Why the radiance seem a lot stronger than the Fused? Fused's powers possibly scale with radiant ideals

[ILIYA]

Long post, TLDR on the bottom. 

I've been thinking about Fused's combat wars and I was surprised when they were struggling to win against the new radiance who are currently much weaker than old radiance. I realized while their surge binding powers are kinda even. E.g Windrunners have faster acceleration and another surge but Fused have better maneuverability and more experience. The power gap becomes huge once you factor in Shard-blade and Shard plate, I do not see how the Fused could even hurt the radiance of the 4th ideal let alone fight them. I do not see how the pursuer used to fight the strongest of the enemy, any radiance of the 4th ideal with plate could easily crush him let alone the strongest.  

So first I will list all the advantages and disadvantages of both old and new radiance compared to each other then come up with possible theories why there is such a huge power gap. 

 

Main Advantages for new radiance have in the new war: 

1- Odium's vessel (Rayse) is a lot weaker than before which made him a terrible commander compared to the past so he mispositioned his forces

2- Fused are a bit less in number and more insane now than start of the war in roshar though they are now more experienced. 

3- The fused mention radiance have learned a few innovative tricks now since they weren't indoctrinated into Urithiru ranks from the start. Still, I don't see how innovative tricks on WW2 fighter planes could be a huge problem for you if you are used to fighting F-35s...  

4- There is modern fabrial technology and military tactics now which should favor radiance slightly though Szeth showed compared to even the most basic surge binding, both new tech and old shard plate and blades are meaningless. The side with superior surge binders can easily assassinate the enemy's leadership and win the war.

5- The interference from cosmere groups like ghostbloods, 17th shard, Vasher etc could have benefited radiance more.  

 

Main disadvantages for new radiance have in the new war: 

1- Honor's vessel is fully dead and heralds are mad or straight-up traitors which is a far worse than the case on Odium's side since 5 of the unmade are fully functional, unlike the heralds.

2- The radiance are missing 3 orders with Skybreakers and dustbringers straight up joining the enemy. 

3-  No training or passing on of the most effective tactics and knowledge from the old radiance to the new

4- No radiance (just one) of 4th and 5th ideals which is a huge deal compared to 200-300 from before. 

5- Fused seem to have access to new fabrials that shutdown radiant powers

6- Odium has his own Storm now which according to fused and Heralds is a huge deal. Makes sense since a few days is now all it takes for Fused to be reborn. 

 

As you can see the disadvantages seem to be far bigger than the advantages of the new radiance so the question is how could the Fused cause so much trouble during past desolations and even kill heralds in combat during them. We saw how strong Ishar and Nale were in combat, meanwhile, we saw how pathetic the pursuer was. How were these guys even? Through the pursuer is quite mad compared to before but as Ishar and Nale showed us madness hinders decision making mostly not their innate power which was the pursuer lacked. His innate power was why he couldn't kill kaladin though in the end, it was his madness that got him killed. 

Just imagine if Kaladin has shardplate in most of his fights in ROW, Leshwi would needs to land hundreds of blows on him while Kaladin just needs to strike her once or twice. Kaladin could overpower the pursuer grips easily then and the pursuer would need several strikes which is unlikely. Overall there are few things on Odium's side that can challenge a radiant of the 4th ideal:

 

- Thunderclasts could pose a serious threat to the radiance, though they make easy targets for dustbringers and skybreakers. 

- The unmade Yelig-nar. The combat one Yelig-nar seems to give a strong enough carapace to deflect non shard-plate enhanced strikes from shard-blades and act as good as shard-plate in general though Yelig-nar has no substitution for shard-blade. Overall an experienced yelignar could take on few radiance of 4th ideal though I don't know if Yelignar will let a user control it long enough to become experienced in combat. 

- The rest of the unmade. While they won't be a threat in combat they could cause chaos through their psychological attacks through I think radiance of 4th ideal are invested enough to mostly resist them. Still massive spren like the unmade and the sibling seem to need combat protection as experinced surge binders can break them when they get to their core as we saw with Dalinar, Shallan and raboniel

That's it unless the radiant of the 4th ideal is absolutely clueless or is severely lacking stormlight they could theoretically beat anything else on Odium's forces with ease due to the advantages that plate offers. 

 

 Theories that could explain why the past fights were even despite the Fused seeming much weaker than old radiance.

 

1- Old radiance had lower access to stormlight compared to the enemy's access to void-light. This doesn't make much sense as they didn't have access their own storm. This could mean Fused would only attack at the end of the weeping though there is no proof for it and it's unlikely the old radiance had no way of not being out of stormlight during the weeping. 

2- Most of the powerful fused are still sleeping, This one is unlikely as well as from the Fused accounts we know most of their superiors and best are already awake and active such as the nine and the pursuer etc. Only ones that seem to be away the ones that were never meant to be awaken such as Raboniel formerly and El currently.

 

  

3- This is the most likely one and that's that Fused's powers scale with the radiance as in once the radiance advance in their ideals. For example, once there will be more radiance of higher ideals, the more powerful the fused become! This potentially explains a lot of things as well. 

- It explains why in the past the fused wouldn't just get a huge lead once they'd kill high-level radiance as they couldn't simply overpower radiance of lower ideals with investiture

- It explains why they seem to be on the same level of current radiance in power

- It explains why their top leaders especially the ones that were first summoned by Venli in Oathbringer haven't been active much at all as they may be used to higher levels of power in fighting and are waiting for radiance to advance their ideals first before they get involved. 

