therunner

Same could be said about Dalinar and anti-Investiture. And unlike Ghostbloods (who have to get Trellium god knows how), Dalinar can create Investiture on demand. No, Endowment was involved in creation of Nightblood, so Susebron cannot do that. At most he can create 30ish of Awakened Swords like Azure has, and those are vastly less powerful, more on the level of Deadeye Shardblade. Highly likely Nightblood is unique, and no sword like him will be created again, unless Shard gets involved.

I kinda disagree? I'll take it step by step If. That does a lot there. That version of Kelsier, who never ended up in pits, who never had to see Mare killed before his eyes, that I could see being a good father. But that is not who Kelsier had become. Vin was sixteen, and abused for basically her entire life. She is not in good position to recognize who could be abusive or not. And yes Kel would have let her go, but not just because he would be nice, but because he cannot keep unfriendly Mistborn hostage. He straight up lied! About most the plan! He had no idea if the metal would work or not and lied about that (that lie almost got Vin killed and only the fact she is chosen of Preservation saved her). He literally used Vin to get spy within Noble circles (with her consent mind you). He lied to them multiple times and don't get me started on what he did to his soldiers in the caves. Kind of fair. No, she taught herself that. That is basically what her entire arc in WoA is, learning to trust and to be happy and to believe. She does that alone. No, he wanted vengeance first, create better world second. Were it not for Preservation, his plan would get every Skaa within Luthadel killed, Vin included. Kelsier got lucky. Fair. Though I would say that how Kal is repeatedly shown to draw people together, and to make nice functional 'families' out of them counts for something. Contrast with Kel, and his influence, e.g. Ghostbloods. If he is available in person, he can keep things in check, but ultimately his methods and his ways are corrosive on people around him. I love Kelsier, he is probably my favorite character, but the dude is not a good person. He could have been, and still can, but he is too goal oriented, and cares little for collateral damage.

Fair point. Though Dalinar can literally do the same, and in far easier way. Fair enough. Cultivation has intervened 3 times in the last ~8000 years or so? Sure, that we know off, but she is still quite hands off by Shard standards. Endowment, Honor, Odium, Autonomy, Ruin and Preservation all seem to be more involved than she ever was (based on what we know). So among the Shards we have actually seen, she is the least active. Though now she is overtaken by Harmony. The thread name 'most dangerous individual'. I mean not exactly, Kelsier was possibly being nudged along by Preservation, and the only reason TLR got killed was because of Preservation empowering Vin. Without Preservation's influence, Kelsier would have failed like everyone before him. There were charismatic leaders before, Kelsier simply happened to be the right person in the right time. Between the two, TLR would be the more dangerous then Kelsier, and by far.

Yep, I stand by it. Kelsier is basically a sociopath albeit quite high functioning one. If Vin did not have powers he found useful, he would not have bothered with her. He constantly manipulates people around him (even Vin!), and exploits them for his own plans. He would be quite bad father I think. Kaladin does not care about that, and cares quite freely about others, which is kind of what you want in father figure. He would need a bit more time to mature, however based on SA5 chapters, he seems to be in quite good place. If anything it is both. Kaladin would not have broken like he did were it not for weeks of torture, and he would not have lashed out as violently. Too bad he has gotten over that particular hangup in RoW So no, this tactic would not work.

I don't think that would scale. If to heal spiked out spiritweb consumes enough Investiture that it would be lot for Miles, I would wager it is in realm of multiple years worth of storage. And since multiple people cannot store into the same metalmind, that means you would need to wait years to get enough Investiture. Sure, this could be parallelized, but it still requires you to pay someone to be in devastatingly bad health for years. And you need to keep them alive! Additionally, Medallions are more limited compared to 'natural' powers. We see this on Roshar, where Honorblades are unable to heal Spiritweb damage. Considering that Medallions work on similar principles, there is a strong possibility that Medallion could not heal spiritweb damage, and only someone who is naturally Gold Ferring could heal themselves like that.

