Duxredux

Yeah... puberty could be consider traumatic enough to cause someone to Snap. It wouldn't surprise me if there are private companies that for a fee will check for metalborn. A Seeker and a Coinshot that have a sample of the different metals, some to act as metalminds and some to fuel allomancy, the Seeker to detect Allomancy of course and the Coinshot to detect if a metal sample becomes harder to push. I'm guessing if not in era 2 then in later eras there would be political factions, one pushing to make metalborn abilities a matter of public record as a matter of regulating Soothers, Rioters, Coinshots, Steelrunners, etc. another faction pushing to conceal metalborn abilities to protect individuals from the Hemalurgic black market. This is why I'm unsure if discovering metalborn will be a matter of governmental regulation or if it will be in the private sector. Powerful noble families with strong genetics will probably keep the the testers solely within the family and may train a child to give a false negative on any metalborn test. Era 1, I imagine the Steel Ministry would have Seekers on call to test for Allomancy, regardless on if it was requested or not, and the Great Houses would test with their own Allomancers. We also know of some of the processes that the Inquisitors did to test for Atium Mistings, which should also extend to other metals.

Really? HOW? Relatively speaking, compared to the thread on killing Hoid for fun and profit. You don't need aluminum, abilities of a Shard, or a specific Godmetal. You need large rooms (latrines or something similar), finely woven mesh material, and food and water for the flies. Setup a breeding enviroment and use strategically placed mesh to move or contain the flies as needed. I think this should be achieveable on any habitable world we've seen (I'm not counting Braise) at every tech level currently known.Thing is it doesn't have to be flies, if you can find any large flying insect hive or colony and transport it over to him when he's in a small room, put mesh over the exits and windows, that should at least highly inconvenience him. Nab a bee hive by covering it with the mesh, wasp nest, cut out a rotten section of tree filled beetles, etc.. the main question is if his Lifesense would alert him to what you were doing and if he would try to escape. With this train of thought of filling a room with highly fragile living beings, a Sleepless with specially bred frail hoardlings might give Hoid serious problems. I'm sure he could escape somehow, eventually, but I'm drawing a blank on how he would do it if he were to be constantly blanketed by tiny hoardlings that could constantly rotate out, while the Hoardlings bred for leeching drain him of any Investiture they can. Awakening is probably out as opening his mouth means the hoardlings will swarm in, Aons require movement and hoardlings would probably concentrate on his joints, Lightweaving probably won't distract the Hoardlings and he can't directly damage them, Soulcasting might be possible but I'm not surr what or he would do it (and how much time he has before getting leeched of any Stormlight), same with potentially making a perpendicularity with Stormlight, Allomancy depends on metal placement in the room but even then it would be really tricky and I'm not sure how emotional Allomancy or time bubbles would disrupt the hoardlings Connection to the Sleepless... anything I'm missing?

Basically the title, do we know the extent of Hoid's restrictions on hurting living things? Hoid's Coppermind article notes that he can't harm people and cannot eat anything he believes to be meat, but I'm not sure if that's the full extent. Is his restrictions on harming living things only sapient beings - dragons, humans, singers, Sho Del, etc., or does it extend to highly intelligent entities like Ryshadium, Larkin, Sleepless, horses, dolphins etc.?At what point does it stop restricting him or would he be majorly inconvenienced if someone were to release hundreds of thousands of flies into a room he was in and he couldn't even make a step or open his mouth without endangering their fragile bodies? Alternately fill his room with hamster or kittens. Could he move when he knows he will probably kill something accidentally? Yes, there are logical extremes to this progression, but I'm not going there just yet. He can make a Cognitive Shadow (Kelsier) think they are hurting, but could he harm an Honorspren made corporeal by Ishar before they died? Can he hurt spren in Shadesmar? You acquire a Bavadium Hemalurgic spike, one of the ones that is repulsed by an Allomancer burning metals. If you were to tell Hoid that you had setup a box with the spike positioned so that if he were to burn metals it would stab a cat inside (named Schrodinger, because), would that stop him from using Allomancy? Barring a stunt like Duralumin Pulling on the spike which is dumb in so many ways. Would he need to see the cat and the setup of the box to be restricted or if he never saw the cat would he still be free to act? Ignoring Lifesense for a moment (maybe he Awakened something), would he be restricted if he believed the cat was there but you hadn't actually put Schrodinger in the box? Mostly I'm interested in the room full of flies scenario as just about anyone could set that one up with barely any specialized equipment or abilities. Thoughts?

