We haven’t seen any of the Shard but it’s name, but Invention sounds good to me.

That’s a really interesting question, and it brings up another one. How did each Vessel decide which one to take? I don’t know if I could devote millennia to a single Intent. As we’ve seen in the books, holding a Shard takes a toll on the Vessels. In Secret History, we can really see how far gone Preservation was by the end of his life. Honor was in a similar state near the end of his life, and we haven’t even seen very much of that point in Roshar’s history. It’s been shown that when someone holds a Shard, it slowly consumes them until the Intent takes control. I’m curious to see how Sazed handles both Ruin and Preservation. It’s been hinted that sometime in the future of Mistborn, Harmony will turn to Discord as Sazed faces the internal struggle of holding two shards with seemingly opposite Intents.

I guess this is just a long way of saying I don’t know which Shard I would want, and that I probably wouldn’t want to take any of them.

Working as an engineer, I’ve gotta go with Invention. We’ve seen so little of it but the name, but it’s the only one of the 16 I’ve heard of that I think I could mesh well enough with.

I’m not sure what a modified Invention would look like, but I would try to take it down a wacky Rube Goldberg path. Everybody on the planet has to make pointless gadgets to help them take of their slippers at night kind of Invention.

I think Cultivation has to be the best one. Maybe Invention for similar reasons. Your Intent just drives you to make sure things grow and change. You can have any additional motives beyond those, and I think most won’t be an issue. The only drawback I could see is that maybe your Intent would lead you to Cultivating a new vessel for your shard, as being held by the same person forever doesn’t work. I think that’s what Lift is, and I’m interested to find out if a Vessel can willingly part with a Shard.

I would pick Cultivation.