- It explains why the most powerful active Fused in words of radiance being Roboniel and Lezian were using the surges of transformation and transportation both being Jasnah's else-caller surges as she has advanced into the 4th ideal. 

- It explains why Leshwi also mentions to Venli with certainty that she would know if Stormblessed has spoken the 4th ideal. 

- Could explain part of recreance as the radiance may have realized the further they advance in their ideals and more is added to their numbers the stronger the fused also become with their surges which results in possible destruction of Roshar. 

- Could explain why the 9 were worried as should the new radiance not have advanced in their ideals and instead have advanced technologically faster it would result in Odium's forces losing their advantage as the fused would have to fight with the weaker versions of their surges and forms which they would be less experienced with it as they had fought with stronger surges and forms. Meanwhile, this would allow technological warfare, especially regarding fabrials to catch and even be superior to surge-binding. 

- Could explain why in a lot of situations the Fused are lenient about not killing the radiance as they might want them to advance their ideals. 

 

 

Or it could be just Brandon not having that much attention to power discrepancies as they aren't a huge part of the story but I find it odd if that's the case. He goes as far as giving asymmetrical powers to the heavenly ones and Windrunners (heavenly ones being more maneuverable while the windrunners accelerate faster). Meanwhile, the fused have to counter against shard-blade and shard-plate? It seems odd to me.   

 

 

TLDR:

There is a huge gap as the radiance seem a lot more powerful than fused when reaching 4th and 5th ideal. It doesn't make sense why the fused that fought the old radiance who were in a far better position and of higher ideals are struggling to easily wipe out the new radiance. My most plausible theory is that Fused's power scales with radiant ideals. 

 

Let me know what you think on this as I'm quite interested for answers. 

 

Edited January 16, 2022 by ILIYA

[Trusk'our]

The radiants are stronger than the Fused, at least in the short term. That seems to be pretty clear if you look at the fights between the radiants and Fused, radiants simply are more powerful once they've reached a certain ideal, as we've seen radiants like Kaladin, who is about 20 (actually about 27 Earth years, but that's still pretty young), reliably beat Fused who have 7,000 years or so of experience. The only way that this could reasonable happen is if radiants are much, much more powerful.

I'm pretty sure there are only two reasons why the radiant's forces haven't won the war yet; the Fused, while weaker than radiants, can't be killed permanently using the knowledge the radiants had at the time of the Desolations, and the radiants don't want to exterminate the Singer (Listener? Don't think that there is a catch all name for their species) race.

Also, I'm not so sure that the Fused's powers grow with radiants. It feels like they'd have to be Bonded in a special kind of way with each other in order to make something like this work, and based on how much they fight against each other, I'm not sure I see this happening. 

I'm open to new ideas though, so you might be correct and I just don't know what I'm talking about  

Edited January 17, 2022 by Trusk'our

[Proletariat]

Perhaps the fact that they came through the Everstorm rather than through the standard methods outlined in the pact changes the situation?

[Frustration]

6 minutes ago, Proletariat said:

Perhaps the fact that they came through the Everstorm rather than through the standard methods outlined in the pact changes the situation?

I would doubt it, that shouldn't change their souls.

[DiePie]

While Fused becoming more powerful the more ideals have been spoken is a really interesting dynamic, I think that there just aren't any good Realmatic ways of explaining it. Like, why would the power of the fused be tied to the power of the Radiants? Which I assume is what you also thought was the main hole in the theory. I think it more has to do with a couple of other reasons:

First is simply that the fused are out of practice, 4500 years of just sitting around as a blob of power is not good for keeping up your skills and they're probably only now finishing wearing off the rust.

Second is this:

On 1/16/2022 at 0:03 PM, ILIYA said:

1- Old radiance had lower access to stormlight compared to the enemy's access to void-light. This doesn't make much sense as they didn't have access their own storm. This could mean Fused would only attack at the end of the weeping though there is no proof for it and it's unlikely the old radiance had no way of not being out of stormlight during the weeping. 

The Old Radiant probably did have less power, with the death of Honor radiant Spren became more powerful, and so did the Bondsmith's abilities to generate perpendicularities and refresh Radiants' stormlight.

Third, the plate-countering voidspren (the regrowth and tear-out-of stone ones, I forgot their names) just haven't been awakened en-masse. A lot of other fused are also either insane or asleep and so the old Radiants probably didn't have a numbers advantage (especially considering that Roshar's population has probably grown since the end of the Desolations)

[HSuperLee]

23 minutes ago, DiePie said:

Third, the plate-countering voidspren (the regrowth and tear-out-of stone ones, I forgot their names) just haven't been awakened en-masse. A lot of other fused are also either insane or asleep and so the old Radiants probably didn't have a numbers advantage (especially considering that Roshar's population has probably grown since the end of the Desolations)

*emphasis mine

I think this is really the biggest thing here. As far as we can tell, the functional Fused seem to be few and far between, with most having reached a point of being far more spren than Singer. I've voiced my opinion in the past of feeling the Fused not being handled as well as they could have been, but a large portion of that really comes down to the fact that even the functional Fused like Raboniel are dealing with severe mental (possibly more accurately stated as cognitive) deterioration. The result is that both the quantity and quality of their fighters has dropped significantly, and any real tactical organization they had is pretty much gone. It seems like basically the only thing that was holding them together was tradition and habit in place of skills, and raw power in place of technique and number. 

[+Bzhydack]

While this theory is very interesting, it have one very large flaw.

Fused came to existence BEFORE Radiants were a thing. And Radiants were not any Shard's invention, they were spren Idea, not Honor's. Right, we have Futuresight, but I doubght Odium would be able to forsee this, he wasnt able to See possibility of some Singers spliting up from his force, for example.