Can we finally know what Wayne's resonance does? Is he supernaturally lucky or gaining subconscious future sight? The man constantly positions himself and his resources exactly where they need to be for pivotal plot points (becoming the 4th wealthiest man in Elendel in 6 years through investing, placing the Bands of Mourning in Marasi's bag, stealing the Bands of Mourning, making Wax give him a spike granting A-Steel, stealing Lerasium from Wax). How does this happen? Please explain. Brandon, you are a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and believe that God is the creater of the universe. You are the magic systems guy known for developing the Cosmere. You might be the person who has thought the most on what it takes to make and populate a world, and you have Shards that are making decisions based on the technological and societal develoments their world may have. Have you had any insights or epiphanies that you would be willing to share on how your profession as world builder has changed or informed your view on God as a creator? Barring RAFOs of course, I imagine some of those insights have already made it into the books or are planned for future books. If Wayne had been the one trapped in the Well of Ascension when Hoid came through and declared an insult contest, who would have won? Do you have a backstory for any of Wax and Wayne's code named strategies like "Tube Run" or "Duck Under Clouds" that we never saw in action?

Just use whatever Wax's boots are made of. Those things don't split out even when he weighs enough to crush paving stones. There's definitely stuff a Skimmer could do with a bunch of Breath, but running around on legs or ropes while weighing thousands of pounds isn't a particularly efficient use of Feruchemy anyway. It seems like the Set in general and not just Edwarn were not very good with Feruchemy, where fighters will tap strength and just lumber around rather than only tapping in bursts like we see Wax use his weight. Doc Ock throws around people and cars without weighing as much as a truck by using his other arms to brace himself or to provide additional torque, not by using his flimsy body as the fulcrum. Reducing the weight on the arms by 100-200 pounds should let them move a bit faster, but what the arms would let you do is move much more nimbly and, well, position yourself for the ultimate finishing move of sitting, stepping, or jumping on someone while tapping several tons, restraining your target if necessary. F- Iron is weird, Wax's body should crush itself or his arms should ripped from his sockets when he taps a lot of weight while standing, but it doesn't, nor does his feet get hurt while crushing stone beneath him. Get some special shoes that have a squat metal spike or blade on the sole, and you should be able to do a lot of damage by landing on someone while tapping weight, probably even to Plate if you're willing to tap a lot of weight to take out the person with the soul-reaping Blade. Before anyone cites Dalinar catching and lifting a chasmfiend as evidence of the loadbearing capacity of a prepared Shardbearer, I'll remind that chasmfiends basically float or fly from a mathematical standpoint due to spren bonds and are not anywhere close to as heavy as their size would suggest. For that matter, while tapping that much weight the Skimmer should be Invested and at least somewhat resistant to Investiture based attacks, like a Windrunner attempting to Lash them or Soulcaster transforming them on contact. Not sure if it would help enough though. A Skimmer Windrunner could be scary and could pull off some flying kicks to punch through buildings, even without Plate.

Maybe you'll see something I missed. I had a similar train of thought and @Treamayne did a fantastic job of collecting references to mercy or Mercy. Yes, Mercy is worrying, and I've wondered if we've seen Mercy's Investiture behind the scenes in some of these things (like how Nightblood really does have Ruin's Investiture in it). There's the whole discussion as to whether or not the Shards themselves are good or evil, and that's separate from the Vessel being evil.

There's a man named Fion among the Set's scientists working under Gave, directly related to Edwarn's eugenics project and near Autonomy's planned entry point for the invading army. How likely is that Fjon, the Derethi priest that mortally wounded Hrathen at the very end of Elantris? We know that the Derethi have learned to alter their appearance to a different ethnicity, and it makes sense that Trell would have loyal safeguards in place. It's also a bit suspiciois that a recognizeable name is tossed out when others remain unnamed in the section it comes up.

