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I listened to the audio again and fixed some small mistakes. Seems like I overheard a he'd or confused it with he's. Sorry And I finally finished the the transcription of the third signing in Leipzig (the first at the book fair). Here you go:

Edit: re-reading HoA and it occurred to me that Vin and Elend are the most epic party crashers. (Yomen's ball in Fadrex)

Just passed the 40,000 word mark! (I always seem to pass these milestones mid-sentence, so I miss it until I look down and realize—oh yeah, there it went. This time, I managed to catch it as I passed it. )

I went birding this morning and I have photos! Pied-billed Grebe fighting to swallow a fish bigger than his head: Yellow-headed Blackbird making an unholy racket: Better (but not as funny) photo of Yellow-headed Blackbirds looking for dropped seeds beneath a feeder: Chubby cute Eurasian Collared Dove: Killdeer hunkered down in the gravel, showing me its butt: Same Killdeer no longer mooning me: Eared Grebe:

Ok, I can finally get back and make myself be active again XD. Here are my thoughts on the following players. Think of this post as making up for me being inactive. You guys better appreciate the amount of time I spent on this! Purple Elim, Bue Village. Arinian - Alrin Jondesu - Remarts Elenion - Roger Elariel Drake Marshall - Serray Randuir - Magister Agemtsar Magestar - David Agemtsar Herowannabe - Herwynbe Yitzi2 - Garshin Metacognition Silverblade5 - Ryth Arraenae - Rhea TheMightyLopen - Sidon little wilson - Willie Klara Iamspartacus - Astrid the Bold Ornstein - Winkleton Araris Valerian - Wol OmeGaster - Rieyun Kipper - Elenion Bugsy - Jelwynd Figberts - Quond Mark IV - The Follower Manukos - Reval Aonar Faileas - Vana Izenry Ecthelion - Amnar *blinks blearily. --------------------------- Conversion and a snap. *sigh, May the odds be ever in our favour...XD, it's a little status quo right now... Ha. Highlighted it cos of those spaces in front of the commas that were triggering me XD. Here's what I got. Ofralllilluminationrwhichnhumanrreason cansgive,snoneaisrcomparablelto therdiscoverylof whatrwenare,roursroles,sour loyalties,awhatrfeatslofrtrickerynwe arercapablesof,sandawhatrwe willldorinnorderrtosdrive thesspikedaout hmm. EDITED. 13 "r"s 8 "s"s 6 "l"s 4 "n"s 4 "a"s . . Someone check if I counted that stuff right. I'm slightly delirious so someone check over this and see if I made any mistakes, and perhaps work something out using what I found heh. Storms I'm too tired now, I will analyse this turn's posts and do some RP in the morning perhaps. Good night.

My (personal) opinion on Reckoners VS The Cosmere Novels: A Series Part One Question: What did you accomplish in your first novel? Spoilers for almost everything Cosmere + Reckoners (Reckoners, Mistborn, Secret History, Way of Kings, Elantris)

So, I'm gonna be trying out for drum major in...about 11 days. I'm not ready at all, and my application is do next Monday. I'm really excited and I hope I can get to Phase II of the audition process, but you never know I guess.

Ironman is a Windrunner in Shardplate. I mean, he even has a glowing energy source (Stormlight-infused gemstone?) in his breastplate. Also, he has a spren (JARVIS). Maybe we will finally get to see his Shardblade in the Ironman 4 movie.

