Jump to content

How well would various cosmere planets and magic systems stand up to the military might of a modern earth


SteelBagel

Recommended Posts

So, say that each planet in the cosmere had to fight the modern military on earth. For balance reasons, I'm going to say that every planet can match the earth's population and has more magic users than they do in canon. Here's my ranking on how this would go. Also, we're removing all location locks & sourcing issues because it's more interesting. Everyone can access their magic just as well as they could on their home world. The earth subastral we'll say is completely uninhabited before the cosmerenauts get there, since the earthlings can't get in. No shards.

1- Roshar: Flight, transmutation, healing, illusions, teleportation, and decay. widespread healing factors. Bulletproof armor & shields. Weapons that can cut through any amount of earthly armor. Weapon's that could turn into a gun, if they knew how. Lasers & radiation blasting, if they knew they existed. 

2- Sel. Super versatile abilities, increased physicals, light healing factors. Their main drawback is speed. They can't do comlex things quickly, and they don't have any good defense against bullets or bombs, especially if they don't know they're coming.

3- Scadrial. Experience with guns and motors, manipulation of guns and bullets, emotional influence, superspeed for bullet dodging. Enhanced dexterity, increased healing and speed. Increased mental speed would probably help aiming. The occasional compounder, who's varying levels of difficulty to pin down. Not giving them any mistborn though, since we're going off era 2 rules. They do have hemalurgy though, so a few powers could be mixed.

4- Nalthis. No Awakening metal, no increased durability, minimal mobility increases, low tech level.

 

Thoughts? Do you agree, disagree? What are your own rankings?

Edited by SteelBagel
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Oh, you really want to open this pandora box? Well, here we go again.

Earth wins against everyone. Period. This is not a competition, this is an execution. I agree on your ranking of "who will be the last man standing against Earth".

Nalthis - I won't even start this one. Sorry Awakening :( 

Scadrial - early WW1 tech vs our 100 years later. There is no comparison. You can add in a few Mistborn to it, Earth wins just by using expeditionary force.

Sel - bullet is faster than drawing. Eventually Elantrians will get hit by one and killed. They might cause some problems but overall we're talking drones 20km in the air vs glowing dudes and drawings.

Roshar - Biggest challenge, not because of land army, as guys with sticks are no match for tanks, but Radiants will cause trouble. Not that much. Shardplate is NOT bulletproof. It can be damaged, and every soldier carries an automatic rifle, so they can spray Shardplates until it breaks apart. Not to mention tanks, artillery, jet strikes or precise missiles strikes or bombs.

Here is counter for any power in Cosmere

Flight - we got jets that can move faster than the speed of sound, rockets and missiles that travel Mach 5. We are better at it than Windrunners - they can fly 200mph, f16 makes 1300mph at 15km. Good luck for Windrunners.

Transportation - we have satellite coverage of the entire planet. We will know instantly where and how many enemies appear. We can counter them with fast and mobile strikes teams, missiles and jets.

Healing - big explosions kill them. Just don't stop firing. They will run out of healing very fast. Even Fullborn can be killed if you separate him from his metalminds with powerful explosion.

Illusions - satellites + infrared vision (yes it's a wave, but they don't know it, they can't fake it) + cameras everywhere. Almost every single person on Earth has a camera in his pocket.

Transmutation - industry with extreme levels of production. We can produce more than them.

Division - we can do it better. Look at history.

Future vision - hard to counter, that's why we have AI that can keep up with changes.

1 hour ago, SteelBagel said:

Weapons that can cut through any amount of earthly armor

We use armor only on vehicles. And they need to close the distance. Tank driving away will defeat 8/10 orders of Radiants. Tank firing - 10/10. And tank is not alone. 

 

And of course we are dominating in the field of weapons of mass destruction. 14000 nuclear warheads ready to launch in a short timeframe. Possibly lots of chemical weapons hidden as well. 

 

I'll wait for Era3/4 Cosmere to challenge Earth, until then it's not looking good for Cosmere.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Roshar and Sel have really easy wins, they just retreat to the CR, and then kill earth from there.

I would actually place Nalthis next, given 8 billion breath I don't think there's much Earth can even do to slow them down.