I don't think it will be used that much to be honest, at least not legally. At the end of the day, Hemalurgy always requires forcible mutilation of soul of some person, and spiking anything but powers causes physical changes in recipient (in all cases we have seen). I don't think that would be possible. Per the stack of WoBs, even Miles would have to have a lot of healing stored, and if it is a lot for Miles, a compounder, then regular Feruchemists have no hope of having enough healing to do so.

Most likely no. All information Kelsier has from Roshar is via Ghostbloods, and possibly some from Gavilar (since he knows about Thaidakar). Neither of these know about Ishar and his experiments. They could possibly learn about it via some other spies they have in Urithiru, but considering Shallan was their main source of more confidential information, and she no longer cooperates, they have limited ways of learning about it.

Cause we know relatively little about them in other context. And Drinking contest: Kaladin (Stormlight for the win) Best father: Kaladin again (after 4th Oath) Because he still sees Moash as friend, and as I mentioned, he was by that point tortured for weeks. And again, that was Moash who killed Roshone, and Kaladin lost Stormlight in that moment. Neither of the two situations you mention are replicable on command. Kal can at least remove him from PR, and Kel can do literally nothing to Kal. Also, Shardblade would cause some damage even to CS, though it might not be enough to kill them. We know spren and seons would not like if Shardblade was swung through them, and Fused try to avoid Shardblade as well, and they do have healing which Kelsier does not. I would say Kal. Longer legs as you say, and he was running bridges for months. That alone is more conditioning than Kelsier ever had.

The OP asks for most ;dangerous' individual, where dangerous means capable of large scale damage. Ishar due to his madness is relatively locally focused, and not really able to affect large change. Only reason he rules Tukar and Shinovar is that they worship Heralds, and he happens to be one. But opinions may vary of course. No, that is right now. It is the reason why Odium deals with him, why Dalinar can propose Contenst of Champions. He is bonded to the largest remnant of Honor, that has been merged with CS of Tanavast, this is what makes him special even among Bondsmiths. Individually dangerous. One is isolations (Frost), one is Shard that seems to 'nudge' things at most and otherwise stays hands off (Koravellium Avast), and So 2/3 are seemingly not interested in affecting things, and the last one does so only in very limited fashion (possibly due to Intent). Again, individually dangerous, is the question posed in OP Per OP: "Dangerous in this context isn't how strong they are in a fight, it is more so about how much harm they could cause on a wide scale. " No there are not. There is Iyatil, Mraize, and few other agents. However, considering how Rosharan branch operates, a lot of those are not full Ghostblood members, more catpaws. I mean, Shallan was not yet Ghostblood, despite how important things she was handling. They seem to be active on 4-5 worlds (based on what is said in TLM), so even if they have ~20 agents on each world, they are barely a hundred of them. Do they have one? They could be organized democratically, like Fused are for all we know. Sorry about that I merely disputed why some would not make sense, considering the conditions in OP (individually dangerous, where dangerous is how much harm they can cause on large scale). Edit: @Quantus Yes. He can be accidentally dangerous and quite a lot, but if he actually was as smart as he thinks himself, he would be faar more dangerous in my opinion. Fool can ef-things up, but genius can purposefully break things far more effectively. Good argument. Nightblood required Shardic intervention it seems, so most likely you could not replicate it.

Willful misunderstanding of the point of OP is not a good argument You mean, watch Kal slaughter him in seconds? We saw what happened to Pursuer in RoW, and he would have no reason not to lash out immediately at Kel. And he would not be worn down by a year of war and weeks of siege and torturous visions, not your usual conditions. With Atium he can survive a bit longer, but it won't let him try anything that would achieve anything meaningful.