I'm going to have fun with this.... It can be. For example, if a person has played a number of games and every time they're good, they take the game fairly seriously and don't joke around, but then they make many jokes when they're evil, joking would be considered a tell. A very obvious tell and one that should be easily fixed, but a tell nonetheless. Context is everything. Anyone of any alignment can say exactly that. Confident villagers with nothing to lose can (and do) say things like this. Eliminators who want to get villagers second-guessing themselves and potentially remove votes on them can also very easily say things exactly like that (and they have). Using the "You always mislynch me" excuse as a reason for your alignment is a ridiculous reason to give. See, eventually, a lynch will come along that isn't a mislynch, and if you use this exact reasoning every time you're up for the lynch, then that time when you're actually evil and you're up for the lynched, you'll do it again, guaranteed. So forgive me if these words mean nothing to me. The only way it would mean something is if a specific player or players have a habit of finding you suspicious when both parties are village. But it doesn't look like that's the case here. The same people might be involved to some degree or another, but they're not the reason for you being mislynched consistently. You don't know Maill because he's on a mission now, but whenever Maill and I were in a game and we were both village, I very frequently would cause his death because I found him suspicious. This happened more often than not, and it became a sort of running joke between us. In a case like that, one could easily go "Sigh. You did this same thing in these specific games, in which we were both village as well. If you're village this time, you might want to take a step back and look at the facts again." But anyway, you seem to take pride in the fact that your playstyle changes from game to game and people can't get a read on you. Which is fine. That's great. But you can't really be surprised, given that you so readily change from game to game, that people find different reasons to be suspicious of you. Because of this, you can't really say "You can't read me" because that's your entire point. You are intentionally making it hard to read you, so why even bring up the fact that people can't read you? It becomes non-alignment indicative at that point and therefore the point is moot. It can be, yes. But I would actually say that it depends on both the playstyle change and the person exhibiting that change. People learn as they play and make mistakes, and playstyles naturally shift as you play more. That's just a fact. Not only this, but there are also players who are like you and mix up their playstyle from game-to-game, never reusing a previous one exactly as they have in the past. Consistently inconsistent. With those players, a playstyle shift is non-alignment indicative. Then you have the players who are cognizant of how they play as village and can mimic their village playstyle with a fair bit of accuracy. With those players, looking for a playstyle shift will get you nowhere because there is no playstyle shift. So, sure, looking for shifts can help find eliminators. But you should rarely, if ever, lynch someone based solely on a playstyle shift, though it does depend on the exact shift and the amount of evidence you've accrued to support the shift being a tell. Playstyle changes, in and of themselves, are not alignment-indicative. Again, this just means you can't use your playstyle as a reasoning for your alignment because it's not alignment-indicative. If you wanted it to be, you wouldn't be consistently inconsistent. I don't care how consistently inconsistent players played in past games where they village. I care how they are playing now, because that's all that matters. I don't think anyone was saying that. Even when I pointed out that your words were contradictory back on Night 1, I wasn't saying I found you suspicious. On the contrary, I was nearly certain you were a Rioter, and were therefore not the Inquisitor. Contradicting yourself is merely a reason to look at a person closer, to decide if the contradiction is of malicious intent or not. That's all. There's no "hypothetical" about it. The only question is if that's your motivation. Eliminators don't like being accused for incorrect reasons. They generally dislike false positives. If you are going to accuse them, have the facts right. This is based not only on my own personal experience of being an eliminator, but also on many other people I've talked to and on eliminator docs that I have read. False positives are annoying. No hypothetical needed. From a certain viewpoint, a D1 lynch for this specific game is a bad idea. I would say that the only acceptable reason for a D1 lynch in a game like this, with only a single starting eliminator, is for momentum, as Aman brought up on D1. You didn't feel informed enough to vote, so instead of using your time to catch up on the thread and become informed so you could vote and therefore support the stance you were taking in thread, you instead used your time to write multiple posts in the last couple of hours of the cycle to tell others to vote. Right. Yes, villagers don't always want to get their hands dirty. But when villagers don't want to get their hands dirty, they usually don't pressure all the other villagers to do something they themselves aren't willing to do. And actually, in my experience, when a villager is sold on the idea that a lynch needs to happen, they're actually more willing to vote with a lynch they might not personally agree with completely, merely because they want to ensure that a lynch does happen, and isn't messed up due to vote manipulation. You see, had the Rioter not Rioted, and had one of the Soothers soothed one of the votes off Sart, it would've been a tie. No lynch. I can't count the number of times I've seen people throw a vote on a lynch in the last hour or even the last 5 or 10 minutes of the cycle to put someone far enough ahead to protect from vote manipulation. And most of the time, those people voting last minute are villagers. So you're saying that you strongly supported a lynch but didn't feel informed enough to vote doesn't fly for me. As for the villagers wanting to preserve themselves....Death is something that just happens in these games. A villager who avoids doing something they believe in merely because it might kill them later on and they don't want to die is a useless villager. If all the villagers did that, the eliminators would win every time. If one is a villager, one is basically ensured not to have malicious intent towards the village. Therefore, if one accrues suspicion for one's actions, all you should have to do is explain why you did what you did, and even if other villagers don't necessarily agree with you, if your reasons seem genuine to the action, then it should be fine. Obviously, mislynches can still happen even if one is doing that, but when that happens, it gives the villagers involved in the lynch a better read on one's personal village motivations, if they don't match up with the norm. I'll take you on your word for that, though it doesn't change my thoughts about