Spook's decendants were far more likely to be Allomancers. That was the whole point of the Set's eugenics project, they gathered the women most closely related to Lord Mistborn. That was fundamental to AoL and how the Set knew who to target. I don't buy this. Where is Ruin's Investiture ending up while waiting to be formed into Harmonium if it's as you say? It has to go somewhere after it's burned, even if it's not immediately recycled back to the Shard. Kelsier wrecked Hathsin a single year before Ruin escaped, or if you want to look at Elend's army burning the Trustwarren in what, a day? I'm talking on the scale of hundreds or thousands of years, long enough for Atium crystals to have reformed in the days before the Catacendre. We know that even the slight amount of Investiture that Preservation gave to humanity left it weaker than Ruin, and that's enough to give Sazed trouble 300-350 years after Ascending even accounting for how Ruin tried to decimate the world's population. Giving Lerasium to the entire human populace seems like it should imbalance Harmony even more by the time Era 3 and 4 roll around.

I think there's a very strong parallel between the end of TLM and the end of SH, which kind of implies that Kelsier is remembering the last time Sazed blantantly lied to him - on whether or not he could get a body again. I could see Wax after retiring from being a sword taking great care to not reveal that he became a Mistborn as that is an advantage best kept secret until needed, but Wax does his own thing, and he may avoid even burning metals other than steel lest a Seeker sense him. I wouldn't count on Kelsier learning about Lerasium from him, but I think Kelsier may already know. The problem is that splitting Harmonium into Lerasium and Atium is a horribly inefficient way to get either of those metals as some of the Investiture itself is converted to energy. It's why those Harmonium-Trellium bombs were so powerful. Yes, making Lerasium again is again possible and has important implications, but with Bavadinium not native to Scadrial it won't work for democratizing Metalborn powers. Birthrates would far exceed production rates and it would be extremely expensive to setup the equipment and generator necessary to create the reaction - only for it to be blown up each time. This discovery is not enough to accomplish Kelsier's larger goal of more equitable distribution of powers, but it would probably be enough to tempt him to experiment until he could regain his own powers and enhance the Ghostbloods, larger stated goals notwithstanding. Another possibility is that Lerasium incorporated into the soul of a person stays in that person and their descendants and does not cycle back to Harmony nearly as readily as burned Atium does. It seems like the two times Lerasium is taken or used in SH (which is barely enough points to extrapolate anything), Leras's form lost a noticeable amount of substance. In essence, it seems possible that separating out Lerasium and Atium and then burning Lerasium to strengthen one's own lineage would increase the imbalance between Ruin and Preservation that was introduced when Preservation first put more of his substance into the creation of humanity. Siphoning off the Atium and storing it somewhere like the Trustwarren to try to maintain balance is possible but introduces its own set of terrible risks as Atium is fantastic for stealing powers. Wax becoming a very weak Mistborn may be setup for the first naturally born Mistborn coming from his descendants if he and Steris have any more children (not the main line, Max will likely inherit). Reintroducing Lerasium into the genepool of Scadrial may have far reaching consequences that Kelsier may not yet grasp, as I certainly don't yet, but it has far more implications than distribution of metalborn powers. I don't necessarily think that it's a good idea for Sazed to be hiding as much as he is, but I think I can see reasons for why he is doing what he is doing. It will probably cost him in the long run.

@Letryx13, Brandon has actually addressed the possibility of Shallan assimilating Radiant, and it's not a given. Not an impossibilty, but incorporating alters isn't always healthy. WoB: It could go the way it you said, and that would be pretty cool, I'm just not sure if "rule of cool" will surpass Brandon's desire to not have mental health to have too tidy a progression. As for: Why would Shallan have a gemheart? Even if she did have an internal gemstone, Jezrien trapped in a gem was enough to disrupt the Oathpact that Jezrien's soul degraded and passed to the Beyond. There are theories that Chanarach is Shallan's mother, so there may be Spiritual Realm Connection shenanigans to make Radiant abnormally similar to Chana, particularly since Shallan's drawings already are supernatural, but that would be the extent that I could see.

