+durachromium handily dealing with most Oath 3's as soon as they to use their sprenblade.

We've been trapped in this neverending cycle of desolations for a lonnnggg time

This is not going to be a particularly well-articulated point, but I want to mention that while we understand Gravitation and Soulcasting pretty well, we don't know the full abilities of most of the surges. Case in point, Edgedancers use Abrasion and Progression, Progression being stupid powerful (Nale uses a Progression Fabrial to literally bring Szeth back from the dead) but not necessarily useful against a mistborn (I mean, besides the wonderful look on their face as they watch an Edgedancer slide in and undo all the work they did killing the Radiant). However, Edgedancers have a reputation for having mistborn-like agility and grace. They're described by historians, legends, and eyewitnesses as having incredible agility and dexterity in combat, even though their actual abilities don't seem to be particularly combat oriented. I think that there's a third ability each surgebinder has that's a combination of their two surges (like how Windrunners have a Reverse Lashing, which seems to be both Gravitation and Adhesion), that might contribute to this strange reputation Edgedancers have. Personally I'd love to see an Edgedancer v Mistborn duel, it'd be the duel we deserve, but I think the Mistborn would be forced to flee, as everything they did to the Edgedancer would be healed, but the Edgedancer has the agility more than most to hit the Mistborn. Also note that we've seen little of Division but we know it dissolves molecular bonds and works on humans. I feel like a Mistborn facing a Skybreaker or Dustbringer filled with Stormlight would essentially just run. Because as soon as you touch that Radiant they touch you back and you lose. Curse you Newton's Third Law. I do want to be fair though. The biggest and easiest way for a Radiant to lose a battle is to either lose before they draw stormlight in (surprise attack) or to run out of stormlight mid-fight (battle of attrition). Because stormlight's quick-burning is the Radiant's biggest weakness. I think if we're being honest a Mistborn can't do too much to an Oath 4 Radiant that's glowing from head to toe, but if you force them to run out of resources, you win, and to be honest a Mistborn is more than capable of the harassment and battery tactics required for that. In a Mistborn v Radiant duel, the question probably needs to be "How can the Radiant pin down and kill that Mistborn before they run out of light?" Some orders have easy answers to that question, other may have a more difficult time.

@ShardplateJoe III Absolutely gorgeous, thank you

which turned their crying into uncontrollable bohemian hollering.

Forgive my stupidity but what exactly prevents a windrunner from gripping a fistfull of ball bearings, lashing them all at something to destroy, and then haphazardly flinging them in that direction? They're falling in the wrong direction, they'll be moving real fast, still carrying the momentum and force of 6 or more g's, and they'll spread. I don't---I'm not seeing the problem. I mean look coinshots are cool because they can put a lot of sustained force behind their pushes, gravitation only uses g, but all you need to do is increase the mass and the difference is for most intents and purposes made up. You can't really dispute that a man will usually killed by a brick falling some 15ft, have that brick falling 100+ft at 6gs or more and a helmet isn't going to matter. Is it going to be as effective as a railgun or a cannon or even a high-powered rifle? No, but considering you're just a dude with stormlight it's a pretty good ability. Do we really have to throw math at each other to argue whether or not it is? Also consider that gravitation allows for a little more control than A-steel, as you can actually pick your direction, rather than just shoving outward from your center of gravity. (Aiming with your torso has got to be annoying lol)