it, since a person can be sleep-deprived, in bad health, annoyed, and also be an eliminator and over-react like that. A villager can as well. Your RL things are non-alignment indicative. Yes, it is. I'm aware. It's actually not even a factor in my suspicions of you, for the sole reason that it is an IKYK and therefore trying to guess at it is useless. The only reason I even brought it up was because everyone up to that point had been suggesting that the Inquisitor killed Dalinar to place suspicion on you, and that's not necessarily what happened. There are other explanations for the Dalinar kill, but at the end of the day, we don't know why Dalinar died. He said so little. It could've been to place suspicion on you. It could've been because you're the Inquisitor and he was fixated on you. It could've been because he told the Inquisitor in a PM that he was a Misting. It could've been because he said so little so his death would give us no information on the Inquisitor. We don't know, so speculating in a way that actually affects a persons thoughts on different players is pointless. Great. That means I was doing my job in that game, mimicking my village playstyle. Excellent. Thanks for the affirmation. Also, my laying low wasn't because of my alignment. It was because I said I wasn't going to devote as much time to the games, and I was making a distinct effort to force myself from spending too much time on that game despite my being evil in it. I guarantee that had I wanted to be active, I would've been active. You're right: this is my first vote this game. It's also only the third day of the game, and on the D1, I was against a lynch, and D2, I was busy. I missed over half of that day, and only got caught up about an hour or two before the cycle ended, and I could tell an inactive would be lynched and therefore there wasn't any point for me to get involved. It was too late to do anything, and I didn't feel the need to vote when Drought had a 5 vote lead. So yeah, I'm voting on cycle 3. How is that similar to AG3? In AG3, I'm pretty sure I voted in almost every single cycle. I didn't back-up DA's suspicions. DA's comments on you made me rethink my thoughts on you, and I had more to add, so I did. I can't be blamed for any bandwagon and to say that the bandwagon afterwards is my fault is ludicrous. Can no one add their own thoughts to another person's suspicions without being seen as inherently suspicious for doing just that? I'm not in cahoots with DA. It's for that exact reason that I would be a terrible convert right now. Because I'm expected to be converted. I'm also expected to be seeked (and I have it on reasonable authority that there is a Seeker in this game, or at least someone who claims to be a Seeker. Whether they are actually the Inquisitor or not remains to be seen). Converting me also has the added risk of not knowing my current role. If I'm regular, no worries for the Inquisitor, but if I'm a Misting, I guarantee you that I would've set up some way to confirm my ability to those who know my role (of which there would be multiple). Converting me is a huge risk. And as I said, I don't care to devote as much time to the games as I used to, so having me as the first (or second) convert wouldn't be as much of a boost as it would've 6 months ago. I'm not going to be on the doc strategizing every second of free time I have. I'm fairly minimalist in docs now, compared to my former activity. But my saying that doesn't help, because I'd say it regardless of it I'd been converted or not. Also, why can't we resolve this with Bronze? Let's say hypothetically that I were converted. The spike only has a 50% chance of taking. If it did, sure, I'd be a Smoker, and I could smoke myself, but a person who ends up smoked to a seek should be watched closer, particularly in this case. If the spike didn't take, then I'm wide open to a seeking. I see no reason why Bronze can't get involved in this. I'm not one single whit worried about a seek, because I can tell you exactly what it will find, and it won't be a Spiked anything. I'm pretty sure Aonar isn't the Inquisitor, though he could've been converted last night. One of Aonar's biggest alignment tells is PM activity. He wasn't terribly active in the thread in LG28, but he was pretty active in PMs and out of the 3 people I was working with in PMs, he was by far the one I trusted most. He's been fairly active in PMs again this time around, and he was being helpful as well, hence why I rather think he's not the Inquisitor. But he hasn't had much of anything to say so far today in PMs (though I haven't tried to talk to him either) so yeah. May have been converted, but he just as easily might not have been. And then you never voted. To me, it looked like you were voting on Ecth because you thought he was the Rioter and you didn't like him accusing you. Why vote on someone you think is a villager? I think it strange Randuir mentioned that, because denying it is the only thing you could do, no matter what. If you are the Rioter, the Inquisitor would kill you. If you aren't the Rioter, you can't claim Rioter because then the real Rioter would know you were lying and would tell someone about it. If you're village in that situation, you're casting suspicion on yourself needlessly, and if you're the Inquisitor in that situation, you've basically just revealed yourself to someone, and even if that person is killed, once they die and are revealed to have been telling the truth about being a Rioter, you're done-for. You denying it tells us nothing. Yes. In standard games, this is true. In this specific game, that's less true. Killing an eliminator is highly unlikely to happen in a D1 lynch in a game with only one starting eliminator. Getting information is also negligible, since, again, there's only one starting eliminator. The useful information you gain in D1 in a game like this is stuff that doesn't relate to D1 lynches. It's thoughts about other players, and opinions about different strategies and stuff that aren't strictly relevant to D1. In other games, D1 lynches can be used to get information through ties to other players, but that's not a factor here because there was only one eliminator. And since you're so intent that a D1 lynch was crucial in this game, I think I'll ask you at the end of the game what information one could've gleaned from this D1 lynch that would've been useful and relevant for later in the game. Have fun making something up, because if you're not the Inquisitor I highly highly doubt there's anything there. Sigh. I almost miss my long posts. Not enough to bring them back though. This was a one-off. I also want to make it clear that I'm not convinced of Drake's being the Inquisitor. He might well not be. But none of his arguments can be seen strictly from a village-mindset and a fair number of them are actually rather contradictory to how villagers usually act, which doesn't really tell us anything about his current alignment, since that's his intent. He could just as easily be evil as he could be village since there's no Drake-tell that helps one way or the other. But that's fine, because I don't need past-game analysis to find things done in this game suspicious, and based on what he's done, he's the person I'm most suspicious of.

