Qianweilian

Given this strategy comboed with preferably a squad of hazekillers armored with aluminum trained to work together, I think we can knock down the required # of hazekillers. For convenience, I'm going to call these doug rounds, as they allow even the average Doug to take down a Radiant. Also House Venture employed hazekillers and Douglas Venture exists. My analysis

Thanks. Anyway, I had more ideas. You could modify one of Ranette's shrapnel rounds and fill it with blackbane and aluminum dust. We know that aluminum in a wound interferes with healing it, (see below) so it would be difficult to resolve it. The blackbane, although it's effectiveness would probably be reduced, would induce paralysis that would be hard to deal with as long as the aluminum exists in the wound. It being a bullet allows our hazekillers to break through shardplate (eventually, see below) without getting painfully close to their shardblade.

For Rosharans, I think blackbane would be more effective. Although, it might be harder to make into gas. Other than soulcasting, hazekillers could probably use it in darts to try and drain their Stormlight (not applicable for 4th+ ideal).

Oh no, yeah, you're right. But we do know pipes exist on Scadrial.

In his Slowswift persona in HoA, he smokes a pipe. I don't have a source other than the coppermind, as I don't have access to the book rn.

I mean, do you count soulcasters as "allowed" fabrials? They aren't too different from medallions.

I personally would count it as anything obtainable by the average person (ignoring money, connections, etc.) that doesn't invest said hazekiller (permanently), though of course it is a subjective metric. It's fine if you don't consider medallions, but they are actually technically fabrials (according to inworld arcanists). Was there a mechanical device that controlled the Shaod? Brandon Sanderson Something's going on there, I'm not gonna dig too deeply into that. I'm gonna RAFO that. Continue your theorizing however you'd like. That is not where I expected that question to go. Adam Horne Do you wanna say where you were expecting it to go? Brandon Sanderson No, I mean... The medallions in Mistborn would be considered fabrials by most arcanists, once the era that they are aware of these things is all happening. That's an awkward way to say it. In future era cosmere, the scholars would point and say, "oh yeah, there were some early fabrials happening on Scadrial at that time." That's the terminology they would use. Footnote: The Coppermind excerpt referenced in this question is based on a 2017 WoB YouTube Spoiler Stream 4 (June 16, 2022)

We might not see Mistborn on paper again. Marsh, Wax, Hoid, and (kinda) Kelsier are the only mistborn left.

Those look interesting, but you can see lines of them, which to me, make it look like they are scrolls. Hemalurgy as a whole feels less useful to Hoid as he cannot harm others.

His name is Frost, and he is a dragon like Cultivation.

https://coppermind.net/wiki/Category:Characters Look at "s"

They don't actually really do this in TFE. In fact, they overthrow and kill the only god that they (except Sazed) knew of. Even though it was in accordance with Leras's plan, they had no knowledge of it. This mostly happens in WaT, but these decisions come from a different place than TFE. As can be seen in WaT, Dalinar worships neither Odium, Cultivation, nor Honor. He doesn't consider any of them to be "God," even though he does consider them to be "gods."

We know that the tempation to not throw the ring into Mt. Doom is unbearable. Frodo couldn't throw the ring in despite only having it for about a year. Also, the ring was fairly dormant when Bilbo had it. The comparison makes sense, at least for book-Denethor. Vin is very suspicious of Kelsier, his plan, and his crew from the beginning. Kelsier's plan essentially revolved around destroying the unsuspecting Great Houses with espionage and distracting the Garrison. Without immediately taking the center of power (Luthadel), they would have been crushed by the Garrison and TLR's koloss armies. Vin only had a significantly dangerous/intensive role because of how the plan went wrong. The only job the plan gave her is attending balls. The plan to destroy the ring never affected Denethor at all. If they hadn't decided to destroy the ring, much of it would have played out the same. (for Denethor)