Taldain takes definite third, they probably match or even exceed earth technology wise depending on when you take them from, which I'm saying SA 5 ish

Next is Scadrial, then First of the Sun, then Threnody.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If we give matching populations, and scale up magic users accordingly and ignore location locks and sourcing then I would say

Who would win

  1. Sel - Elantrians can do anything, they basically program reality. They would roll up in CR, and just do whatever they wanted. Since the location and Investiture sourcing are not issues, they can comfortably do win.
  2. Roshar - With no location locks and Bondsmiths, they comfortably Soulcast from CR and again do whatever. (and Bondsmith can boost Soulcasting).
  3. Taldain/Nalthis - Taldain has comparable tech (or could have) + Investiture so they are superior. Nalthis has Lifeless, and hundreds of Returned. Effectively unkillable armies would eventually win (though that depends on the Awakeners staying hidden somewhere).

Who would lose
 

  1. Scadrial - WW1 era tech, only Mistings and Ferrings with occasional Twinborn, but not enough to make a difference. No good way to move to/from CR, so cannot stay hidden for long. Hemalurgy won't grant compounding anymore.
  2. First of the Sun - low tech, relatively weak invested abilities
  3. Threnody - low tech, not much info
Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 minutes ago, StormingTexan said:

Maybe I am not understanding the premise but they are attacking earth right? That does not have a CR.. 

Per the OP there is CR but it is uninhabited and people on Earth cannot access it, i.e. Earth is in Cosmere but has no Invested powers or knowledge about it, see last sentence in OP.
 

2 hours ago, SteelBagel said:

So, say that each planet in the cosmere had to fight the modern military on earth. For balance reasons, I'm going to say that every planet can match the earth's population and has more magic users than they do in canon. Here's my ranking on how this would go. Also, we're removing all location locks & sourcing issues because it's more interesting. Everyone can access their magic just as well as they could on their home world. The earth subastral we'll say is completely uninhabited before the cosmerenauts get there, since the earthlings can't get in. No shards.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Since we are ignoring all elements of culture or morality and only talking about what it technically possible: Earth wins with ICBM's, Nukes, and Chemical/Biological Warfare.  

But if Roshar ever gained Earth's scientific understanding, Lightweaving and Soulcasting alone would be able to match and overpower all of Earth's advantages.  

Scadrial has some alternative tech but in era2 none of it would move the needle against modern technological warfare, just on 1:1 fights.  

Nalthis and Sel are both wildcards because we dont know what most of those planet's cultures are actually capable of (or what the upper limits of Nightblood's siblings might be).

Nalthis's Zombie army would be initially crazy powerful, but unless they can manufacture breaths from other Investiture and not just Birth, they'll run out eventually. But until then they'll scare the crap out of Earth and likely get moved to the front of their annihilations list.     

1 hour ago, Frustration said:

Roshar and Sel have really easy wins, they just retreat to the CR, and then kill earth from there.

I would actually place Nalthis next, given 8 billion breath I don't think there's much Earth can even do to slow them down.

Taldain takes definite third, they probably match or even exceed earth technology wise depending on when you take them from, which I'm saying SA 5 ish

Next is Scadrial, then First of the Sun, then Threnody.

How would would that sort of offensive look?  Aside from soulcasting one soldier's CR flame at a time, they wont have any abilities that can cross the boundary either, right?

 

 

PS:  there's a great anime called Gate, where a portal to a fantasy world opened in modern Japan and the military took it over.  It showcases just how absurdly overpowered modern militaries are compared to any sword&board era.  

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

49 minutes ago, Quantus said:

How would would that sort of offensive look?  Aside from soulcasting one soldier's CR flame at a time, they wont have any abilities that can cross the boundary either, right

Soulcasting can apparently transform objects even from CR (deleted chapter of Jasnah), which makes complete sense as Soulcasting requires partial move to CR to convince/bribe cognitive aspect of object to change. If you are already in CR you can just initiate contact from there.

So boosted by Bondsmith they could soulcast air to poison for example, or planes/ships to different metals. They could effectively cripple any and every tool anyone on Earth has, and the only thing that could stop them would be full Aluminum plating (most likely), which however no one on Earth knows (outside of us of course).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

53 minutes ago, Quantus said:

How would would that sort of offensive look?  Aside from soulcasting one soldier's CR flame at a time, they wont have any abilities that can cross the boundary either, right?