That was the perfect chance to quote Shallan XD

~WTNV, episode 105

1. Word search is not any kind of evidence, but wishful thinking. Laws of probability indicate it's most likely a chance. Conjunction fallacy. 2. The fact that there is a WoB saying there's a shard in space, does not mean Ambition is not, the more that it is on Sel, on which we know were 2 shards. This is exactly the kind of logical errors I'm talking about. A is not B B is C Therefore A is not C. cats are not dogs dogs are mammals therefore cats are not mammals Association fallacy. 3. "Wild guesses" refered to Kel taking up Autonomy and Devotion wich was based on no evidence on your side. 4. How is pointing someones errors hateful? You made several fallacies, you can't argue if your logic is lacking. I see no point in discussion if the proposition is flawed. You ignored Dominion completely, you jumped to conclusions multiple times. I have nothing against you personally, man, I don't know you. I have a lot against your arguments because some of them are invalid.

The essay indicates that something is happening on Sel that they don't understand, not necessarily that there is some other entity. In any case "Something with origins lost in time." does not sound like how Khriss would describe a shard considering they don't have origins lost in time to her, judging by how well she's managed to document them.

No way. A metal to store poop in. What would you do when it gets full... And imagine being a compounder... you know what? I'm going to stop thinking about that right now because just no

So an incredible thought just occurred to me. What if Kelsier were to take up to power of Ambition? Yes Ambition was mortally wounded and Splintered, but we don't know if this Splintering was done in a 'permanent' way that Odium seems to be able to do. If Ambition fled after their battle with Odium and the power was splintered some other way, that power could coalesce later and be taken up by someone else. Kelsier is already a Sliver, and has been the vessel of a Shard before (albeit temporarily). He also is very interested in understanding more about the Cosmere as a whole since his introduction to the extended universe in Secret History. If the power of Ambition were to be brought together again, Kelsier would be the perfect vessel for it, i think the Intent fits his nature almost perfectly, and would put him in an incredible position to not only learn about the Cosmere, but to meddle as he is so fond of doing. What do we all think?

Brandon was at the Leipzig book fair on Friday, March 24th and Saturday 25th. There were three readings, three Q & A and four signings, which gave us some opportunities for interesting questions, and we got some meaty WoBs. All announced transcriptions are there now. Big thanks to all of you who went to the signing lines and asked those interesting questions, and special thanks to @She Who Cannot Be Named and @mr42 for transcribing! Reading Leipzig Friday, 24.3.2017 - Schille Theater - Signings (transcribed by @She Who Cannot Be Named) Saturday morning: Q+A during the event and signing afterwards (no writing tipps) (transcribed by @She Who Cannot Be Named) Saturday afternoon: (transcribed by @mr42)

Thank you, everyone in the Shard, for helping my life go just a little better every day.

Oh gawd. Hawkido. I'm not saying you didn't put a lot of effort in your research. I am saying that because of your methods, your conclusion is unlikely. From statistic point of view. And you're taking it as an axiom, even though there's plenty contradictory arguments presented by others. Pointing logical errors is not rude, I'm not attacking YOU. Pointing errors is a part of discussion. The proper way to react to that would be to try to avoid them in the future. That being said, I will no longer replay to this thread, I got too tired with it. Good luck.

I used to be the only one in the class to use a laptop, so when making a test I always used a symbol font (the impossible to read ones) and then converted it back to normal when handing in the test. I don't think anybody ever cheated by watching my screen .

I'm into (in to? I don't know either) lots of things these days. The main ones are playing/making/listening to music, reading, and writing. Music is a fairly new passion to me. I joined band in 6th grade and got put on the clarinet. I wasn't very good at first, and I didn't truly take it very seriously until...I can't exactly remember when, but it was going into high school as marching season started. Something just clicked with me. I really truly care about band, and I love playing my instrument (well instruments, because I play bass clarinet as well now). I'm not sure what exactly sparked this passion in me, I think it might've been my band director of one of the drum majors (who happened to be our tenor sax soloist), but ever since then, I've known exactly what I want to do with my life. I want to go on to be become a band director. As well, on the side I've begun to listen to and create electronic music. I create music using this app called Auxy, which makes it really easy to just plug in notes until a melody forms and then I just go from there. My only problem with that is that I seem to run out of inspiration to finish a song, and the longest song I've made so far is just a little over two minutes. Besides that, my tastes in music to listen to are widely varied. While I don't mind the pop stuff, I don't really like it all that much (except for a few songs), though they can be quite catchy. Like the music I make, I listen to electronic music, ranging from dubstep to house to trance. Alongside that, I also really enjoy listening to classical and modern orchestral music-a whole lot different from electronic music. As well, I love listening to DCI shows just for the music (but it's so much better with the visual too), which is absolutely amazing. I really like to read. Over the past 6-7 years, I think I've read well over 200 books. I just love reading, and I haven't really found a book I didn't like in some way, except for the really advanced, boring stuff (I once read a book for English in 6th grade where I didn't understand every third word). Of course, I've found book that truly outshine others (such as Brandon Sanderson's), and I've noticed flaws in others, but I've never hated a book before. I just think too much work and effort goes into a book, so there's no way I'd ever be able to bring myself to absolutely hate a book. Writing has always been something I've really enjoyed, but teachers have always made it so boring and just not fun for me. I can come up with good ideas, or at least I hope they're good, but I have a hard time getting those ideas out on paper. For awhile, I tried to ignore writing and focus just on music (which I love), but I can't seem to ever escape writing. I just love it too much, and I want to get these amazing worlds I've created in my head onto paper. While I want to be a band director, the idea of also writing on the side is really enticing.