No, I think reason why Radiants now seem to be much stronger than centuries ago is different.

First, they have much larger support from non-radiants. Remember, every earlier Desolation hit humanity so hard that they were brought into stone age. But earlier Desolations were much closer one to another - it was like maybe few generations between them, so there were simply much less humans, and they were much more split. We can see in Dalinar's Vision that Knights once operate in small teams (one-two) because they need to cover very large areas. With less humans and more Singers (as enemies) they cant be as massed in one place as they are now, when they can choose battlefield, because they have large, good equiped armies to back them up. With much less humans and often Desolations Fused could be able to kill Radiants faster, in earlier stages of Oaths progression.

Second, seems like not all Odium's forces are on Roshar, or as active as should be. We've seen just two Thunderclasts for now, should be more of them, also Unmade are not as active as they were - for example Re-Sephir wasnt doing too much, Sia-Anat is activly betraing Odium, and few of them we simply didnt see yet.

Third, Regals and Forms of Power are still not very experienced in using their powers, so Fused dont have as large support as Radiants have.

Forth, Fused alone are very, VERY degenerate. They are mad, mostly, so they are not as dangerous as they were before.

And I dont think Fused were much stronger then than now. Remember, humans WON every earlier Desolation on Roshar, even if they were much less numerous, even if they have just wood and stone weapons.

[Pathfinder]

14 hours ago, Bzhydack said:

Second, seems like not all Odium's forces are on Roshar, or as active as should be. We've seen just two Thunderclasts for now, should be more of them, also Unmade are not as active as they were - for example Re-Sephir wasnt doing too much, Sia-Anat is activly betraing Odium, and few of them we simply didnt see yet.

This is how I have seen the situation for awhile, and I believe the WoB I have posted below supports that. Having said that, @ILIYA, you have an interesting theory and I wish you luck with it!

 

Questioner

If I had any questions at all, I would say: ramp? Stormlight Archive, as it's going forward, like super power creep issues. The characters get so powerful so quickly, and it's gonna be a 10 (hopefully) book series.

Brandon Sanderson

Remember, it's two sets of five. And we will be... how about this. We're just gonna RAFO you now, because I'm being recorded. I'm not gonna give you any hints about the future. Just... I've got it in hand.

I was able to write three books about Rand al'Thor at the height of his power, so I'm pretty convinced I'll be okay.

DragonCon 2019 (Aug. 29, 2019)

[ILIYA]

On 17/01/2022 at 1:15 PM, Trusk'our said:

On 17/01/2022 at 1:15 PM, Trusk'our said:

The radiants are stronger than the Fused, at least in the short term. That seems to be pretty clear if you look at the fights between the radiants and Fused, radiants simply are more powerful once they've reached a certain ideal, as we've seen radiants like Kaladin, who is about 20 (actually about 27 Earth years, but that's still pretty young), reliably beat Fused who have 7,000 years or so of experience. The only way that this could reasonable happen is if radiants are much, much more powerful.

I'm pretty sure there are only two reasons why the radiant's forces haven't won the war yet; the Fused, while weaker than radiants, can't be killed permanently using the knowledge the radiants had at the time of the Desolations, and the radiants don't want to exterminate the Singer (Listener? Don't think that there is a catch all name for their species) race.

Also, I'm not so sure that the Fused's powers grow with radiants. It feels like they'd have to be Bonded in a special kind of way with each other in order to make something like this work, and based on how much they fight against each other, I'm not sure I see this happening. 

I'm open to new ideas though, so you might be correct and I just don't know what I'm talking about  

My problem though isn't that the radiance are stronger than the fused, it's that they are lot lot stronger than fused. That's why I fail to see how the ancient radiance who had plenty in 4th and 5th ideal along with other advantages couldn't easily wipe out the fused with no casualties during desolations. As for Parshendi they could also easily contain them in a secure area of Roshar without needing to kill or harm them. 

 

The fact that fused can't be killed is not a problem if they are like flees compared to you, just kill them easily each desolation and relax, as for singers just make a wall and give them areas of land. 

I'm sure my theory is not a strong one but my real problem is the question of why the Fused were giving ancient radiance and heralds so much trouble? 

 

On 19/01/2022 at 11:03 AM, DiePie said:

While Fused becoming more powerful the more ideals have been spoken is a really interesting dynamic, I think that there just aren't any good Realmatic ways of explaining it. Like, why would the power of the fused be tied to the power of the Radiants? Which I assume is what you also thought was the main hole in the theory. I think it more has to do with a couple of other reasons:

First is simply that the fused are out of practice, 4500 years of just sitting around as a blob of power is not good for keeping up your skills and they're probably only now finishing wearing off the rust.

Second is this:

The Old Radiant probably did have less power, with the death of Honor radiant Spren became more powerful, and so did the Bondsmith's abilities to generate perpendicularities and refresh Radiants' stormlight.

Third, the plate-countering voidspren (the regrowth and tear-out-of stone ones, I forgot their names) just haven't been awakened en-masse. A lot of other fused are also either insane or asleep and so the old Radiants probably didn't have a numbers advantage (especially considering that Roshar's population has probably grown since the end of the Desolations)

 

Yea I don't have much faith in the theory, it's just I can't find any answers on why the fused who are so much weaker than radiance in RoW were giving ancient radiance so much trouble, even winning in desolations...