Let me see if I get the jist of the concept that you're presenting, by rewording it to see if I understand. In essence, the idea is that when a Radiant breaks their oaths and their spren becomes a Deadeye, it's not just the spren that is damaged, it's also the mind, memory, or some other cognitive aspect of the former Radiant? In extension does this explain the Recreance? That seems possible. Here's some WoBs that could support that. My initial response was that I wasn't sure if Brandon would introduce magic symptoms for a real world disorder, but apparently he did just that. I'm not well read at all on disassociate identity disorder (I've only read an article or two online, definitely haven't looked it up in the DSM-5 or talked to a professional), so, I can't say much on there being a definitive event or identifiable cause for her D.I.D.. The first WoB makes me lean towards some of the Radiants at the Recreance may have developed similar problems, but not all of them. It's possible that those who tried to retain a bond with a Deadeye (and may have suffered a lot of screaming) may have had similar issues to Shallan. Brandon is working really hard to deal with D.I.D. respectfully by talking to experts and listening to feedback from readers with D.I.D., so Shallan's D.I.D. becomes relevant to the plot, I'm just not sure how I can discuss it well without - in part because Shallan's life simply has to follow a "personal experience" and doesn't have follow a standard even if such exists, but discussing D.I.D. in a generalized sense would be necessary since we wouldn't be able to predict how Brandon will portray how this disorder will manifest in Shallan's life. It seems... unlikely to me that the entirety of the Radiants who forsook their oaths at the Recreance would suffer the same mental disorder, though it's quite likely that many of them had major trauma from the event. Unless there is a specific magical component that breaks the mind of the Radiant in a way more likely to cause D.I.D.. I find it more likely that the Radiants (you know, people who often had cracked souls) when they gave up their oaths and learned of the state of their closest friend, that many of them had serious and long lasting psychological consequences, but not necessarily D.I.D. specifically. All the articles in the quick search I made noted that D.I.D. is a often a lifelong condition, so I doubt Brandon will make Shallan's D.I.D curable because there looks to be plenty of realistic trauma and not just magical trauma. So... despite Adolin asking Kaladin to research and help Shallan, I doubt that Shallan's D.I.D. will ever fully be cured even if all Deadeyes were to be restored.

What if Hoid is back on Scadrial for the exact same reason that Marsh was poking around Bilming? If he wanted to see if a fused Godmetal, Harmonium, can be split into the component Atium and Lerasium, that could be very important for the larger Cosmere and possibly for future plans. Maybe he wanted to also see if he could get more Atium or Lerasium in the process as well, even though he's had access to them 300+ years ago. Lerasium in general seems could be useful for... whatever his plans are.

I'm basing these questions on some other ideas posed on the TotES board. Ideas like if Taldain's sand is an Aether, and I'll be making a couple steps as if that were true. > Spores are meant to be taken to the stars and Zephyr will serve as emergency oxygen. Will spore bullets be a generally commercial solution to Invested healing? Bullets that are relatively inert until they puncture flesh and then grow explosively, constantly draining blood could give even Wayne or a Kandra a bad day. Verdant, Zephyr, Crimson, and Sunlight all seem really bad for the digestion and complexion, either exploding, cooking, piercing, or binding the target. A big chunk of Rosite in the gut, far too big for the entrance wound could give healers a lot of disomfort until they could remove the chunk as well. >Let's assume that Taldain sand is an Aether. Sand Mastery in general seems like a hassle to use off world, BUT what if Sand Masters don't only control sand, what if they control any Aether, breaking them free from a Prime Aether? I'm no expert but this seems like something Autonomy might be able to do, and may have intentionally built a group to oppose the Aethers. > Related to this, what if Bavadin wasn't only making a group of Sand Masters but also an ecology resistant to Aethers in the form of Terken sandlings? Terken disrupts Sand Mastery, and the can be used to coat weapons, armor, and even bodies. What if this disruptive effect extended to other Aethers? On a side note, sandlings would be a potent invasive species on Lumar, particularly if they could subsist on spores. >Next thought is if Over Mastery for Sand Masters as a method for increasing the number of Luhel bonds would work for an Aetherbound. Not much to add to this, simply something to watch for. Basically this would be a really cool way to make Taldain relevant once Aethers enter the scene which they are starting to. Bavadin is definitely setup as another antagonistic Shard Most of this assumes that one Aether they were confused about in TotES is Taldain sand and is in fact an Aether (or functions enough like an Aether that Sand Masters can control Aethers). Thoughts? If I've reposted someone else's idea, I apologize.