Inside? You imply there is an outside. What is this mythical place you have implied like? Perhaps I will find it someday...

I just buoy myself through both vastly exaggerated dreams of grandeur and a fear of the deep shame that will follow me if I quit right now.

Just wanted to add this before someone else posts something.

@Hawkido this is frustrating, did you skip all the other my points or Spool's one ? We have implicit mentions of this. But it seems to me you will continue to say we have no counterproof until someone could provide an explic wob "Ambition isn't on Sel". It's like to say that Dockson had to be an Durallumin Misting only because we don't have an explicit counterproof

The whole use of ambition in SA seems to be entirely independent of any indication of the shard since we have confirmation that there are only three shards there. Also, regarding your idea that Ambition is on Sel, Khriss states in the AU essay on Sel that it is dishardic. Considering that she is aware of Ambition's splintering and has investigated the spread of it investiture, I doubt she would label Sel as such if a significant portion of Ambition's investiture rested there. Furthermore, there is more evidence that no evidence of Ambition or its influence has been seen before 2009, at which point only Elantris, Mistborn Era 1, and Warbreaker's online drafts had been released. See this WoB from the 2008 Hero of Ages Q&A Based on what we learned afterwards, it's thought that the two interacted with directly are Devotion and Endowment, as their voices were heard by respective characters. The one we've not met but seen the power would be Dominion, as its power is spread throughout Sel in the Dor, and its power would then be seen in all the uses of power which we saw in Elantris. The last then we don't learn about until Way of Kings, but it seems to be indicating Odium. His influence on Sel is seen by the existence of the Dor, as he is the one who created it. Therefore, there isn't any room for Ambition, and a more likely explanation for the usage of ambition in Elantris is that it is simply the best word to use for that context, not some extremely vague reference to a shard.

@Hawkido I don't understand how could you read all I wrote to you, with the references and say "there are not counterexample". I think I can't explain the Cognitive Shadow's status better than I already did in the previous post, but just to make it clear again: - Wax,Szeth,the new Azish's emperor, Jasnah (and probably other characther who recived Healing after their death and are restored to life) are NOT Cognitive Shadow and be a Cognitive Shadow is not a temporarily thing. Now returning to something I could actually expand, the Ambition and Sel: - Sel is a Dishardic Shardworld, this mean there are two Shards on it (Khriss's essay on Selish System) and they are Devotion and Dominion - We know all the magic systems on Sel are actually sub-region expression of the same magic system fueled by D&D - All the WoB I explicity provided in my previous reply explain how the Wyrm and Fjordel are influenced by Dominion. All this things together removes all the possibility for Ambition to be on Sel and this is without touch the Realmatic Side. If we considerate that side too, there are still other proofs. PS: notice also that simply searching the reference to a word to find a Shard is something really useless also if we don't have explicit counterproofs

Day 76 Day 85 coming soon!