Well, Sel can just spend a few weeks/months/however making a massive aon sheo and kill the planet. Roshar has a dawnshard, but I'm guessing those aren't allowed, bondsmiths and Elsecallers can make interplanetary portals, so they can open one up to the sun, or even just the vaccum of space, and either vaproize the planet or siphon off the atmosphere.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

20 minutes ago, therunner said:

They could effectively cripple any and every tool anyone on Earth has, and the only thing that could stop them would be full Aluminum plating (most likely), which however no one on Earth knows (outside of us of course).

Yeah I guess all the tin foil hat people would get the last laugh. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, StormingTexan said:

So what ratio of magic users to regular soldiers would there be? None of the regular soldiers from any of these worlds (assuming we are referring to their current tech level) would  stand a chance against our modern militaries. I know you said more than cannon like how much more? 

I’d say probably like 50:50, or maybe 75:25 magic users to non-magic. It’s the only way the Cosmere really stands a chance here.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

One other thing to consider is the trade and advancement of technology that comes from warfare. The most advanced cosmere worlds - Sel, Roshar, Taldain and Scadrial - would likely be capable of replicating our technology to some extent. I reckon Sel Elantrians and Rosharan Soulcasters could be rather good at this, since they'd be able to deduce an object's Cognitive Aspect and break down from there. 

In comparison, humanity can't learn how to use Investiture or the Invested arts (unless we count fabrials and medallions, I suppose). If the war went on over a number of years, I could see this gap proving more of a challenge as the cosmere worlds get up to speed.

That being said, @alder24 has made a very good point about flight. Fighter jets with explosive payloads (especially if we bring nukes into the equation) are just insane when going against the common folk and the cities of the cosmere. I can see Elantris surviving due to an Aonic shield, maybe, but places like Kholinar or Elendel? Doubtful. If we were to look at a widescale conflict, it's far more likely that Earth's initially strafing and bombing runs would deplete the moral of the civilians and disrupt the supply chains necessary for the cosmere armies.  (This isn't taking morals and ethics into account, in fairness. Or the actual logistics, since we'd have to be moving these things off world through physical space -which is a problem).

In a pitched battle, certain cosmere armies might have an edge. Soulcasters changing tanks into immobile blocks, Iron compounders being able to pull jets from the sky, or Crashers being able to push missiles away. It's situational, sure, but there's something there.

Problem is, Earth doesn't really fight pitched battles anymore. Planes can fly so high they'd be practically unreachable, and again a single bombing run could cripple an enemy line. Not to mention our satellites being able to provide updates quicker than spanreeds or Seons. 

The only nation that could realistically compete would be a scaled up Elantris. Their biggest limiting factor is their small number, but here that's not as big an issue, and they literally program reality. And, as @Frustration put it, they could draft a massive Aon and kill the planet. 

Earth's real biggest concern would be if all of the cosmere planets teamed up against us, and shared their technology with each other. The sheer weight of numbers and magic combined would likely be able to overcome our militaries. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 minutes ago, SteelBagel said:

I’d say probably like 50:50, or maybe 75:25 magic users to non-magic. It’s the only way the Cosmere really stands a chance here.

Hold up, 50:50, with earth's population on it's own would be insane, 75:25!

That's 6 Billion magic users per planet.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, alder24 said:

Oh, you really want to open this pandora box? Well, here we go again.

Earth wins against everyone. Period. This is not a competition, this is an execution. I agree on your ranking of "who will be the last man standing against Earth".

Nalthis - I won't even start this one. Sorry Awakening :( 

Scadrial - early WW1 tech vs our 100 years later. There is no comparison. You can add in a few Mistborn to it, Earth wins just by using expeditionary force.

Sel - bullet is faster than drawing. Eventually Elantrians will get hit by one and killed. They might cause some problems but overall we're talking drones 20km in the air vs glowing dudes and drawings.

Roshar - Biggest challenge, not because of land army, as guys with sticks are no match for tanks, but Radiants will cause trouble. Not that much. Shardplate is NOT bulletproof. It can be damaged, and every soldier carries an automatic rifle, so they can spray Shardplates until it breaks apart. Not to mention tanks, artillery, jet strikes or precise missiles strikes or bombs.

Here is counter for any power in Cosmere

Flight - we got jets that can move faster than the speed of sound, rockets and missiles that travel Mach 5. We are better at it than Windrunners - they can fly 200mph, f16 makes 1300mph at 15km. Good luck for Windrunners.