Thanks @Tamriel Wolfsbaine, @Underwater_Worldhopper, and @therunner for addressing my concern. It's a good reminder of the different reasons people come to the forums - like Tamriel who likes watching the way some minds think and seeing the in-depth thought that goes into the little details sometimes poking good-natured fun at alder24 who often will engage with people on even the little things. It's a good reminder that some people simply pop in and read an article, not because they necessarily want to contribute, but because they want to see brilliant minds processing an intricate supernatural system. I should say that I'm not referring just to this thread but more to general observations over the last couple of years (5 AM brain may have chosen to post my soap box on this thread because I figured there may be a "selection process" in that the people who read to the end of the technical debate in this thread were more likely to also engage in such a thread. Not sure if that was a good idea or not yet). Heated threads like that one on the Mistborn forum are the most visible signs of a problem, but it seems like I've seen a lot of threads where some of the more verbose and prolific longtime Sharders are in a full debate and another person adds in a small thought, often with less than 30-50 posts total on the Shard, and it barely gets acknowledged if not outright ignored as the other Sharders continue their debate. I can understand why this can happen with no intent to dismiss - it's a recurring joke that someone will start typing a response to a post and 5 people will have posted before they finish. With tagging, the forum will jump you to the post that tagged you, so it literally skips the rest of the conversation. I get this, and I get how and why it happens, but I worry this dismissal of new ideas and new people to be a much quieter problem to the health of the community. I haven't come up with any testable method of checking - because if someone left, they won't add in any input, creating a survivorship bias in my testing pool. Nor am I sure that asking some of the more brilliant minds to reign themselves in would be good - some people come just to read the sheer breadth of knowledge that is on display (often for many the reason they find Sanderson's books fascinating in the first place). I don't have good solutions, I'm just voicing a concern, one that I worry that people who leave would never say. In the same way that in a forum with only written text and no body language or facial expressions it can be easy to misinterpret the tone of someone's words, it is also difficult to see when someone metaphorically leaves the room or forum because they felt dismissed. There's plenty of other reasons to leave a forum as well - too busy, loss of interest, etc., but it sometimes feels like there's a lot of what could be taken as dismissal. It's a separate but related concern, but I worry we jump to analysis and dissection too early and stunt any brainstorming that was meant as brainstorming, not a hypothesis or theory to be tried with Occam's Razor. This isn't to say to let demonstrably wrong ideas slide, but there's a lot of conjecture on what can or can't be done with Invested arts that have never been seen on page together. This thread asked for that conjecture, but you are way more confident on how Aetherbound work than I am, and I've read AoN. It's also possible that I'm just overreacting when I see something that could be potentially harmful. I was a sanitation and safety supervisor for an university right when COVID broke out and I'm pretty sure some members of my team thought I was stuffy and paranoid. I totally am that person that reads OSHA manuals (U.S. Occupational Health and Safety) and writes my own safety literature for my team. And yes, the Knight's Radiant quiz puts me as a Windrunner, so if those mighty worrier (not a misspelling) tendencies are too much or too early, then I'll reign them in. Hoo. Okay. Now that I know that everyone on this thread is fine with how it has gone, then let's get back into it. I'm not sure if I would go so far with that SotD2 concept. Another possible limitation I could see is perhaps Plate and spren in general having issues off Roshar the same way that a lack of an Investiture field on Scadrial meant that TwinSoul's Roseite had limitations and needed more constant replenishment of Investiture or water or else it would crumble. If Plate and summoning a Blade needed ambient Investiture or an external Investiture source to persist or provide strength enhancement, we wouldn't be able to tell just yet because no one has gotten Shardblade or Plate off world yet. If Shardplate ends up drawing a lot of power off Roshar, then it becomes an economics and resource challenge to deploy it. It may even explain why we haven't seen Design off-world or in the PR, even though Hoid certainly has gotten around. I'll also note that Shardplate and Shardblades as far as I can tell haven't demonstrated significant differences in power based on the size of the object manifested by the Spren. In fact we know that the physical mass of the object itself changes, not simply becoming more or less dense as volume changes. Plate resizes to fit the wearer and you can go from a Shardfork all the way up to Oathbringer and it still works. You would think Investiture density would be the main factor, but apparently it's the actual mass of the Blade manifested that helps break through Shardplate. See: Which brings me back to catching or otherwise slowing the Blade without resorting to the material itself having to resist a Shardblade's field of vaporization.