That wasn't why Luke turned off his computer. He heard Obi-Wan's voice telling him to trust the force, and Luke very much considers Obi-Wan as a reliable source. He was acting on information he believed credible, which I think is rational. The Jedi Order in the prequels was destroyed very soon after the Jedi enter the war and he know that their capability to use the force had diminished, so it makes sense that they were less able to perform a task like this. Most of the unexpected things in LOTR were pretty negative and harmed the plan or were unrelated. The original plan with the fellowship was sound and even though: Elrond still accepted the plan. The sole significantly positive unexpected thing that directly happened was probably the use of Gollum as a guide. Bro, I can't believe you just spoiled a 46 year old movie. The 0.1% of the population who don't know will be very upset. I don't actually know what we're arguing about anymore. How reckless Kelsier's plan (which is was extremely so) doesn't really have that much to do with a hypothetical invasion and enslavement of the entire Scadrian population, and considering the same for the Fellowship of the Ring and Luke's targeting computer shananigans even less.

I would argue he does grow some. Not much, but some. He does eventually accept Elend and the fact that all the nobles aren't evil tyrants. He still manipulates people the same however, he does have psychopathic tendencies and doesn't care for life nearly as much as he would have you believe.

Really? It would be fairly easy to disappear said children. No one counts the skaa. Even if they were placed as a noble, it would be fairly easy for the Steel Ministry to fabricate records. Even if everyone knew this child's ancestry, then the memory would vanish within a generation unless they created a new Great House. Unless the Lord Mistborn knew his the Bands of Mourning worked and how they were drained. He was older than 15 when the Catacendre occurred, then ruled a 100 years after as the Lord Mistborn, and then stepped down. Civilization was built up from the ground and he lived to (at least) 115? Spook clearly had some source of longevity and we know he was working with Kelsier, so he probably had access to them. I think it could tie some things together.

What I'm assuming is a more recent relation. I should have been clearer about the level of familiarity I thought was plausible. Spook is a very powerful allomancer. While a lot of his ability is from his savantism, he was Club's best tineye (autocorrected to ribeye) even before Kelsier died and he became a savant. As I mentioned in the original post, Clubs probably is too.

We know the grandfather can't be TLR (probably great grandfather or older) because we have it confirmed that we haven't met any of his children and Margel is onscreen in HoA.

There's always another secret. Theory is as stated in the title, specifically through Margel, Spook's mother. First let's start off with the assumption that Rashek has had children, which is confirmed by a couple of WoBs. This at least presents the possibility that Spook is related to TLR, but I still have more evidence. The RAFOs on seeming innocent questions suggest that some big knowledge about Rashek is yet to be revealed. We know that Allomancy runs in Spooks family, with his uncle being a coppercloud and possibly more empowered relatives: Continuing the Allomantic side of things, we know that many Inquisitors were able to pierce copperclouds (see below), yet Clubs' (Spook's uncle) coppercloud is never penetrated throughout TFE. Spook is also Clubs' "best" tineye, which feels odd considering how Tin merely enhances senses. It feels like most of them would have approximately equal abilities. It would make sense that they would have a higher level of ability than regular mistings, suggesting a powerful ancestor. (Perhaps the most powerful mistborn ever...) Of course, most of this evidence is fairly circumstantial, not indicative of anything by itself. Now, I'd like to make a genetic argument. Spook and TLR share many physical traits. TLR is tall, dark (haired), and handsome. Spook is also thin and tall, even at 14. We also know that most Terris are tall and thin, if Spook has some Terris heritage, it would explain his build. Most of this is relatively minor in and out of itself, but they all add together in an interesting way. There's a lot we don't know about Spook, from his time with gangs (learning what is now High Imperial), to his time with Clubs, and most importantly, after the Catacendre.

It actually might not be. Allomancy isn't Lerasium's primary effect. I agree with you here and I don't think the use of spren in fabrials is a big moral issue.

They might not have known how; we know Odium got more experienced at shattering shards as he went on, stuff like Devotion/Dominion and Ambition were messy. How do you see the approach of being solely a helping hand and letting people deal with problems as significantly different from that of the Abrahamic God? I see a lot of the challenges in the world today as things that can help us learn and grow so we can all be saved.

Aren't there still some random microstates in the Azish Empire that weren't ever mentioned? When's the last time Alm or Desh was ever mentioned?