Let's make this an even playing field: the armies of Roshar and the armies of Scadrial are somehow fighting over a third world (so no highstorms, and no ash or mists). TLR sends his full armies with a few inquisitors and Mistborn. Lots of allomancers join the fray for money and power (but no Feruchemists, as they are hiding). TLR is OP, and getting lazy in his old age, so he stays home to ensure the stability of his empire and to watch the Well of Ascension. The peoples of Roshar, seeing a chance at mutual advantage, put together a vast coalition expeditionary force under Alethi leadership. However, there are no radiants yet - just proto-radiants. All the shardbearers of Roshar go. The Heralds are in hiding, and choose to remain so. No Chasmfiends, whitespines or other terrifying creatures are tamed and sent to battle. NUMBERS: Scadrial: There are around 300k Koloss during HOA, so we'll assume that that's how many they have here. There are roughly 20 inquisitors. We'll assume that they send 15, as that seems reasonable (the other 5 would be back home doing their duties) Cett and Yomen between them raised some 100,000 in one dominance. Let's assume TLR can do the same in every dominance, and so he sends 500k footsoldiers. We don't know how many Allomancers there were in TFE era. However, I'd estimate that, assuming TLR advertises an opportunity for wealth and advancement, there will be a sizeable component of Mistings, and maybe 5-15 mistborn? Total: 500k Skaa soldiers, 300k Koloss, 15 Inquistors, 10 Mistborn, and an uncertain number of Noble mistings. Roshar: We know that the Alethi had an army of 100k deployed at all times on the shattered plains. Seeing how much fighting was going on at home, how they're surrounded by hostile kingdoms, we can assume the Alethi would be able to muster at least 50k more troops for an expedition. We can assume from in text references that Jah Keved has a similar force, so another 150k. Jah Keved and Alethkar make up around a third of Roshar, but they are also the most militaristic nations by far. Thus 300k between them, and another 400k from the rest of Roshar seems reasonable. There are around 100 shardbearers on Roshar at this time as well. MILITARY INFRASTRUCTURE AND TECHNOLOGY: Scadrial: TLR can get skaa to do whatever he wants in terms of raw labour. The final empire has canning, extremely useful for establishing a supply line. Scadrian military technology, however, is purposefully suppressed and simplified. The Scadrians are not militaristic, nor military innovators. This is due to the intentional pacifying influence of TLR. Scadrial has a decent number of horses. Ranged: Scadrial has simple bows, and that's about it. Possible they have composite bows, but seems unlikely. Why would they? Yomen has some trebuchets, so siege weapons are known. Longbows, crossbows, and etc all seem to have been suppressed. Melee: Basics. Spears, swords, hand axes. War staffs? Scadrial just doesn't seem to like weapons. You don't hear of any pikes, halberds, longswords, maces, anything. Shields don't appear to be widely deployed (only Hazekillers and a couple of soldiers in HOA are mentioned as having them. Medical technology: Not terrible, but not great either. Sazed has historical knowledge of medicine, and likely there's some basic field surgery, but no mention is made of antiseptics, antibiotics or proper sterilization. Roshar: Soulcasters. Soulcasters. Soul flipping casters. I'm a history geek, particularly a history of war geek, and frankly, SOULCASTERS. Those things are so insanely useful it's not even funny. Roshar can fight wars almost without a supply line at all, with no risk of running out of ANYTHING. They have as much food, water, metal, leather, EVERYTHING as they need. THIS IS HUGE. HUGE. If you're not a war geek, you have no idea how much of an advantage this is. The only supply line Roshar needs is a line supplying them with fresh gemstones/stormlight. This is a far simpler supply line then anything in history ever. Running gemstones with stormlight to the front is so much easier than running a complete military train it's mind-boggling. Horses, however, are rare on Roshar, and expensive. Ranged: While the Alethi aren't huge lovers of bows, they still have lots of seemingly excellent archers (especially that one highprince...). The Parshendi have composite bows, and the Alethi appear to have good bows of some different kinds. In Dalinars flashback that Brandon posted, there's an archer using what appears to be a heavy longbow. Some Rosharan cultures have a good mix of ranged weapons. Crossbows, however, do not seem to be used at all, AFAIK. Siege weapons are likely well known, but I can't remember them being explicitly mentioned. Melee: The Rosharans LOVE melee weapons and equipment. And they're good at it. They have everything, pikes, long spears, shortspears, halberds, short swords, long swords, maces, battleaxes. You name it, they got it. Furthermore, they also have good access to armour and shields: Alethi spearmen appear to be trained to fight in a manner similar to Grecian Hoplites, as well as later era Macedonian hoplite/pike mixed formations. Medical Technology: Wisdom of the Heralds indeed! Roshar has military medical surgery that's as good as what we had in WWII, if not better. Excellent antiseptics and a good understanding of infection and prevention of infection (if not the causes of infection), excellent sterilization practices. A large number of well trained and equipped field surgeons. MILITARY THEORY, TRAINING, EXPERIENCE AND LEADERSHIP: Scadrial: Not much, frankly. Scadrial has many things, but military experience, theory, and leadership on Scadrial SUCKS. Scadrial hasn't had a proper war in a millenium, and it shows. Military leadership is ineffectual at best. Military theory even worse. The Lord Ruler has done an excellent job of preventing real warfare, and real war experience, to affect his people. The most his armies do is crush the occasional rebellion, and that's usually done by letting the Koloss rampage. Well of Ascension really shows the absolute dearth of military leadership both on the platoon level, the battalion level, and the division level. The leaders and soldiers are completely unprepared for real war. With a core of troops from the old empire, and 'experienced' officers, the defenders of Luthadel are laughably undertrained after over a full year. The best armies of the Lord Ruler simply let the Koloss do 75% of the fighting. They never had to face a superior foe, or even an evenly matched fight. Likely they'd never been in a position where it seemed likely that they'd lose. The troops, even veterans like Clubs, haven't