Ishar is also insane and not very effective (at the moment). Nightblood is powerless unless wielded, and to kill a Vessel required quite unique combination of events. I don't think he can do much large scale harm, he is at the end of the a sword, albeit one-hit kill one. Rashek is one man with a lot of personally dangerous powers, but he is still just one guy, and with some limitations (e.g. needs metalminds which can be taken away by properly utiliized Invested Art). Yep, though I would say his position as 'stand-in' for Honor is what makes him more dangerous than just being a Bondsmith. Hoid is quite dangerous when he wants, but he is not as smart as he thinks he is, as evidenced by RoW. But he is up-there when it comes to dangerousness, if he decides to actually try for something. Dragons seem non-interventions, so they would not pose much danger. How dangerous they would be is a question. Avatars are sort of minor Shard, less power, but more leevay in how to use it (possibly). He can have about 50 000 Lifeless if he uses up all his Breath. Not that large an army in grand scheme of things. Per WoB barely enough Atium to stay alive, he cannot do much with it. And even then, Atium would not make him that influential. Not that big, based on what we see in SA and TLM, it has maybe a few dozen members, if that. Organization, not individual. And a Change dawnshard at that, that could lead to some 'fun' if properly powered.

I did The setting is 'Win', and if it is a straight up contest, then Kaladin wins basically 10/10, even on 3rd Oath, as I already specified at the start of my post. Then I just elaborated on the sole situation where Kelsier can 'win', for given value of win.

But then the verb is 'be' modified in some way. So the Command in question is 'Be', modified to what exactly it is to do. Sort of like 'Change' can Command people/things to various ends, based on how you use it.

Fight? Kaladin, especially now with Plate. Already on 3rd Oath there would be little Kelsier could to kill Kaladin, and with Plate, Kelsier stands basically no chance. I mean, emotional Allomancy cannot effect him, Steel/Iron are at most barely able to crack Plate with Duralumin only, A-Pewter is inferior in every aspect to Stormlight+Plate, A-Chromium will start draining Plate first and requires physical touch (also known as Shardblade range). And this is without even considering what Surges allow Kaladin to do, like negate Steel/Iron offense completely via Reverse Lashing, ability to disarm Kelsier (again Reverse Lashing), fly with far greater precision and speed, possibly create gusts of wind (if end of RoW can be generalized). The only way Kel can kill Kaladin is via ambush, when Kaladin does not have any spheres nearby. And he must kill him fast enough that Kaladin cannot summon Plate. Basically, Kel wins only if Kaladin cannot use his powers.

Reverse Lashing effect only what Windrunners Intends it to, e.g. in this case Seer themselves. Pebbles, dirt on ground, that will behave as if Reverse Lashing was not there, since it is not intended to effect it. We see it in RoW. The Seer would have nothing to react to, since Seer does not see their own shadow. (wonder how that works with their clothing and weapons, are they considered part of Seer for this purpose?) If the Seers are spread apart far enough they cannot encircle them, then also Seers cannot help each other. If Seers are too far to help each other, 4 (or few more) Windrunners can encircle individual Seers (same tactics as when encircling larger group, drop around them in some distance, spread Full Lashing from you to deny escape). This is a slow work, but even if you need 10 Windrunners for encircling single Seer, it could be done. And once encircled, Seers legs will soon be glued via Full Lashing to ground, and then they can be killed via variety of methods I have already detailed earlier in thread (since they can no longer dodge attacks to their legs, and they physically cannot block more than 2 attacks at once (they lack weapons and shield, as those would be ripped from them via Reverse Lashing).

No, the mechanism will be more complicated at scale (or should be) If you just naively scale it up, then vast majority of both trellium and harmonium won't react with each other, so it will go to waste. Blown away from the reaction site by the nascent explosion. And Sazed literally says he has not idea what can or cannot happen, so his word is meanginless. They were granted a lot of knowledge by Autonomy, and they could not scale them up (which was something they explicilty had to figure out on their own). And as @cometaryorbit pointed out, rockets pre-date nuclear weapons by a decade or so. Germany had rockets with ~320 km of range by 1944, Set cannot even create ones with more than 30 km or so? If Set cannot really properly utilize rocket engineering, they are hopelessly out of their depths when it comes to engineering properly functioning nuclear weapons, they are order of magnitude more complex.