Transportation - we have satellite coverage of the entire planet. We will know instantly where and how many enemies appear. We can counter them with fast and mobile strikes teams, missiles and jets.

Healing - big explosions kill them. Just don't stop firing. They will run out of healing very fast. Even Fullborn can be killed if you separate him from his metalminds with powerful explosion.

Illusions - satellites + infrared vision (yes it's a wave, but they don't know it, they can't fake it) + cameras everywhere. Almost every single person on Earth has a camera in his pocket.

Transmutation - industry with extreme levels of production. We can produce more than them.

Division - we can do it better. Look at history.

Future vision - hard to counter, that's why we have AI that can keep up with changes.

We use armor only on vehicles. And they need to close the distance. Tank driving away will defeat 8/10 orders of Radiants. Tank firing - 10/10. And tank is not alone. 

 

And of course we are dominating in the field of weapons of mass destruction. 14000 nuclear warheads ready to launch in a short timeframe. Possibly lots of chemical weapons hidden as well. 

 

I'll wait for Era3/4 Cosmere to challenge Earth, until then it's not looking good for Cosmere.

One thing for the selish folks: they can pre-draw stuff, and wait in the cognitive realm while doing it, only popping out to use the runes they draw. Or they could possibly set them up to travel to the other realm first, then activate.
 

as for roshar: I don’t know that bullets can destroy shardplate. I don’t think we’ve ever seen one damaged by a non-magical item. It’s possible, of course, but per WOB it holds up “well” to bullets. whether that means immune or just resistant is up in the air. For flight, yes, planes are faster, but an elsecaller carried by a skybreaker just needs to get close to turn the whole thing to glass and destroy it. No dodging possible. For transportation, satellites can’t see inside buildings, or the CR, and they take time to check. Imagine a trio of an elsecaller, a skybreaker, and the stormfather’s bondsmith. Bondsmith charges up, elsecaller takes them to the CR, skybreaker flies them in the CR to appropriate destination, periodically getting stormlight recharges from the bondsmith if needed, and food recharges from the elsecaller. You arrive at you desination. Elsecaller dips back into the physical realm, stabs a high ranking official, back to the Cr. Nothing they can do to stop or prevent it, aside from watching for invaders from the Cr around all VIPs and hoping to outdamage them enough that they can’t get back to the CR in time. For transmutation, yes we have good supply lines and industry, still don’t think that defeats being able to create what you need at a moments notice from thin air. And for healing, I wasn’t talking about stormlight healing factors so much as the surge of regrowth. The ability to instantly heal any wounded is a huge advantage. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 minutes ago, Frustration said:

Hold up, 50:50, with earth's population on it's own would be insane, 75:25!

That's 6 Billion magic users per planet.

 

I figured they need the help, since earth has such a tech advantage that most of the Cosmere is just outranged or outsped most of the time.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

30 minutes ago, SteelBagel said:

I’d say probably like 50:50, or maybe 75:25 magic users to non-magic. It’s the only way the Cosmere really stands a chance here.

14 minutes ago, SteelBagel said:

I figured they need the help, since earth has such a tech advantage that most of the Cosmere is just outranged or outsped most of the time.

Them's some pretty nutty numbers though mate. There's roughly eight billion people on Earth, true, but most of them aren't in the military or know how to utilize military technology. Compare that with magic users like Allomancers, who would have an intrinsic understanding of their abilities. If a global draft was even initiated on all sides, each cosmere planet with magic users of that level will be bringing a lot more to bear. 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

7 hours ago, SteelBagel said:

So, say that each planet in the cosmere had to fight the modern military on earth.

 

7 hours ago, SteelBagel said:

For balance reasons, I'm going to say that every planet can match the earth's population and has more magic users than they do in canon.

Denied.  This isn't balanced, this is basically saying "Obviously Earth would win because we have a bigger population by many orders of magnitude, so we're just going to arbitrarily give everyone else an arbitrary boost in numbers that their cultures and societies can't sustain becasue reasons."  No.  They get the populations they have.  

7 hours ago, SteelBagel said:

we're removing all location locks & sourcing issues because it's more interesting.

Then we're doing the same for Earth, which means Earth can access the CR through our technology.  

7 hours ago, SteelBagel said:

Everyone can access their magic just as well as they could on their home world.