I thought the Fused were sleep in the 4500 years rather than sitting around. Still though my problem isn't that the Fused for example the persuer lacked the skills to fight the radiance. Even in perfect condition and mastery of his skills I fail to see how he could fight even a novice radiant of the 4th ideal with plate. He simply doesn't have the power to do so, it's like a twinborn fighting a mistborn or a guy with a sword fighting someone with an AK-47. It's simply a power outmatch regardless of skills. 

As for power though it only seems to be Dalinar that has become more powerful than ancient radiance, the rest of similar abilities e.g Kaladin doesn't seem to be able to do anything that the ancient radiance windrunners couldn't? Still they had storms and access to perfect gemstones, I feel like if lack of stormlight was a such a huge issue it would have been mentioned explicitly in radiant records or the visions. We need consider void-light was probably also less accessbile since Odium didn't have his own storm then. 

You mean the thunderclast right? Yea there seem to be few of them but even in mass they shouldn't posses real threats to radiance of 4th ideal as we saw them in Oathbringer. The Radiance with forces of gravitation and  Abrasion should be able to cut through them with ease as the thunderclasts won't have any real support in battles. Not to mention the radiance should have aerial supremacy all the time since I fail to see how heavily ones could do anything against plate.

 

 Thanks everyone for the feedback and points. On a second note though another theory could be that the entire team it really is

On 19/01/2022 at 11:33 AM, HSuperLee said:

*emphasis mine

I think this is really the biggest thing here. As far as we can tell, the functional Fused seem to be few and far between, with most having reached a point of being far more spren than Singer. I've voiced my opinion in the past of feeling the Fused not being handled as well as they could have been, but a large portion of that really comes down to the fact that even the functional Fused like Raboniel are dealing with severe mental (possibly more accurately stated as cognitive) deterioration. The result is that both the quantity and quality of their fighters has dropped significantly, and any real tactical organization they had is pretty much gone. It seems like basically the only thing that was holding them together was tradition and habit in place of skills, and raw power in place of technique and number. 

 

 

 

But they also didn't have raw power either though? That's my main issue, once a radiant reaches 4th ideal and gains plate they totally outclass every fused, especially the radiance of the combat orders. I really fail to see how the pursuer or Leshwi could fight any windrunner of the 4th ideal even if he was in perfect conditions, his powers are simply outmatched. Like he was struggling to even kill Kaladin with limited powers... 

I think a good depiction of raw power gone mad are the heralds, you can clearly see Ishar and Nale totally overpowering the radiance. They showed the real strength of the past radiance. This brings me to the point, if Nale for example wasn't mad and decided he was gonna go the nine's cave and wipe out the entire Fused's leadership, I don't see anything on Fused's side that could stop him. That's why I'm confused how the Fused were a threat to radiance in the past. 

On 19/01/2022 at 11:56 AM, Bzhydack said:

While this theory is very interesting, it have one very large flaw.

Fused came to existence BEFORE Radiants were a thing. And Radiants were not any Shard's invention, they were spren Idea, not Honor's. Right, we have Futuresight, but I doubght Odium would be able to forsee this, he wasnt able to See possibility of some Singers spliting up from his force, for example.

No, I think reason why Radiants now seem to be much stronger than centuries ago is different.

First, they have much larger support from non-radiants. Remember, every earlier Desolation hit humanity so hard that they were brought into stone age. But earlier Desolations were much closer one to another - it was like maybe few generations between them, so there were simply much less humans, and they were much more split. We can see in Dalinar's Vision that Knights once operate in small teams (one-two) because they need to cover very large areas. With less humans and more Singers (as enemies) they cant be as massed in one place as they are now, when they can choose battlefield, because they have large, good equiped armies to back them up. With much less humans and often Desolations Fused could be able to kill Radiants faster, in earlier stages of Oaths progression.

Second, seems like not all Odium's forces are on Roshar, or as active as should be. We've seen just two Thunderclasts for now, should be more of them, also Unmade are not as active as they were - for example Re-Sephir wasnt doing too much, Sia-Anat is activly betraing Odium, and few of them we simply didnt see yet.

Third, Regals and Forms of Power are still not very experienced in using their powers, so Fused dont have as large support as Radiants have.

Forth, Fused alone are very, VERY degenerate. They are mad, mostly, so they are not as dangerous as they were before.

And I dont think Fused were much stronger then than now. Remember, humans WON every earlier Desolation on Roshar, even if they were much less numerous, even if they have just wood and stone weapons.

The reason I said why Fused's power could be related was because of the push-pull effect of shards we saw in secret history and end of mistborn first era, The more honor and cultivation allowed radiance to use their investiture the more options it gave Odium to let his Fused use more his investiture. 

As for first I really don't think the support from non-radiance is significant at all. As mentioned in the thread my reasonings, for example we saw Szeth with a single honorblade literally bring Roshar to its knees and that's with humans having access to shards and half-shards. Imagine what a single skybreaker of the 4th ideal could do against Parshendi... 

second: Agreed on this one. As I mentioned unmade and thunderclasts are the only possible real threats but imagining them against a group of radiance of 4th ideal they would lose easily as both unmade and thunderclasts are vulnerable and need protection to be effective which the fused can not provide due to being severely outscale by high-level radiance. The thunderclasts will just get crushed from the sky or by stonewards or edgedancers/dustbringers from the ground while the unmade are vulnerable since no one can protect their hearts from being accessed and entrapped in gemstones. 

As for Third, it's the same with radiant squires who are inexperienced, worse even since their radiants don't know how their power works really either so can't teach them whereas fused are experienced. Not to mention Odium has access to skybreakers dustbringers and nations of jah keved and iri so humans are on their side as well in plenty of numbers. 