Problem is that their previous test were on completely different scale. They were doing underground testing basically right under a city, the bombs they tested would have been barely a kiloton in range, if that even. To try and extend those results into something that would have been tens of megatons is frankly laughable. The dynamics will be very different there. And Set scientist cannot even figure out a rocket, I doubt they can do any estimates of scaling of nuclear explosions, especially since they have no clue about underlying dynamics.

He also suggested the bomb setting atmosphere ablaze, and that is obviously impossible. None of the people in TLM (and Shard apparently) have any idea of what they are talking about with any certainty, and their worries echo IRL worries prior to first atomic bomb tests. I really don't see any reason to think any anti-matter reaction are happening, when all the machanism etc. are clearly meant to parallel atomic bombs. Neither Set, nor Telsin have any idea of how the bomb works, except that it does. They don't have theory of relativity yet, nor any realmatic understanding of the mechanism beyond the explosion. They are just guessing.

It is direct conversion in atomic bombs. What Sazed describes is exactly what happen in normal nuclear bombs, no anti-matter reaction needed. Anti-matter bombs are only more efficient then nuclear bombs, that is all. Scadrial has 'easy' access to technology for Investiture powered nuclear bombs, Roshar has ability to create anti-Investiture (and notably is the first to actually do so since Shattering, per Ars Arcanum). Nothing in TLM suggests that Scadrial has recreated anti-Investiture, since that would be quite notable achievement. Sazed also literally says he has no idea what he is talking about to be fair, which you also note. And compared to IRL bombs, there is also Investiture component to consider, and these are God metals. Also, he never says the bomb would destroy Elendel and Bilming at the same time, if I recall right.

Yeah, and 100 bullets passing near you would make it impossible to dodge in vast majority of cases. No. Per WoB these kinds of tactics (relying on things atium does not show you) is viable (https://wob.coppermind.net/events/100/#e9038). Remember that Kelsier is still someone who know basically nothing about realmatics, and Seers fight only Koloss who have no abilities. And the 'transcending the Physical Realm' can be also explained just by the very nature of how Atium works (Fortune). Atium is only ever shown to provide user with information on physical stimuli, the sole exception (possibly) being Duralumin Atium, which is not achievable for Seers. And even then, some things you cannot avoid, like Emotional Allomancy or being Soulcast, or being affected by Reverse Lashing (which has aoe in tens of meters, beyond how far you could move in a second). Why? Atium shows shadows of physical objects, nothing else. Seers don't see atium shadows of gravity or Steellines of opponent or areas under effect of copper, why would they see field of effect of reverse lashing? Hell, they don't even see atium shadow of gases, purely physical thing. Exactly, she was using future knowledge of the Seer against them. Something anyone can do, so anyone can do it, not just someone with future knowledge of their own. All you need is knowledge how atium works (showing you future shadows of others and letting you react to that), nothing else. Sure, most would not be able to pull it off, but in principle it is possible, and requires no Invested art. If they don't stand close together, then Squires can pick them off one by one. Seers see 1 second into the future, so if they are far enough apart, they cannot react in time to protect others. But if they are too close, they can be encircled. And since 50 squires can encircle ~800 square meters easily, I doubt Seers can be far enough to not be encircled and at the same time close enough to assist one another. Simply put, it is a trade off, either they are close enough to help each other, or they are far enough to not be encircled. Herding is relatively easy I would say, especially since you don't really require much skill with Gravitation (no fancy maneuvering or anything). Create a large group around the Seers, and coat the ground in Full Lashing , with some head start in the direction Seers are moving in. It is possible it would require multiple maneuvers, but you could restrict their movements, and there is nothing Seers can do about it. They run in one direction, Squires coat it in Full Lashing. Seers change direction, another group coats ground in front of them in Full lashing and so on. Edit: @Duxredux If we are allowing such high levels of knowledge, no Radiant will let Seer get close to them. If they start apart, Radiant can keep their distance always, since thanks to Stormlight they have better physical abilities. And some Orders would be able to stop Seers from touching them (Division, Adhesion, Abrasion, Transportation at least).