experienced real war. Roshar: Odium reigns. Which has had an interesting side-effect, Roshar is at war with itself ALL THE TIME. Large scale, small scale, everywhere in between scale. Roshar is filled with generals, captains, squadleaders. Thousands upon thousands of experienced Officers and NCO's, hardened veterans with battle training and excellent military theory. Roshar's armies are filled to the brim with highly trained, well prepared and well led veterans. At least half, if not more of their forces are disciplined troops who can follow orders, hold their ground, and have faced terrifying odds before. People who aren't at their first rodeo. With hardened, brilliant generals like Dalinar and Gavilar, the Rosharans know how to run a real campaign. MAGIC: Scadrial: Tons of it. Scadrial would have thousands of mistings for sure. Pewterarms who can lead a charge, Coinshots and lurchers who can protect formations against arrows and set enemies off balance, rioters and soothers who can maintain the composure of their forces while weakening their enemies resolve, Tineyes who can scout and spy extremely well, and most crucially the Inquisitors/Mistborn; fighters who can dominate small battlefields on their own, especially when they have Atium (Atium would have to be used sparingly though - likely saved for when fighting Shardbearers. In an extended conflict, even the full cache, in the unlikely case TLR let it be tapped, would run out quickly; there's not a lot of Atium and it burns fast). Duralumin would be useful, but AFAIK, TLR had concealed it at this point. Kandra provide a huge advantage in information warfare: TLR would certainly infiltrate Roshars ranks. Poisoning food/water supplies wouldn't be terribly effective (because of Soulcasters), and it's unlikely that they'd be able to effectively counteract soulcasters/fabrials (they might be able to steal a few, but once they started to steal them, security would tighten up significantly). But the Rosharans would have no secrets, and could be effectively screwed with at a few key points in combat. Roshar: Shardbearers. These guys are tanks, and their invested equipment is almost certainly immune to steelpushes and ironpulls. I'm not kidding when I call them Tanks: the tactics and opportunities they allow for are very much likely armoured warfare in WWI/WWII. They can pierce through enemy lines almost unmolested, shatter a hole allowing for the regulars to exploit the breach, hold a weakened position all on their own. Their uses in combat are manifold. Fabrials: instantaneous communication across the whole campaign is a fantastic advantage: again, something that wouldn't be seen on Earth until the first and second world wars. Navani's plethora of cool tools would be very helpful, but likely not game changing. Soulcasters are just, wow. Such useful, so soulcast, much supply line, very wow. CONCLUSIONS: Roshar has an incredibly advantage in military theory, experience and infrastructure. They're tactics, strategy, everything. Infinitely superior to Scadrials, due to their overwhelming weight of experience. Their battlefield leadership, and hardened soldiers, would make them far more efficient, flexible and effective a fighting force. Their military training, formations and equipment are all far superior to those we see on Scadrial. Scadrials magic advantage is huge. Mistborn and Inquisitors can both turn the tide of a smaller conflict, and are much more useful and flexible than a shardbearer. However, this is a conflict on a truly immense scale. Absolutely immense - 25 people can only do so much before succumbing to exhaustion (a great example of the best large scale use of allomancy in combat is Elend in HOA - he could only do so much, and that was with a constant supply of Atium!). By the same token, there aren't enough Shardbearers to be everywhere. Enough to be useful, but not enough to change the course of the battle. There are, however, lots of mistings. Rioters and soothers would likely make up for a good chunk of Scadrials morale disadvantage (inexperienced soldiers, especially before modern training, are FAR less more likely to break and run than veteran soldiers. Even with veterans, most battles ended in a rout, not a slaughter. Inexperienced forces tended to get routed AND slaughtered). Coinshots and lurchers are helpful, but actually not that useful in a full-scale battle. Their offensive use of coins aren't really better than arrows or crossbow bolts. They'd certainly make a difference (especially in stopping arrows), but not that much of one. Thugs are super handy, and would definitely help shore up weak points. Koloss are interesting. They're big, no problems with infrastructure, hard to kill, and impossible to rout. They will make a significant difference. Roshar however has proper equipment, formations, tactics and leadership. Koloss function a bit like a mixture between heavy infantry and heavy cavalry - but they completely lack armour. What's the best way to stop a charge of heavy cavalry, OR of lightly armoured heavy infantry? A spearwall, or a pike wall. Roshar has both in spades: Spears and pikes would be extremely effective against Koloss, especially backed by archers who can shoot over their allies heads (as the most dangerous Koloss are tall!). Roshar's advantage in experience, training, equipment and infrastructure is HUGE. Absolutely huge. Those are the things that win real wars. However, Scadrial has a simply incredible advantage when it comes to magic (and Koloss!). What would likely happen? It would be a very, very even match. If the Scadrians were able to force major field conflicts early on, they'd likely win. A well-led rush of Koloss against troops who hadn't seen them before, backed by rioters, soothers and inquisitors, would have a good chance of breaking the Rosharan army right away. However, if Roshar was able to weather the initial conflicts against Koloss, they would likely win. Battles are won by experience, training and discipline (usually), and wars are won by infrastructure, medicine and food. Roshar has a huge advantage in those key fields. But Scadrial has Koloss. And Koloss don't follow normal rules. In the end, it would be very, very interesting. And make a ridiculously fun video game if done in the Total War series style: I can see it now! Total War: Cosmere. EDIT: Uhhh... Wow. I tend to geek out about these things. That's a long post. I'd be sorry, but it's just too interesting a topic for me! Cosmere AND military history? How can I resist! TL;DR - Roshar has a huge advantage in military training and experience. Scadrial has a huge advantage in magic. It would be a very even fight.