As for fourth I agree they are mad and make stupid decisions but that's the problem with them. They are also very weak in power relatviley. Ishar and Nale are far worse in madness than Fused yet they are both extremely deadly and had it not been for Nightblood and Dalinar's new found powers they would single-handly destroyed the radiance leadership. Madness is not a reason for the lack of power of fighting skills as shown by Heralds but lack of decision making. 

Also not to mention the Fused were probably as mad near the end of war as they are now. Remember it's the cycle of fighting, death and rebirth that caused them to go insane. Not that they were sleep in Braize during the resting period between desolations. 

 

 

 

Thanks, everyone for your replies and feedback, really appreciate it. 

Edited January 20, 2022 by ILIYA

[Pathfinder]

5 hours ago, ILIYA said:

My problem though isn't that the radiance are stronger than the fused, it's that they are lot lot stronger than fused. That's why I fail to see how the ancient radiance who had plenty in 4th and 5th ideal along with other advantages couldn't easily wipe out the fused with no casualties during desolations. As for Parshendi they could also easily contain them in a secure area of Roshar without needing to kill or harm them. 

 

The fact that fused can't be killed is not a problem if they are like flees compared to you, just kill them easily each desolation and relax, as for singers just make a wall and give them areas of land. 

I'm sure my theory is not a strong one but my real problem is the question of why the Fused were giving ancient radiance and heralds so much trouble? 

 

 

Yea I don't have much faith in the theory, it's just I can't find any answers on why the fused who are so much weaker than radiance in RoW were giving ancient radiance so much trouble, even winning in desolations...

I thought the Fused were sleep in the 4500 years rather than sitting around. Still though my problem isn't that the Fused for example the persuer lacked the skills to fight the radiance. Even in perfect condition and mastery of his skills I fail to see how he could fight even a novice radiant of the 4th ideal with plate. He simply doesn't have the power to do so, it's like a twinborn fighting a mistborn or a guy with a sword fighting someone with an AK-47. It's simply a power outmatch regardless of skills. 

As for power though it only seems to be Dalinar that has become more powerful than ancient radiance, the rest of similar abilities e.g Kaladin doesn't seem to be able to do anything that the ancient radiance windrunners couldn't? Still they had storms and access to perfect gemstones, I feel like if lack of stormlight was a such a huge issue it would have been mentioned explicitly in radiant records or the visions. We need consider void-light was probably also less accessbile since Odium didn't have his own storm then. 

You mean the thunderclast right? Yea there seem to be few of them but even in mass they shouldn't posses real threats to radiance of 4th ideal as we saw them in Oathbringer. The Radiance with forces of gravitation and  Abrasion should be able to cut through them with ease as the thunderclasts won't have any real support in battles. Not to mention the radiance should have aerial supremacy all the time since I fail to see how heavily ones could do anything against plate.

 

 Thanks everyone for the feedback and points. On a second note though another theory could be that the entire team it really is

 

 

 

But they also didn't have raw power either though? That's my main issue, once a radiant reaches 4th ideal and gains plate they totally outclass every fused, especially the radiance of the combat orders. I really fail to see how the pursuer or Leshwi could fight any windrunner of the 4th ideal even if he was in perfect conditions, his powers are simply outmatched. Like he was struggling to even kill Kaladin with limited powers... 

I think a good depiction of raw power gone mad are the heralds, you can clearly see Ishar and Nale totally overpowering the radiance. They showed the real strength of the past radiance. This brings me to the point, if Nale for example wasn't mad and decided he was gonna go the nine's cave and wipe out the entire Fused's leadership, I don't see anything on Fused's side that could stop him. That's why I'm confused how the Fused were a threat to radiance in the past. 

The reason I said why Fused's power could be related was because of the push-pull effect of shards we saw in secret history and end of mistborn first era, The more honor and cultivation allowed radiance to use their investiture the more options it gave Odium to let his Fused use more his investiture. 

As for first I really don't think the support from non-radiance is significant at all. As mentioned in the thread my reasonings, for example we saw Szeth with a single honorblade literally bring Roshar to its knees and that's with humans having access to shards and half-shards. Imagine what a single skybreaker of the 4th ideal could do against Parshendi... 

second: Agreed on this one. As I mentioned unmade and thunderclasts are the only possible real threats but imagining them against a group of radiance of 4th ideal they would lose easily as both unmade and thunderclasts are vulnerable and need protection to be effective which the fused can not provide due to being severely outscale by high-level radiance. The thunderclasts will just get crushed from the sky or by stonewards or edgedancers/dustbringers from the ground while the unmade are vulnerable since no one can protect their hearts from being accessed and entrapped in gemstones. 

As for Third, it's the same with radiant squires who are inexperienced, worse even since their radiants don't know how their power works really either so can't teach them whereas fused are experienced. Not to mention Odium has access to skybreakers dustbringers and nations of jah keved and iri so humans are on their side as well in plenty of numbers. 

As for fourth I agree they are mad and make stupid decisions but that's the problem with them. They are also very weak in power relatviley. Ishar and Nale are far worse in madness than Fused yet they are both extremely deadly and had it not been for Nightblood and Dalinar's new found powers they would single-handly destroyed the radiance leadership. Madness is not a reason for the lack of power of fighting skills as shown by Heralds but lack of decision making. 

Also not to mention the Fused were probably as mad near the end of war as they are now. Remember it's the cycle of fighting, death and rebirth that caused them to go insane. Not that they were sleep in Braize during the resting period between desolations. 

 

 

 

Thanks, everyone for your replies and feedback, really appreciate it. 