Yeah that is roughly what I am thinking as well. Though I would say that mounted machine gun that can fire 100 rounds per second would be too much for Seer. I broadly agree with this, though I would also add powers that are not visible in PR would also work (e.g. stun through A-duralumin Rioting and Soothing combo, Reverse Lashing them into a weapon, etc.). Also, Vin proves that you don't need future knowledge of your own, if you can train yourself to only react to Seer. Then you will start splitting your Atium shadows. How replicable that feat is, is open question though. I think equal numbers would work in favor of Windrunners here, simply because you need less people to encircle someone. N people standing on boundary of a circle can keep watch over basically 1/4*N^2 people (for low N there would be corrections on order of N though), roughly speaking. 50 Windrunners could then comfortably encircle about ~600 people, even when those people stand relatively freely (1 m^2 per person). And since all Windrunners have to do is establish perimeter once, that is relatively easy task, as I have discussed previously.

Yeah, monopoly on Invested Arts would be an issue. I guess my point is that while such law could be created, you cannot be certain Skybreakers would enforce it, due their Oaths and specifics of their Orders. Nale's Skybreakers definitely would though, however they are not necessarily the best example. Indeed.

Yeah, but those are not punishable by death are they? Death is far too steep. I mean, even IRL most of the countries already abolished death penalty on moral grounds, so most people considering it immoral by definition. I would agree with your assertion if punishment for 'unregistered' Surgebinding was not death, but e.g. imprisonment, possibly removal of powers via Bondsmith. To me, even indefinite imprisonment unless they work for you is too much, that is too close to slavery for comfort. I said immortal as in undying, not immoral. So I do worry about it, because Earth has no one like that to maintain cohesion (and who is their main religious figure on top of that)! They can follow a law or a code. Since pirate code or mafia code is enough, those would definitely allow for assassination. Hell, there were assassin orders who had codes of their own, those could prove sufficient as well. No, that is just interpretation of Skybreakers under Nale. The actual words of the 2nd Ideal saying nothing about following laws that are in effect: This is the ideal where they adhere to some particular code system or law system, that guides their understanding of justice. But it does not mean they have to follow laws of wherever they are. Not all Skybreakers are as extreme cases as Szeth is. Sure, he does not trust himself at all, but that does not mean all Skybreakers don't. Some might simply see it that while personal morals are fallible, external code is more reliable guide. And importantly, Szeth has extremely strong sense of morality, but at the same time also extremely strong adherence to laws and social rules. That is why he went insane, on one hand laws and social rules demanded he is Truthless and so he should not make decisions and just obey, on the other hand his morality was telling him that what he is doing is wrong, and he hated it. We can consider his understanding flawed, but that is the purpose of Oaths, to guide Radiants in personal growth. In Skybreaker case, balancing obeying a system of rules or a person with their own morals. I mean, look at the description of them from Brandon: So per him, Skybreakers attract people who have strong moral codes of their own, not those who don't trust their own morality. And Skybreakers should understand that law is not perfect, so plausibly some Skybreakers could challenge laws, by e.g. campaigning to have them reformed, or choosing not to enforce them.

But why would Skybreakers choose to follow such a law? Current crop is quite fanatical at following letter of the law, however the vision Dalinar has of Nale shows him to be someone who emphasized that law should be motivated morally. What morals are there for law punishing Surgebinding with death? Sure, some Skybreakers might choose to follow, but many more would not. And unlike Roshar, in this scenario Skybreakers would not have the advantage of immortal leader, and of being the only ones knowing what is going on.

It does feel like something that would be quite noticable. On the other hand, primary effect of Tin is to improve sense, and due to savantism you must burn Tin to just function as regular human. Similarly, primary effect of Pewter is improved strength, and other assorted physical improvements which are however more minor. So I would expect that Pewter savant has to burn Pewter at least on low burn just to be at baseline human level. Hence they would be weaker, tire more easily, would be clumsier and more sensitive, when not burning Pewter.