I love the potency of this friendly debate, and I'm enjoying the contest of points, I hope you and @Frustration (and all the others reading and participating :D) are as well. I want to address this, because there's an important distinction to make. Mistborn don't fly. They push and pull on metal, and when pushing on metal below them, they can "fly", which is really more "being shoved into the air". It takes some real control and effort to float only a little in the air, since that requires a balancing of pushing just enough. They also rely on anchors not getting messed with. How would they sink? Well, if the stone turns to liquid and their coin sinks into it, that will either mess with the Mistborn's anchor, or remove it completely. They're pretty vulnerable to anchor manipulation when the floor is undulating and rippling. It'd also be bad for them if the "Soulcasting at range" Radiants just start poofing coins to smoke underneath them. Now, if I were a Mistborn on an open battlefield in Roshar, I'd completely litter the battlefield with coins, that way I'd always have an anchor somewhere to keep my mobility. However a Stoneward or Willshaper would definitely be keeping me on my toes, any anchors I have near them would be quickly disappearing or moving. I wouldn't want to approach one on foot or relying on a coin or five. I'd probably just go for a Durasteel bullet or if I'm from Era 2 Scad, an actual bullet. (A bunch of actual bullets. Like tons. Maybe explosive ammo.) Now, if this fight was happening on Scadrial, in a town where I have anchorpoints everywhere and many of the buildings are wood instead of stone, it'd be a different story. Mistborn are far more mobile in urban environments, and the Radiants would have a hard time getting away from me. On Scad a Gravitation Radiant would be my biggest threat, as they'd be just as mobile as me, and have obstacles to disappear behind and potentially take me by surprise. I wonder how a combat-oriented Lightweaver would fare against a Mistborn. By Oath 4 or 5, would their illusions be able to produce sound? I could see being very intimidated as a Mistborn being surrounded by a dozen copies of the Lightweaver, all holding sprenblades, and I don't know which one is real. Soulcasting would be real threat to, even if they couldn't just target the air I breathe, they could splash down blankets of oil, make my anchors disappear, soulcast me into stone or metal, even just a small soulcast under my feet could make me lose my footing just enough for them to get a sprenblade through my neck.

Mmm. I'm going to have to agree with this. Look, say it clips a Radiant on the shoulder or sort of kinda hits their side. Let's say the Radiant saw it coming and tried to move to the side, so it hit their shoulder. First thing that'll happen is the local sprenplate is going to shatter. Second thing that'll happen is that hammer is going to separate the joint from the socket. Third thing that will happen is the kinetic energy is going to send that guy flying. He's going to be spinning violently, and if their arm doesn't completely come off because stormlight, it will be totally destroyed. The Radiant launches away some 20ft, spinning, and slams into a rock, cracking and breaking their plate more. They're dazed, but stormlight keeps them awake. They realize their arm is totally useless. The Mistborn is downing another vial and moving in. The stormlight starts to reknit the flesh together in their shoulder, but the pain is great. The Radiant staggers to their feet. The Mistborn drills a single lead ball right through the Radiant with a durasteel push, smashing through that weakened sprenplate. Actually it was eight lead balls. The Radiant staggers again, still alive but now their stormlight healing is working overtime just to keep them alive. The Mistborn has caught up to them now. The Radiant summons their sprenblade and swings but the Mistborn easily sidesteps. The Mistborn delivers a hammer-blow straight to the head. And then does it again. One more time for good measure. Mistborn wins. One hit may not kill the Radiant, but it can shift momentum quickly enough that the Mistborn has victory. Alt ending: Actually it was eight lead balls. The Radiant staggers again, still alive but now their stormlight healing is working overtime just to keep them alive. The Mistborn has caught up to them now. The Radiant throws up their hand and uses their lingering stormlight to escape to the CR. They spend the next month struggling to survive before finding a perpendicularity. Mistborn still mostly wins.

I don't really have any problems with the rest of your post, but I'm not sure what to make of this paragraph. You did a lot of talking about fallacies, but skating right past my mention in the post you quoted where a shardblade can go through that same wall easily... hmm. Also, I'm not talking about Radiants soulcasting & flying, no Radiant has Transformation and Gravitation. Maybe I wasn't very clear in the quoted paragraph, but I was talking about your rebuttals to my mentioning of the different Radiant powers making it difficult for a Mistborn to get close. "I expect a mistborn will be at this stage." ...Flying and Soulcasting? Interesting powerset that Mistborn has... In close melee combat a second or 2 is MORE than enough to get you killed, especially when the enemy knight doesn't even need to put any force into their swing (effortless cutting). Also, Steelpushing has a really nice tall height limit, but the point is is that that height limit is still there. A Gravitation Radiant can go higher. Talking about projectiles, I wasn't thinking furniture, rather than a coin or perhaps a small lead ball. A Gravitation Radiant can send them flying at high speed, which is investiture-intensive but can kill a surprised Mistborn immediately (although honestly I think a Mistborn is capable of dodging it). Duralumin is awesome, my point is that unless you're taking a Radiant by surprise, landing that hit is going to be pretty difficult, a lot of Radiant Orders have a lot of options for mobility or defense.