Totally get where you are coming from, but here is an example of why I feel there is more to come:

Around the time words of radiance and oathbringer was published, it was said here and there that the radiants of the 3rd oath were unstoppable as long as they had stormlight. Shallan took an arrow to the head after all and was able to just yank it out and be fine right? They can heal from anything, so what challenge could there be for the radiants fighting in the past? Then the heavenly ones spears popped up in rhythm of war. A spear that so long as it pierces the skin, stormlight is drained. Now I know, 4th ideal with armor could prevent that unless you got the spear through the eye hole, but my point is this:

it was assumed stormlight healing made fighting trivial till a weapon was revealed that could counter that. Would it not be reasonable to consider that there are more weapons and/or abilities that could counter a 4th oath radiant that we have yet to see?

Edited January 20, 2022 by Pathfinder

[ILIYA]

1 hour ago, Pathfinder said:

Totally get where you are coming from, but here is an example of why I feel there is more to come:

Around the time words of radiance and oathbringer was published, it was said here and there that the radiants of the 3rd oath were unstoppable as long as they had stormlight. Shallan took an arrow to the head after all and was able to just yank it out and be fine right? They can heal from anything, so what challenge could there be for the radiants fighting in the past? Then the heavenly ones spears popped up in rhythm of war. A spear that so long as it pierces the skin, stormlight is drained. Now I know, 4th ideal with armor could prevent that unless you got the spear through the eye hole, but my point is this:

it was assumed stormlight healing made fighting trivial till a weapon was revealed that could counter that. Would it not be reasonable to consider that there are more weapons and/or abilities that could counter a 4th oath radiant that we have yet to see?

I mean certainly possible that there should be weapons for it, I'm just confused why we haven't seen them yet. Why hold back on such valuable weapons in ROW?  

[Anomander Rake]

12 minutes ago, ILIYA said:

I mean certainly possible that there should be weapons for it, I'm just confused why we haven't seen them yet. Why hold back on such valuable weapons in ROW?  

Id have to guess it's the scarcity of such weapons.  We know Raysium is super rare/valueable, Raboniel has servants sweep the lab for any tiny traces of the metal after the first anti-light explosion, so I'd wager they only use them as needed.

Windrunners getting a bit too good fighting Heavenly ones?  Raysium spears.  Kal, Jasnah, and other radiants start pulling some fourth oath shenanigans?  New weapon.

[Wandering Shade]

Because they wouldn't be useful yet. There's only one person who had reached the fourth ideal and Odium/the fused wanted this to be a surprise weapon.

I understand your perspective about how it seems like the Radiants should have wiped the floor with the Fused every single Desolation because they're stronger, but I think you need to remember two things. One, humans won every single Desolation, no matter how technologically degraded they were after the last one. The Seven bring this up during the meeting that we see in RoW. So, you're right. Yeah. Knights Radiant are stronger than Fused, without question.

Two, in Surgebinding, skill is more important than power. Soulcasting is not about raw output, its about skill. Sure, with a ton of raw power in Gravitation you can fly at Mach 1 or even 3, but you'd run out of Stormlight so fast it wouldn't be useful. The Fused are more skilled than the modern Radiants and have always outnumbered them as well. That skill difference is made up for by the extra power that Knights Radiant have, but they still can't do anything about the Fused coming back again and again.

Another thing, I think you're underestimating the power of Thunderclasts. The two Thunderclasts we've seen only got killed because 1) Nightblood is OP AF and 2) Renarin can do weird stuff. Shardblades were absolutely made to kill Thunderclasts, but it takes multiple cuts to take out any limb, and a Thunderclast could always just drop their body and find a new one.

[Anomander Rake]

2 minutes ago, Wandering Shade said:

Because they wouldn't be useful yet. There's only one person who had reached the fourth ideal and Odium/the fused wanted this to be a surprise weapon.

Exactly yeah.  If the mystery weapons wouldn't provide a marked advantage in the fight (actual fighting and all the clerical tasks waging war entails), it is absolutely in Odium's interest to keep the weapon a secret.  If they show off the weapon early, by the time several fourth ideal radiants are around, a way to counter it may have been discovered, as opposed to springing it on a score of them who have never encountered it before and securing an instant W.

If the weapon would've swung the tides of things to Odiums side already, we can be assured we'd have seen it.  But likely it is most effective at countering something humans / radiants were not yet able to do or fully realize before, so hes being sneaky about it.

[Trusk'our]

I think that the reason why the Fused are so much weaker than the radiants is simple: Odium doesn't care.

The Fused may be weaker in their power, but he can just bring them back to life at minimal cost to himself. They're built to be investiture efficient so that he doesn't need to spend very much on their creation, thus giving him an edge against other Shards in a direct confrontation. 

So long as they get the job done, and he doesn't need to waste personal power for their eventual victory, he's fine with them loosing the majority of the time.

[cometaryorbit]

15 hours ago, ILIYA said:

My problem though isn't that the radiance are stronger than the fused, it's that they are lot lot stronger than fused. That's why I fail to see how the ancient radiance who had plenty in 4th and 5th ideal along with other advantages couldn't easily wipe out the fused with no casualties during desolations. As for Parshendi they could also easily contain them in a secure area of Roshar without needing to kill or harm them.

Probably they were horribly outmatched individually (the "ordinary" Fused, excluding thunderclasts and whatever other similar things there are we haven't seen yet) -- but endlessly reborn.

The stormfather says there was a time before the Fused "learned to command the Surges". So then how did they fight the Heralds at all? Sure, they're reborn, but why wasn't it just whack-a-mole? That would have been a much greater imbalance.