@Underwater_Worldhopper, this is my point, durability of Roseite is a single property. The finesse that Roseite can be utilized is directly relevant to besting a Shardbearer. Being able to grow or move sections of Roseite on any portion of the Roseite structure is a major trait that Shardplate does not have (or at least not that we've ever seen practiced). Also... the OP specifically makes Twinsoul the Roseite combatant. Why does the exact number of spren in Shardplate matter again and does it warrant its own thread? Also we know that spren in Shardplate are fundamentally Connected to one another. Dead suits of Plate exist and by feeding a large chunk of armor Stormlight you can regrow the whole suit - even if someone has another piece they are giving Stormlight it will crumble away. Yes they can exist and be worn as separate pieces but the whole suit Cognitively and perhaps in other ways is considered as a whole. Also... were we really arguing over a copyediting error in the English text when one of the readers is from Poland? Soap box warning:

It may depend on what the person considers their native tongue, or may even be related to how they think. Susebron certainly couldn't speak, but he could understand the spoken word and may think in spoken Hallendren. There's been studies on the modality of thought based on whether a deaf person thinks in words or visualizes signs. A child born hearing and then becomes deaf may still think in the spoken language whereas a child born deaf may think in terms of signs or lip reading. It varies. So for the Godkings who are mute but not deaf, it may be more complicated than what their first outward communications is. It may be related to how they think or comprehend the world, and they may not be able to sign to Awaken because they think in spoken Hallendren. Since Returned are transformed to a perfected state with no memories it's a pretty solid system if most would consider the spoken word their native language.

I dunno. I've read over this and there's some assumptions being made. First, does Rosite qualify as alive? Shardblades behave differently when cutting through living vs nonliving matter, and we haven't seen Shardblades cut a living Invested material anywhere close to the durability of Rosite. We see Kaladin stab a Enlightened spren with Syl as a dagger but it doesn't say if the edge fuzzes or not, so I'm not sure if Spren qualify as living or not and could be used as a baseline. I assume Verdant would count as living, but I'm not sure about Rosite. Next is the assumption that someone with Prasanva's obvious finesse with Rosite would just duke it out with a Shardbearer, which seems unlikely to me. His golem served to protect from fire arms and probably to intimidate. When fighting a Shardbearer he may be able to open and close fissures in his golem to catch a Shardblade rather than just tank a hit, possibly more. He also will know far, far more about Plate, Blades, and Radiants as a Ghostblood than the vast majority of Shardbearers will know about Aethers. This isn't to say that he will win, but the dude has enough skill to make and maintain prescription glasses for himself, which is an absurd level of precision from someone not in a machinist's shop. As for highly Invested materials shattering I have a couple ideas. Idea one, in both cases of Plate and Halfshards this may be a property of Rosharan spren manifesting as Tanavastium or an alloy designed for its hardness. Taravangian implied it uses a Radiant spren, but that could also include Plate spren rather than Truespren, which so far is logicspren, creationspren, windspren, gloryspren, and more, which may not be as disturbing to the Stormfather and be in a similar category as other fabrials. Shattering instead of deforming may just be a property of that specific Godmetal in the same way that Bavadinium is extremely hard and does not melt under even extreme temperatures but Harmonium will and is about as maleable as gold. Alternately, densely Invested materials when they try overwhelm each other shatter rather than deform because the Investiture is specifically trying to resist the other Investiture due to differing Intent or Identity. It's kind of like how tensing your muscles can reduce how much an impact hurts or resist getting pushed around - unless the impact is so strong it just breaks bone and tears muscles and ligaments. Because the Investiture is specifically trying to resist the other Investiture's influence, it "tenses" and becomes more brittle, and thus explodes because it is power under tension. I'm probably not using quite the right phrasing but I hope the concept is understandable. On a related note when Kelsier Ascends he describes the power resisting for a few moments before "breaking" and flooding into him. As for Halfshard shields versus other armor they won't grant strength enhancement like Plate will. Heavy armor that doesn't let you move as nimbly as a Shardbearer is exactly what you don't want. Even if they were to make armor, they wouldn't be able to get the seamless design of Plate and would be vulnerable to well aimed spear or sword thrusts into chinks and joints that soldiers are specifically trained to do to circumvent armor. A shield may just be the current best use for the design and for the express use of defending against Shardblades.