So this is something I've been thinking about. I've been assuming this would be occurring on Roshar, but the more I think about the more I realize that if we're looking at Era 2 Scad v Roshar, Roshar would be the attacking force. Scadrians don't have access to the CR, but Rosharan's do, therefore if anyone's going to be invading anyone, it would be a Rosharan force showing up in the Scadrian CR, then making the transition over via Bondsmith perpendicularity. This complicates things for Roshar. We know that a Shard's investiture can be accessed anywhere (see, Allomancy working on Roshar, which taps into Preservation/Harmony). Which means the Surges and Stormlight should work. The hard part is the Nahel bond. The spren are splinters of Honor with a little Culti thrown in, and Honor is invested and Connected to Roshar, which means that actual Radiants likely wouldn't be able to make it to Scad (Bondsmiths maybe, but that's complicated and unknown.) So... Scadrians can unkey their magic system and give it to anyone through medallions. I have to assume it's somehow possible for Roshar as well. Perhaps gemhearts?... but unfortunately considering this really kills the fun of the scenario. A Roshar force without Radiants entering Scad would cause some brief chaos and be a crisis for Elendel but eventually the police force and militia would rally and the guns would annihilate the dudes with spears (and fabrials, probably). So in this scenario we have to either ignore that inconvenient little rule about the CR, or we have to understand exactly why Sanderson has Scad v Rosh only occurring in Era 4 when both planets crack Physical Realm FTL.

@AirsickAviar, Mistborn "fly" based on their ability to steelpush, which has a height limit and mobility limit. I can see a Mistborn being able to perhaps scatter coins around a field so they can keep themselves in the air and maneuver, but that requires more control than a Gravitation Surgebinder just pointing themselves in a direction. Gravitation Surgebinders also don't have a height limit. The point is that they can stay out of reach. I mentioned ways that they can nullify a Metalborn's offensive ability, but I didn't say they were running. A Gravitation Surgebinder can do the trick with launching projectiles too. A Skybreaker has division, and Windrunners have reverse lashings that something something idk makes you a projectile magnet. The point of throwing up protective walls is that duralumin + pewter is a one-shot trick (unless they have multiple vials.) You waste that shot on a wall instead of the Radiant, you're in trouble. The CR... I mean fair, but yea, soulcasting. The point is, is that a Mistborn going on the offensive against and aware enemy is going to be hard against most orders. I would have faith that such a hit would be really destructive, but it needs to catch them unawares or it will fail. And remember--every move the Mistborn makes is a move the Radiant is also making. A Mistborn spraying out coins is an opportunity for a Radiant to get close and apply a surge. A Mistborn hitting the stone wall instead of the Radiant is a Mistborn briefly vulnerable to a shardblade going through the wall and into them. "Metalborn don't need to use their legs." Okay, but pewter doesn't make you invulnerable to pain. Vin had to flare pewter to keep lucid after breaking her leg in TFE, but she couldn't do anything to fight (granted TLR had other things going to help with that but). And unsplinted broken legs are going to be dangling and moving as the Mistborn moves. That's a lot of pain (speaking from experience) and is going to cripple a mistborn. I think a great point that's being overlooked in the Mistborn's favor is the fact that when they're not contesting other Mistborn, they have no reason to stick to daggers. A Mistborn fighting Radiants could totally hold a mace, greatsword, or warhammer, and that's going to do a lot more against Sprenplate. I'm not totally discounting your scenario, I think it has merit, I'm just pointing out that if certain things happen, that same scenario can turn agains the Mistborn. It's hard to disable a Radiant, but I can totally see a duralumin-fueled ambush completely killing a Radiant. It just gets dramatically more toss-uppy when the Radiant actually realizes they're being attacked. (Also we don't know that lightweavers aren't proficient with soulcasting, we just know that Shallan isn't very good with it. Different Radiants have different proficiencies with their surges. I would bet that there would be Jasnah-esque Lightweavers and Shallan-esque Elsecallers in SAs future when it comes to soulcasting)

Heh, guess I'm WAY off then, fair enough (silly faulty memory, not working flawlessly after 3 years since last reading WoK)