Sure, there are only 10 Heralds and some power sets aren't that combative (though near-infinite Stormlight plus a Shardblade is already pretty awesome) ... but given what we see Szeth do in Way of Kings, how many non-magical soldiers would it take to fight Jezrien, with the same abilities plus near infinite Stormlight (and maybe also the super speed/reflexes we see from Taln)?

EDIT: re: containing all the Singers so you know where all the Fused can show up so they can be easily whack-a-moled when reborn- Roshar is big, and probably no one really had the infrastructure to enforce something like that. Maybe it was tried at some point, but after later Desolations civilization was too wrecked to organize patrolling a long border, etc.

Edited January 20, 2022 by cometaryorbit

[+Bzhydack]

16 hours ago, ILIYA said:

The reason I said why Fused's power could be related was because of the push-pull effect of shards we saw in secret history and end of mistborn first era, The more honor and cultivation allowed radiance to use their investiture the more options it gave Odium to let his Fused use more his investiture. 

As for first I really don't think the support from non-radiance is significant at all. As mentioned in the thread my reasonings, for example we saw Szeth with a single honorblade literally bring Roshar to its knees and that's with humans having access to shards and half-shards. Imagine what a single skybreaker of the 4th ideal could do against Parshendi... 

second: Agreed on this one. As I mentioned unmade and thunderclasts are the only possible real threats but imagining them against a group of radiance of 4th ideal they would lose easily as both unmade and thunderclasts are vulnerable and need protection to be effective which the fused can not provide due to being severely outscale by high-level radiance. The thunderclasts will just get crushed from the sky or by stonewards or edgedancers/dustbringers from the ground while the unmade are vulnerable since no one can protect their hearts from being accessed and entrapped in gemstones. 

As for Third, it's the same with radiant squires who are inexperienced, worse even since their radiants don't know how their power works really either so can't teach them whereas fused are experienced. Not to mention Odium has access to skybreakers dustbringers and nations of jah keved and iri so humans are on their side as well in plenty of numbers.

There is no push - pull efrect between not directly oposed Shards. Im not sure it is this efrect at all. Also worth mention that Odium is not as largly Invested in Roshar as Honor and Cultivation. Or rather wasnt until now.

Dont underestimate support from other units. Right, Szeth was able to fight very large squad of Veden soldiers plus Shardbearers, but none of them knew how to handle enemy with Surges. I would bring other example. Remember swuad of Alethi soldiers in Urithiru? This one who almost get to the central pillar. They werent Radiants or even squires, all they bring to the field was spears, shields, discipline and experience. They go against number and power advantage and they failed only because of Pursuer, Fused with power they didnt know how to fight against. Another example - Moash was able to kill Leshwi, also WITHOUT shards or power, only thanks to his training. And here power difference is very significant, because both soldiers and Moash have literaly no power.

Also, this was a war. Not some chalange. Desolations were brutal, and without hesitation. Its not Fused vs Radiants, we need to consider whole forces from one side and other. And the biggest weakness of Radiants is not some physical weakness, is their Oaths. They MUST have some behaviours, to maintain their powers. And Fused can exploit it - remember how Raboniel set Kaladin in place with just few words? Now imagine humans in times of Desolations - many small villages and towns, and 10 Dawncities scatter across Roshar. Radiants need to go from Urithiru or one Oathgate to target, what mean they have INSANLY big area to cover. Parshendi have number advantage over humans, probably big one. There is no Geneva Convention on Roshar, if Fused and Parshendi attack many settlements in the same time, and start to kill humans, Radiants need to react, and they can do this only by sending many small teams to every attacked settlement, because they need to protect every one of them. So this is easy way to expose themaelves to the traps, but they need to do this, if they want to maintain their power. And Radiants will last only as long as Stormlight they have.

We still need to see true power of Thundeclasts. Remember, they can drop body and just take new one, if previous is too damaged. This is also true for Fused - they can simply drop body, if they dont like it, and they dont do this probably only because every earlier Desolation they need to return on Braize every time and are still not familiar with current situation. But back to the Thunderclasts - I dont know how many rocks (or anything really) you need to throw at them to destroy it. And good luck hit constantly moving target, even that big. They are also Invested, so probably immune to Surges in some degree. Sheer size is also very good protection - a lot of Stormlight is needet to Invest this beast. And Even Shardblade cant put one down in short time.

Trapping Unmade in gemstone was also not known until False Desolation, so earlier Unmade were much more dangerous, because there was literally no metod to eliminate them.

[CryoZenith]

3 hours ago, Bzhydack said:

Also, this was a war. Not some chalange. Desolations were brutal, and without hesitation. Its not Fused vs Radiants, we need to consider whole forces from one side and other.

This. Very much this. As Sanderson put it, "Shardbearers don't hold territory." It's quite a theme throughout WoK. It's like trying to conquer medieval France using modern tanks, except you only have 10 tanks. You will win every individual battle, sure, but cities will be recaptured at a faster rate than you are capturing them.

[Pathfinder]

On 1/20/2022 at 11:17 AM, ILIYA said:

I mean certainly possible that there should be weapons for it, I'm just confused why we haven't seen them yet. Why hold back on such valuable weapons in ROW?  