Move off Roshar. At present Shardblades are localized to a single system in the Cosmere. Same reason I would move off Threnody. If you can't leave Roshar, then move to Shadesmar. Shardblades aren't summonable in the CR. Honorblades might be summonable, but there's only 10 of those, and you're probably dead anyway if any of their wielders comes after you (except maybe Moash as he's blind now, but even then he'd have to find you). If you have to live on Roshar in the PR, live in a house with an anti-Radiant suppressor fabrial and an anti-Stormlight sound system and aluminum walls. Should probably work for everything except maybe 4th or 5th order Knights, and if that kind of opponent is after you, well you're hosed anyway unless you are a similar power level. Tanking hits from a Shardblade is my absolute last choice. F-Steel, A-Pewter, A-Tin, A-Bendalloy, Lifesense, Aon Tia, basically anything that lets you avoid the confrontation, escape, or dodge. Alternately get a hold of whatever Dawnshard that Hoid had which is the source of his immortality and presumably why he wasn't fussed when Jasnah pulled Ivory on him at the end of WoR. Depends on if you are fine with accepting Hoid's restrictions in exchange for Shardblades becoming trivial.

Here's a few considerations: First, it's unlikely that Sixteen is Yomen or any Obligator from TFE, since Shallan would certainly have noticed ministry eye tattoos. As close as she was and with Shallan's attention to detail, I wouldn't be surprised if she could spot makeup and may have even be looking for makeup. Unless we also assume that they've learned how to remove tattoos, but that seems like too many layers of obfuscation. We know that a Hemalurgic spike would drive most Radiant spren away, at least most would balk at the idea of bonding a Hemalurgist. Do we know if this is the case when the Hemalurgist and spren are both in Shadesmar? The Honorspren sensing something off about a Hemalurgist and barring them from their city, seems similarly plausible to the spren needing to be in a state where they could form the Nahel bond with a person before they could sense the Hemalurgic spike. I'm assuming if the Ghostbloods hadn't been able to sneak anybody in to Lasting Integrity (assuming Mraise wasn't lying) then a known Hemalurgist would need a very good letter of recommendation to get in. As for a Seeker detecting Shallan, that could be complicated. Shallan has learned to suppress her Stormlight's glow, and I assume that would reduce its detectability in other ways as well. Even Vasher with his Divine Breath can suppress it to the point that he appears as a drab to someone of the Third Heightening, which is one down from Perfect Lifesense. If the Honorspren have any Invested defenses or emit a detectable pulse (as Treamayne pointed out, Vasher could sense Syl via Lifesense), then that could drown out quieter Investiture, or be loud enough that most Allomancers wouldn't leave their Bronze running. Basically I don't think Shallan getting the jump on Sixteen means they definitively aren't a Bronze burner. I don't know. With Felt around on Roshar it doesn't feel like we can narrow too much down. Scadrian doesn't mean not Seventeenth Shard, Silverlight, or an agent of some other organization with relatively unknown tech, though they weren't using Connection to translate whatever they shouted at Shallan. Could be Walin, the survivor of Hathsin that gets a single viewpoint chapter when Kelsier breaks a Perpendicularity. Could be a random associate of Felt. Who knows. I think a Hemalurgist is slightly less likely but still explainable.

It depends so much on what world I'm living in. If this is on Roshar, then I am probably also enlisting for the war effort. The Orders that deal with self-mastery would probably change the least between societies, but the ones that specifically deal with societal support will change based on the society and world that the Radiant lives in. Oaths as a Windrunner or Skybreaker in a modern society could be really ethically complicated. Oaths of a Edgedancer to listen when social media exists could be a nightmare for me. I'll have to think about that. Multiple Order's Oaths are hard to keep, but you only need 2nd or 3rd Oath to get all the Surges offered. 2 sets of Plate, while awesome, probably isn't significantly better than 1.