Great. Infinite Investiture for everyone else, which is the primary limiting factor for all the other worlds.  So what I'm hearing is that the only way for anyone in the Cosmere to win is to artificially increase their numbers, basically cheese the CR, in a fashion we haven't actually seen anyone do even though they've had war after war, assume that each planet has infinite access to their own Investiture, can come and go from the CR at will, but doesn't have to because they can just kill everyone from the CR.  Based on a deleted scene.  

7 hours ago, SteelBagel said:

The earth subastral we'll say is completely uninhabited before the cosmerenauts get there, since the earthlings can't get in. No shards.

No, you can't say we're getting rid of location locks and then say the Earthlings can't get to the CR.  We can say it was uninhabitted before the Cosmerenauts got there, but earth has to have the ability to get to and from the CR if you're going to give all the other planets infinite amounts of investiture and free them from their respective worlds.  

So in this case, here's what I'd say:

Earth wins. Every time.  Just start tossing Nukes into the CR until everyone is dead.  The end.  Explosions in the CR don't affect the PR.  They'd have no way of countering.  "Oh Oh Soulcasting!" No, i'm sorry, but no.  It's difficult for a soulcaster to soulcast a freaking rock.  How the h*** are they going to soulcast something as complicated as a Nuclear Bomb?  I don't buy it and nothing you can say will convince me otherwise. 

Baring nukes, Earth would wind up creating military bases in the CR, and set up missiles, air force bases, and other such defenses.  Within a year our CR would be well defended against invaders.  The only chance anyone in the Cosmere has would be to surprise us and nuke the planet or something, and you only get that if you give them infinite investiture and infinite ways to get to and from the CR, which is unrealistic. 

I'm sorry, but nothing in the Cosmere will be able to compete with what we can do.  Elantreans have laptops!  So do we.  Nalthians have Returned!  We have grenade launchers.  Mistborn!  Grenade launchers.  Feruchemists! Grenade Launchers.  Radiants with plate!  Grenade launchers.  

Or just replace Grenade Launchers with satalite guided missiles, and no, they don't have to "Check the satalite and that takes time."  The computer handles all that.  You tell the computer "Target the enemy and launch a missle" and they do it.  We can send a missle five hundred miles away and shove it up some poor dude's cornhole.  There's nothing in the cosmere that can even try to go against that. The only way to even remotely make it fair is to give so many advantages to the other worlds as to ruin any kind of comparison.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

41 minutes ago, Tglassy said:

Denied.  This isn't balanced, this is basically saying "Obviously Earth would win because we have a bigger population by many orders of magnitude, so we're just going to arbitrarily give everyone else an arbitrary boost in numbers that their cultures and societies can't sustain becasue reasons."  No.  They get the populations they have. 

Considering they made the thread, I think that they can make the initial conditions. It's no different than when threads have compared a hundred thousand Rosharans vs a hundred thousand Scadrians with the amount of magic users proportionat to the amount their planet has. 

The way I see it, it's a question of who's technology, magic, and society could compete against Earth if things like population were not the deciding factor. 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Tglassy said:

Denied.  This isn't balanced, this is basically saying "Obviously Earth would win because we have a bigger population by many orders of magnitude, so we're just going to arbitrarily give everyone else an arbitrary boost in numbers that their cultures and societies can't sustain becasue reasons."  No.  They get the populations they have.

I cannot even begin to fathom the arrogance of coming into someone else's thread and then trying to overrule them. You aren't even making a correction of inaccurate information, you're just taking over for no reason.

1 hour ago, Tglassy said:

So what I'm hearing is that the only way for anyone in the Cosmere to win is to artificially increase their numbers, basically cheese the CR, in a fashion we haven't actually seen anyone do even though they've had war after war, assume that each planet has infinite access to their own Investiture, can come and go from the CR at will, but doesn't have to because they can just kill everyone from the CR.  Based on a deleted scene.

And that Shallan appearing in the CR when soulcasting.

1 hour ago, Tglassy said:

No, you can't say we're getting rid of location locks and then say the Earthlings can't get to the CR.  We can say it was uninhabitted before the Cosmerenauts got there, but earth has to have the ability to get to and from the CR if you're going to give all the other planets infinite amounts of investiture and free them from their respective worlds.  

It's their thread, they very much can.

Edited by Frustration
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Tglassy said:

 

 

Denied.  This isn't balanced, this is basically saying "Obviously Earth would win because we have a bigger population by many orders of magnitude, so we're just going to arbitrarily give everyone else an arbitrary boost in numbers that their cultures and societies can't sustain becasue reasons."  No.  They get the populations they have.  