So this is kind of a combination of a bunch of things everyone has said in one way or another to a degree. So lets just break down a war of escalation:

 

1. Side 1 has machine guns and mows down infantry from Side 2

2. Side 2 develops tanks, resistant to machine gun fire and blows up Side 1 infantry

3. Side 1 develops rocket launchers to blow up Side 2's tanks

4. Side 2 develops anti rocket gun systems that shoot it out of the sky

5. Side 1 develops laser systems that can penetrate the hull and blow the fuel line, killing the drivers and making the tank useless

 

Have this rinse and repeat over centuries and multiple wars resulting ultimately in a stalemate. Odium is not defeated for good, Team Honor is not eradicated. Wait a bit and do it all over again. Odium does not want a stalemate. That only works in Honor's best interest. Odium wants to WIN. So this time around, he tries being sneaky. He puts everything into position, so the great leader of the good guys, will end up on his side. He doesn't need any grand weapons. There won't even be a conflict where they are needed. He is so supremely confident, he literally has the singers hang back and essentially says "stand back and hold my beer." Just Renarin ends up being the monkey wrench thrown into his grand system, and messes it all up. So now he should totally bring his entire weapons to bear right? And he starts to. We got the spears, and the power cancelling fabrial. But again instead of going for a war of attrition, he is aiming for the power play. The strike that will knock down all the dominoes. Which is why we got the distraction so they could go after the Sibling. And they would have succeeded too, if it wasn't for those meddling kids! 

So now we got a new holder of Odium, a mysterious new character called El, and a contest of Champions to decide things one way or the other. I assume the priority of the new Odium is to find a way to sneakily win this contest or do something that regardless the outcome, he still gains an advantage. That does not arise from pure weaponry. 

At least that is how I see the situation. 

 

As for the push and pull between shards, Mistborn spoilers:

Spoiler

Preservation and Ruin are unique in that regard for two reasons. They are opposites. Not all shards are opposites, nor do all shards have a direct opposite. Further, they are invested on and created Scadrial. Finally there is their deal. All these things result in the relationship between he two

 

Now having stated all that, I do not believe your theory is the case because it would not make sense to me for Odium to conduct the war as he has so far, knowing that he can only increase the power of his forces, when the knights radiant do, ultimately guaranteeing a stalemate. There would be no possible avenue for his victory. But I do think it is an interesting theory and a clever way to approach the problem. Which is why I wish you luck with it! Who knows, you could end up right, and everything we said could end up just assumptions on our part. 

Edited January 21, 2022 by Pathfinder

[NameIess]

Another factor you may not be considering is the Parshmen's forms. Even ignoring forms of power, regular warforms are physically and maybe even mentally superior to human soldiers. The Parshendi, despite their lack of tactical knowledge, survived and even won against human armies that used modern tactics and had better equipment. Warforms don't need to be equipped with armor, give them a weapon and food and they're good to go. Humans need to be equipped with armor, which, when you lose the knowledge of metalworking, becomes a big problem compared to your enemy who just needs to give their soldiers weapons. Not to mention that their soldiers are stronger than you, get a soldier's mentality more quickly than you, and probably learn quicker than you. Then you add in regals, and suddenly radiants have to not only fight fused and thunderclasts, but also regals. And they have to make up for the average human soldier being inferior to the average parsh soldier. And humans will almost always have a disadvantage in equipment, as warforms get armor that is "Nearly as hard as steel, but half the weight" according to Leyten (ch. 63 page 878 tWoK), basically for free, while humans are stuck with bronze or leather armor.

In addition to this, I think you might be underestimating the fused. Kaladin is the only third ideal windrunner that we see able to fight evenly with Leshwi. The only other windrunner that we saw fighting Leshwi, Sigzil, lost. Sure, having shardplate is a huge advantage, but it would probably also ruin the honor system that the modern day fused and radiants have. I imagine that if Kaladin entered a battle with his plate, multiple heavenly ones would attack him. And considering that after over a year has past since the radiants began to return, and there are only two fourth ideal radiants, one of which bonded a spren years ago, it will take a while before a dead fourth ideal radiant is replaced.

[CryoZenith]

42 minutes ago, Nameless said:

Sure, having shardplate is a huge advantage, but it would probably also ruin the honor system that the modern day fused and radiants have.

Speaking of the honor system, I wonder if the reason why, on average, Heavenly Ones are more mentally sane than the other types of Fused is because their code of combat leads to them dying less, and thus needing to reincarnate less often.

Which would imply that this is quite an old tradition, and they've fought like this in past Desolations too.

Edited January 21, 2022 by CryoZenith

[NameIess]

18 minutes ago, CryoZenith said:

Speaking of the honor system, I wonder if the reason why, on average, Heavenly Ones are more mentally sane than the other types of Fused is because their code of combat leads to them dying less, and thus needing to reincarnate less often.

Which would imply that this is quite an old tradition, and they've fought like this in past Desolations too.

It could be that. It could also be that they act with honor, and are thus less affected by Odium's intent.

[CryoZenith]

I don't know if being affected by Odium's intent is in and of itself a cause of insanity over time. After all, Leshwy for example seems to care a huge deal about Passion, both in herself as well as others, and she's one of the sanest Fused we've seen so far.

[NameIess]

20 minutes ago, CryoZenith said:

I don't know if being affected by Odium's intent is in and of itself a cause of insanity over time. After all, Leshwy for example seems to care a huge deal about Passion, both in herself as well as others, and she's one of the sanest Fused we've seen so far.

Well, it would certainly fray their souls, similar to what holding the shard of Odium did to Rayse. It might help to have a soul with connections to other shards, or maybe a soul that is less connected to Odium would be less affected by the insanity?

[CryoZenith]

We have this direct quote from the Stormfather: "EACH REBIRTH FURTHER INJURES THEIR MINDS."

There's probably multiple factors at play but I think it's plausible that number of rebirths is the biggest one. And if that's the case, then it'd be natural for the Fused type which dies the least to have the sanest Fused.

Edited January 21, 2022 by CryoZenith