@AirsickAviar I like this analysis, it seems pretty even handed and points out something that's been largely overlooked. I think a couple rebuttals is that while stormlight without progression isn't the best healing ever(tm), like Frustration points out, it's pretty dang good. You and Frustration both mentioned Kaladin kicking the shardbearer. It shattered his legs, something that a mistborn can't recover from in a fight, but he was standing just a few seconds later. And the stabbing to the spine is more impressive than you'd think, because nervous system damage has far-reaching effects in the body and the body doesn't have resources for nerve damage like it does for normal flesh. It also completely restores limbs (Lopen) and shardblade wounds (Dabbid(?)) So that I think is the main thing for a Radiant. Also note that to use duralumin + pewter effectively you first have to reach the Radiant. Two orders can straight-up fly. Two-orders can disappear into the CR. Two orders might actually be able to shrug off such a hit (Progression), and two orders can throw up stone walls to block them off with ease. I would also argue that: We have seen spren armor be reflexive. Kaladin used his armor to protect almost a whole squad of men from a barrage of attacks in RoW. I doubt a standard human or even a protagonist has the level of specific control required to be that fast and controlled in moving around sprenplate, so the spren themselves are doing some of the heavy lifting in the cognitive processing required to block incoming shots. I would also speculate (this is JUST speculation) that it might be possible that each spren in a set of sprenplate can make any shape of plate. So if you shattered a Radiant's chestplate, it might just reform again at the expense of a more obscure piece of armor. So breaking armor pieces would wittle away their defenses, but it would take a lot longer to truly make them vulnerable. I could buy the argument that all the mental secondary effects that come with Allomancy would make a Mistborn agile and quick enough to not immediately die to a sprenblade, but remember that every move the Mistborn makes is also a move the Radiant is making. Depending on the order that would mean a swing of a sprenblade, a surge that could mean death or no more movement, or otherwise dodging. And again, two orders can straight up fly. That's trouble for any metalborn. I'm not going to address everything from all that but I will address some of these. Radiants won't be making the projectiles, the folks at Urithiru will be, and we've already seen how capable they are at it. I can easily see the folks at Urithiru making a contraption where you can activate it without it hurting you, then flinging it away. It doesn't consume much, because Navani was able to leave lying around activated for quite a while in RoW. The trick for hitting steelrunners is for making sure they don't see it coming, but I can see a trap on the floor on something suddenly thrown in front of them taking them down, but you're right, it would just take luck, that was sort of the point, that it's improbable. I'm not sure what the comparing of Rosharan vs Scadrian science is about again, but I think it would be able equal since both technologies are pretty alien from each other, and while Scadrians are far ahead in earth tech, they're very far behind in the magical theories that Rosharans currently understand. (All it takes for either to close the gap is just to kidnap and interrogate the enemy's leading scientists imo.) It's both a magical invested ability and a material ability. The material is godmetal, and as such has these properties as part of its heavily invested nature. Brandon has stated (https://wob.coppermind.net/events/13/#e5023) that leecher's can damage shardblades if they really worked at it, but that doesn't mean that they can nullify its powers. If a leecher touched a bead of Atium, could they remove it's magic properties? Probably not, but they could destroy it with time. A leecher could totally nullify a fabrial that requires stormlight to run, but godmetal is different. You're right though that if a leecher got ahold of a Radiant before they summoned the blade, the Radiant would be in trouble. Someone posted an idea of a leecher grabbing onto an unsuspecting Radiant and activating their chromium while stabbing--that would work easily on 3rd Oath Radiants, but if the Leecher broke contact and the Radiant summoned the blade, it's all over. Finally, like @Frustration said, 4th oath Radiants are not as rare as Mistborn are. We see in the vision of Recreance that there were dozens of Radiants with sprenplate, and while 3rd oath Radiants outnumber them well, the great majority of experienced Radiants are 4th and 3rd oath. 2nd Oath is not the average, 3rd Oath is. If you want "rare as Mistborn", look at 5th Oath Radiants (which we don't yet know what boon that gives, but I'd reckon it's a big one.) So sure, not every Radiant is going to have the "I win" defense of sprenplate, but the "I win" offense of a sprenblade is basically standard.