Then we're doing the same for Earth, which means Earth can access the CR through our technology.  

Great. Infinite Investiture for everyone else, which is the primary limiting factor for all the other worlds.  So what I'm hearing is that the only way for anyone in the Cosmere to win is to artificially increase their numbers, basically cheese the CR, in a fashion we haven't actually seen anyone do even though they've had war after war, assume that each planet has infinite access to their own Investiture, can come and go from the CR at will, but doesn't have to because they can just kill everyone from the CR.  Based on a deleted scene.  

No, you can't say we're getting rid of location locks and then say the Earthlings can't get to the CR.  We can say it was uninhabitted before the Cosmerenauts got there, but earth has to have the ability to get to and from the CR if you're going to give all the other planets infinite amounts of investiture and free them from their respective worlds.  

So in this case, here's what I'd say:

Earth wins. Every time.  Just start tossing Nukes into the CR until everyone is dead.  The end.  Explosions in the CR don't affect the PR.  They'd have no way of countering.  "Oh Oh Soulcasting!" No, i'm sorry, but no.  It's difficult for a soulcaster to soulcast a freaking rock.  How the h*** are they going to soulcast something as complicated as a Nuclear Bomb?  I don't buy it and nothing you can say will convince me otherwise. 

Baring nukes, Earth would wind up creating military bases in the CR, and set up missiles, air force bases, and other such defenses.  Within a year our CR would be well defended against invaders.  The only chance anyone in the Cosmere has would be to surprise us and nuke the planet or something, and you only get that if you give them infinite investiture and infinite ways to get to and from the CR, which is unrealistic. 

I'm sorry, but nothing in the Cosmere will be able to compete with what we can do.  Elantreans have laptops!  So do we.  Nalthians have Returned!  We have grenade launchers.  Mistborn!  Grenade launchers.  Feruchemists! Grenade Launchers.  Radiants with plate!  Grenade launchers.  

Or just replace Grenade Launchers with satalite guided missiles, and no, they don't have to "Check the satalite and that takes time."  The computer handles all that.  You tell the computer "Target the enemy and launch a missle" and they do it.  We can send a missle five hundred miles away and shove it up some poor dude's cornhole.  There's nothing in the cosmere that can even try to go against that. The only way to even remotely make it fair is to give so many advantages to the other worlds as to ruin any kind of comparison.  

Balanced in that I'm nuetralized things except for a single factor. Magic & magitech vs real world tech.As for sourcing, it's more interesting if they have magic. Rosharans & selish folks vs earthlings on anywhere but roshar/sel is just earthlings va regular people. that's why I did this. They don't have infinite investiture either, they still have to rely on what they can harness. There's a limit to how much you can pull through the dor and how quickly gems are restored, or how many breaths there are, I'm just allowing them to use their magics in the way we're most familiar with, the way they do on their homeworlds.  Doing the same for earth isn't giving them acess to the cognitive realm, it's giving them enough batteries and fuel to power all of their tech. Which it would be weird not to have. And each planet can't come and go from the CR at will. only Rosharans and Selish folks can go to the CR. There are no perpendicularities for anyone to use, and no one else can make their own. And you can soulcast a bomb as easily as you soulcast anything else. The only thing that blocks soulcasting is strong Identity and Investiture, a bomb has neither more than any other object. The complexity of an object has nothing to do with it.

also, rule of thumb that overules all of this: It's my thread. I can do what I want.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

26 minutes ago, SteelBagel said:

Balanced in that I'm nuetralized things except for a single factor. Magic & magitech vs real world tech.As for sourcing, it's more interesting if they have magic. Rosharans & selish folks vs earthlings on anywhere but roshar/sel is just earthlings va regular people. that's why I did this. They don't have infinite investiture either, they still have to rely on what they can harness. There's a limit to how much you can pull through the dor and how quickly gems are restored, or how many breaths there are, I'm just allowing them to use their magics in the way we're most familiar with, the way they do on their homeworlds.  Doing the same for earth isn't giving them acess to the cognitive realm, it's giving them enough batteries and fuel to power all of their tech. Which it would be weird not to have. And each planet can't come and go from the CR at will. only Rosharans and Selish folks can go to the CR. There are no perpendicularities for anyone to use, and no one else can make their own. And you can soulcast a bomb as easily as you soulcast anything else. The only thing that blocks soulcasting is strong Identity and Investiture, a bomb has neither more than any other object. The complexity of an object has nothing to do with it.

also, rule of thumb that overules all of this: It's my thread. I can do what I want.