@Sunbird the yellow-headed blackbirds were so cute!

I actually think you're the first to post this idea, so props for originality. I feel like the way other KR Spren are (a mix of Honor and Cultivation) means that none of the Bondsmith Spren should be of Odium. That said, he should still have some Stormfather level Spren because the other two have them. So it is entirely possible that someone could bond it. I don't think many people could fully express a mindset of pure hate in order to bond with it, Taln least of all, but that's my opinion. Lastly, given the Blade switch between WoK and WoR, I don't think he's a spy for Odium, mostly because I don't think Odium would let Taln's Honorblade just get taken. (He might have figured out a way to use Voidlight? to stand in for Stormlight to power the magic) but even if he couldn't, I don't see him letting it out of his sight and potentially ending up with the good guys.

Well, practice was what got me to the point that writing is (more or less) effortless; I still struggle with what should happen next, but getting the words on paper isn't difficult anymore. Then I managed to find a story I felt I had to tell, one that was developed enough for me to begin writing and figure the finer details out along the way. Other than that, I mostly just tell myself "Okay, you have to write 350 words every day, 150 at the bare minimum. Anything more than that is awesome."

That works too.

Yay Twi! Hooray for having more writing discipline that I ever have!

So apparently I have been within 20 miles of the legendary Daveed Diggs for the past day.

I may have a little bit of a crush on Kelsier -My little sister

I definitely respect religious people--most of my family is religious and I was raised Christian--but this is kind of why I became an atheist. Personally, I don't think it's necessary to love everybody, but I will always help and connect with a fellow human when I'm able to (and plants and animals, for that matter--I'm the crazy person who saves the spider in the house instead of killing it). I just strive to be what I consider a good person, and let other people worry about what's considered good and bad. I'd probably make a good Christian again, but I just really, really can't force myself to believe there's a god out there, and I hear that's kind of a big part of it. Lol I do respect people of faith, however, and I don't mean to offend anyone!

Umm, guys. This is a part of the rules. Whenever someone is Converted, an Unsnapped has a 78% chance of gaining the role the person Converted used to have, with the remaining chance being the odds of gaining a random other misting power. We do not know the new role of the person who Snapped, or the original role of the person who was converted at this point in time, unless you are suggesting you gained Copper from this Jon, which would be at least somewhat suspicious, given that Aman had Copper. Although it does seem there are a number of Copper mistings this game. Likewise, we do not know whether or not whoever was converted has Copper or not, as there is a chance for that to fail.

Which would be interesting pitted against a rosharan army with soulcasters

We've been talking regularly since July, with the frequency increasing dramatically from September onwards, and have been in a relationship since mid-December. Waiting until summer to see El face to face has been difficult - you're very lucky to have met in person!

I saw a zinc-tongued comedian last night....he was a Riot! Met a Thug the other day, and he offered to help me move some stuff out of my place. He was good, but a little...Ham-fisted about it...

Well, first I want to point out that ettmetal can, from what little we've seen, apparently be utilized to store and use allomancy like a mistborn. With the caveat that it can be regulated via as yet unrevealed mechanical or electro-mechanical devices. This opens up the possibility of allomancy being used in automated functions through logic, circuitry, and eventually, full blown computing. This would enable the creation of integrated circuits for detecting/reacting to specific types of investiture, hyper efficient alternating steel pushing and iron pulling drive motors, duralumin over clocked super processors, peweter enhanced cranes and industrial equipment, overlapping mechanically driven time bubble array nuclear reactors...the limits are as endless as they are absurd. Jewelry that makes you feel happy and motivated, towers that provided identityless compounded healing feruchemy to aid stations throughout a city, driverless cabs that speed up or slow down time so you can get where you need to go instantly, or have extra time to work along the way as needed. Ettmetal opens up the ability to essentially have an arbitrarily large team of mistings at the disposal of any task. And it probably has some use for feruchemy as well. Another thing to keep in mind is that while we've only seen hemalurgy used with living beings, it appears to be mechanical in nature. Bind points between human physical manifestations and their spirit webs can be accessed and manipulated using hemalurgy. Lower life forms can be similarly affected. What about a sentient android? What about a toaster? What about a stick? The possibilities dear readers, in my opinion, are endless. The only thing we truly know about hemalurgy is that it's potential has only just barely begun to be recognized and explored...

Just a note... In BoM, we DO see a guy with a spike in only one eye. But he can also see through the other eye. I have always thought that that would be really cool, and have a whole host of advantages. The best of both worlds, if you will. I think it would look sort of like when a computer overlays a camera with a targeting system. The only problem I could think of is that your head would be a bit lopsided.

Normal eyes, as I mentioned in my first post, also cannot see through walls/obstacles. Someone running from a regular soldier could hide in some kind of bolt hole but an Inquisitor would see right through that. Also, while Steelsight does have the disadvantage of metal dust not many people would know that and regular eyes have a ton of ways to be blinded, no? I think Steelsight is a superior sense for what Inquisitors are designed for. It, like anything, has drawbacks but Inquisitors are highly specialized resources and I think the tradeoffs work for them.

So, this little theory is in need of an update. How about that Bands of Mourning and Secret History, y'all? Whew. As we are in the Stormlight boards, this discussion needs spoiler tags. Be warned, this folder contains spoilers for both Secret History and Bands of Mourning. I'll update the actual theory post up there soon, but for now I wanted to get down some information about how I feel this theory looks going forward with this new information. I'm sanguine about all this, guys. Also, because I can't help but brag: Hehehehehehehe. Called it. And almost 2 years early, too. It wasn't in Stormlight (yet) but I totally nailed that this is a kind of story that Brandon would tell.