Oh I see. Okay well I think that could be subject to debate depending on how much Culti actually has to do with Dalinar's changes off-screen. I would make the argument that Cultivation didn't do really that much. In WoK and WoR we don't see Dalinar remarking on how he doesn't remember the last 10 years of his life, and he doesn't wonder what people mean when they say "The Blackthorn". He only doesn't remember Evi. And then in the flashbacks we see Dalinar the Blackthorn being really scary and brutish until he killed Evi, where we see the aggression completely go out of him. He turns instead to drinking and the pain is too much for him to even function in any respect. It almost seems like what happened with Moash making a deal with Odium to "take his pain". Instead, Cultivation took his pain, by removing the memory of Evi, which allowed him to function, but the shame of his past actions stayed. We see mention that he then had to deal with alcoholism, which left pretty quickly, and then he's the Dalinar we know today. I would argue that the Blackthorn died with Evi, and then Cultivation gave him the copium to prevent him from turning to Odium. Thus the growth isn't very artificial, the way I see it. Also, my previous post probably came off as arrogant and combative. I want to apologize for that as... intellectual arrogance like that is a great way to take a civil conversation and make it uncivil, so I'm sorry, I'm gonna dial back the ego the bit.

It's interesting to me how some of the arguments in this conversation are stemming from the idea that only correct definition of Honor is their definition. Instead of, you know, being multifaceted and open to interpretation--where one interpretation isn't necessarily better than another because in likelyhood they're both incomplete and thereby flawed. Like... Honorspren, Highspren, Cryptics, Inkspren, and all the Radiant types are splinters of Honor (with some Culti mixed in with some of them, clearly), but they all disagree on what honor means. This idea of "Dalinar hasn't grown and isn't honorable because he relented on a moral choice because he felt trapped by necessity" seems like a blindfolded view of it. This is the guy that was 100% unrestrained passions (Champion of Odium) and was murdering people for annoying him, who isnow trying his best to do as little harm as possible while protecting as many as possible. But no, no growth that I can see nope. He didn't take down Amaram and start a civil war based on the testimony of a single soldier nope he's learned nothing smh my head rn. Like... where's the honor in destabilizing a nation and sacrificing thousands of darkeyed lives because your moral sensibilities dictate that a dude should be tried for crimes?

Not so much practicality so much as understanding the versatility. Windrunners in RoW rely on their sprenblades (because they're awesome and powerful), but with their surges a windrunner army is more formidable and versatile than a coinshot army by far. Perhaps launching a couple boulders wouldn't do much for all the stormlight you spend, but right now Windrunners rely on melee combat and using gravitation to close the distance. However, by carrying around a couple heavy projectiles (a pouch of heavy lead balls?) they could have access to a very powerful ranged weapon. Thanks to @therunner for the better math than I had. For sure, I don't know how it's possible, but the Fused say that it is. It just seems to me that using arrows, instead of something that carries more impact, seems like a waste of potential.

Mmm, fair, but terminal velocity for a human that's trying to go slow (belly-to-earth) is ~120mph. A brick will have higher density and less drag going for it, but 20-25gs with a lower g and denser atmosphere, which makes your 5x terminal velocity pretty fair, which puts the bricks at ~620mph. Now, that's about a third of the speed of a modern bullet, but it's still really really fast and is still going to impart upwards of 5000N to whoever it hits. (Give or take a order of magnitude). I'm pretty sure that's going to shatter some armor. I mean even if Roshar's g is around 6 m/s^2, multiply by 20 you get 120 m/s^2. A boulder reaching it's 5x terminal velocity at 120m/s^2 is not the most effective form of artillery, but to a tightly-packed formation of singer troops with non-mobile Fused interspersed within, it's not something to laugh at either. And I mean... that's assuming you're lashing a boulder towards the ground. What if you just... lashed it laterally? That's an impact zone in the shape of a cylinder, not a circle, at half-mach speeds. Idk, that's just my speculation, but I don't think it's too far out there that that could be a problem. And as for moving the rocks, I was thinking about the fact that they're fighting on largely stone ground. I mean, there's going to be rocks around there.

Turns out when you think about it Windrunners/Skybreakers can do everything a coinshot can do but better. Imagine a group of windrunners on top of Bridge 4 with bricks just firing them at high speed toward enemies. Imagine a group of windrunner lifting a big o' chunk of rock just to launch it at a thunderclast or unsuspecting group of Fused (a less mobile type of fused). Leshwi mentioned that Windrunners had homing arrows. I like think about homing boulders. Sure it takes tons of stormlight, but that's what Dalinar's for

Then she woke up, so she was now only two levels deep.

Which didn't matter because