That's debatable to me, though we haven't had many Shard viewpoints. I agree about Rayse's foreknowledge regarding other Vessels and particularly his knowledge of what it took to kill Adonalsium. I suspect that Rayse had a unique ability or position that made him indispensible for the Shattering otherwise the others would have worked reaaaaally hard to not give him access to this much power, since they seem to have known what kind of man he was.

By the time WoK comes around Dalinar had stopped running plateau assaults, and pretty much only went on them to encourage teamwork among the Highprinces. The point wasn't to become the best functioning army among the Highprinces, but to specifically have them all start working together as a cohesive army. He had started worrying more about the state of Alethkar and would have happily packed up and went home if it wasn't for his oath to support the Vengeance Pact, and got in trouble for suggesting as much to Elhokar. His goals had developed from his first years on the Shattered Plains and instead were about uniting the Highprinces, bolstering Elhokar's position as king (with mixed results), and eventually returning to support Alethkar. The plateau runs for Dalinar became the means to accomplishing these goals, joint runs to force the Highprinces to work together, winning the war being a prerequisite to going home to Alethkar. Hence once he was seriously committed to ending the war, he marched as many of the Highprinces out as would follow in an extended assault and slaughtered the Parshendi while they summoned the Everstorm. There were other factors, but I agree with @ftl, the bridge crews wouldn't have helped his primary goals. Racing other Highprinces, even Sadeas, would have been putting support into the competition, rather than unification. @alder24's points are spot on for the conditions for the start of the war, and follows tactics that Dalinar proposed when they first came to the Shattered Plains, but it misses that Dalinar felt that a war of attrition was no longer acceptible and that they needed a faster end so they could go back home.

One possibility I can see is that the Heralds had their "respawn" points designated at one of the 10 kingdoms with Oathgates, considering it looks like Taln was revived outside Alethkar (at least I'm assuming that was when he was resurrected since he was dripping wet in the same way that a Shardblade drips after being summoned). They were meant to defend and protect the kingdoms, training the people, and Oathgates would let them travel to the other kingdoms quickly if necessary regardless of their respective Surges. It would make sense that historically the most dangerous soldiers on Roshar, the Alethi, was the city that Taln always trained first at the beginning of a Desolation.

No, they don't. It was in VenDell's recruitment powerpoint presentation in BoM, at least theoretically. If a Feruchemist were to blank their own Identity they would be able to use another Feruchemist's metalminds regardless of Identity locking. This was glazed over because it only allowed for a single person to do spectacular things like many Twinborn, whereas they were more focused on potential technology that could make anyone a Feruchemist. I'm paraphrasing since I listen to audiobooks.

The only explanation we get on how security phrases work is a little bit of Vasher's thought process as he Awakens a squirrel and from Denth talking to Vivenna, and we know Denth lies to Vivenna about Awakening. Lightsong uses security phrases but he could have information kept from him as easily as Vivenna, though Llarimar wouldn't lie to him. My reading on security phrases is that they are a backdoor given to the Breaths at the instant of the initial Awakening that is perhaps as fundamental as the initial Command of the Lifeless to "live at my Command and my word". The security phrases makes the Awakened entity impressionable to new Commands, nothing about forcibly breaking a previous Command. The difficulty of giving new orders for Vasher had no relation to the torture involving Breaths that Lightsong's priests did to the squirrel to break its Command and instill a new security phrase. Basically I think we've made assumptions about security phrases and Brandon has enough wiggle room to do a lot with them. It's a what-if because even if Returned and Nightblood had security phrases, that would only ever be relevant if Endowment or another decided to divulge the information. It's of no general application. Awakened objects could end up serving pretty cool roles in city infrastructure, particularly if they could be utilized but not easily stolen. No saying that Nalthis would do this, but there's lots of reasons to trust someone with your Awakened stuff but not actually give them your Breaths. If a security phrase on a Type 4 entity let you iterate through different versions of a Command, that could be really valuable and could help them become more prevalent.