Yes, there probably is, as the universe is so big that there almost assuredly is, assuming BS's universe follows the same rules. But, I sincerely doubt he will introduce or even discuss much outside of the Cosmere in any sort of Cosmere material.

You're welcome.

My position, maybe overstated, is that the philosophy in the books is shallow. Opinions can certainly vary on that, and if someone finds more of that in the books than I do I respect it. The issue is that we're talking about the moral state accomplished by a Shard's direct control (still underdefined, but we can probably continue to do passably well without nailing it down). The OP's assertion that we are evaluating is whether or not a morally excellent, benevolent Shard's direct control will result in better ethical states than any other possible arrangement. Upthread you suggested that Cultivation is not doing this as much as she ought to, with the assumptions made in the OP, which makes this comment confusing to me-- if less interventionist Shards still count as equally dominating as a micromanaging, constantly intervening Shard then I start to lose track of what we're talking about. It seems like a shift from earlier discussion, maybe I'm not thinking of it from the right angle. Its origins don't matter much to its use as a moral dilemma. It's not a thought experiment, it's a vehicle for thinking about what defines goodness in a framework of action, inaction, and constrained outcomes. The emergency room triage example I provided should abolish any doubt about the legitimacy of the dilemma or its ability to be related to concrete situations. I absolutely agree that ethical decisions are not tidily reducible. But if we aren't able to compare ethical states to one another then how can the question in the OP be evaluated or approached? The rub in this is that the end states described in the OP (the direct results of the Shard's direct intervention) are asserted to lead to more-than-alternatives-can-produce happiness and human flourishing, else they wouldn't be the things the Shard pursues. To my initial (maybe incorrect) reading the things the Shard enforces are presented as inseparable from the "true" ends. If the connection between those is weakened (to account for variation in human behaviors, uneven participation in the conditions the Shard enacts, or other things) then would we not have to question the value of the Shard's direct, constant intervention? If human happiness and flourishing is the end we value, why is it unacceptable to consider whether or not maximal Shardic control (or the methods which achieve it) cuts against those things? I didn't say that Shardic intervention is inherently immoral, I stated that there are ways of thinking about these topics which suggest that domination may itself be undesirable, have unethical qualities along with anything else they produce, be unable to produce specific outcomes or states, or otherwise introduce complications which detract from the goal in the OP. I gave a specific example of this when asked, the bedridden world case, which accomplishes every state described as "good" in the OP while maximizing the use of unique abilities of a Shard as well as direct Shardic intervention. That is, I described a situation in which a Shard could intervene as much as possible, in ways no non-Shard could, to achieve the things the OP lays out as desirable, but is not necessarily better than the states achievable by other agents. As the question is whether or not it is certainly better to live under Shardic domination this seems to me to be exactly relevant: it is not, as scenarios like this one are possible and valid under the assumptions but are not better. I think I've been pretty forward in sharing my thoughts and disagreements, and the reasons for them, with the assertion presented in the OP and have spent considerable time and effort to express those in good faith and engage honestly in discussion. I'm not copping out on anything, and my reticence to get into specifics is because I have suspected you will dismiss them out of hand or decline to evaluate them in the context in which they were given, which was the case here ("obviously I don't mean that"). This is one of the reasons I perceive so much circularity in the original question and the considerations you've presented around it: specific examples which are problematic to the premise are discounted by appealing to abstraction, and in the process define out anything besides the premise itself. That may not be an accurate description (maybe things are being lost in translation or I am otherwise just not getting it), but it is sincere. In any case I'm not sure there's much to be gained from continuing in this thread (me, that is, there are robust discussions with others still underway). I do not see that constant, direct intervention by a morally excellent and benevolent Shardic tyrant is necessarily better at achieving ethically desirable states (or the underdefined "human flourishing") than any other possible arrangement-- Taravnagian is not right. After a good deal of back and forth I am more convinced of this than before, and find the arguments for the assertion in the OP to be weaker and less convincing than at the outset. It's fine for anyone to disagree with that conclusion. Hey, I think you duplicated this. Edit: I have no idea why the text bunches up in the middle.