Would you mind me asking a clarification question? 

In this scenario, are we imagining that the cosmere armies are fighting Earth like an invading force from the Cognitive Realm, or is it more hypothetical in the sense of it's a blank field with an Earth army on one side and a cosmere army on the other? 

The only reason I ask is that, if it were more an actual war and Earth had no Cognitve Realm access, we wouldn't be able to get our jets, vehicles and infantry off world as we don't have any practical spaceships for something like that.

Thanks heaps! :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Tglassy said:

Denied.  This isn't balanced, this is basically saying "Obviously Earth would win because we have a bigger population by many orders of magnitude, so we're just going to arbitrarily give everyone else an arbitrary boost in numbers that their cultures and societies can't sustain becasue reasons."  No.  They get the populations they have.  

My apologies mate, I'm not trying to sound rude, but this seems a touch aggressive when taking the spirit of the question into account. You're right, this isn't feasible, but without this line this thread wouldn't be about what @SteelBagel wants to know; that being what is stronger; our technology or the cosmere's magic. It's kind of the same as us pooling the Earth's military potential as a single unit, rather than focusing solely on, say, the US military vs all of Roshar.  

Same with the idea of un-keying Connection-based Investiture access in the case of the Selish and Rosharan magics - the idea being the playing field is level for the spirit of the question. 

2 hours ago, Tglassy said:

Then we're doing the same for Earth, which means Earth can access the CR through our technology.  

Earth wins. Every time.  Just start tossing Nukes into the CR until everyone is dead.  The end.  Explosions in the CR don't affect the PR.  They'd have no way of countering.  

Baring nukes, Earth would wind up creating military bases in the CR, and set up missiles, air force bases, and other such defenses.  Within a year our CR would be well defended against invaders. 

How would we do this? As far as I'm aware, only Elsecallers, Willshapers and the Oathgates can get into the CR without the use of a permanent perpendicularity. Considering @SteelBagel specified that there's no Shardic interactions involved, it seems unlikely that a perpendicularity would form for Earthlings to use. Maybe we could capture a Radiant or two and force them to Elsecall, but that wouldn't be a particularly fast process to transport things into the CR. 

2 hours ago, Tglassy said:

"Oh Oh Soulcasting!" No, i'm sorry, but no.  It's difficult for a soulcaster to soulcast a freaking rock.  How the h*** are they going to soulcast something as complicated as a Nuclear Bomb?  I don't buy it and nothing you can say will convince me otherwise. 

I feel I must ask this; what's more complicated, a nuclear bomb or a human being?

Soulcasting isn't determined by how complicated an object is, it's determined by how said object views itself, and how rigid that view is. The reason stone is so hard to soulcast is because it barely ever changes. A thousand years can pass and a rock will still be a rock. I would actually argue that something like a missile would be easier to soulcast, as its main purpose is to change from a solid object into raw, destructive energy. 

Now, an argument could be made that a Soulcaster would struggle to target the missile given it's speed, but that's a different argument than that they simply couldn't do it. 

2 hours ago, Tglassy said:

The only chance anyone in the Cosmere has would be to surprise us and nuke the planet or something, and you only get that if you give them infinite investiture and infinite ways to get to and from the CR, which is unrealistic. 

I'm sorry, but nothing in the Cosmere will be able to compete with what we can do.  Elantreans have laptops!  So do we.  Nalthians have Returned!  We have grenade launchers.  Mistborn!  Grenade launchers.  Feruchemists! Grenade Launchers.  Radiants with plate!  Grenade launchers.  

Or just replace Grenade Launchers with satalite guided missiles, and no, they don't have to "Check the satalite and that takes time."  The computer handles all that.  You tell the computer "Target the enemy and launch a missle" and they do it.  We can send a missle five hundred miles away and shove it up some poor dude's cornhole.  There's nothing in the cosmere that can even try to go against that. The only way to even remotely make it fair is to give so many advantages to the other worlds as to ruin any kind of comparison.  

I've asked the OP for clarification regarding the layout of the scenario, whether they're meaning it as a pitched battle or an invasion. If it was the latter, we'd be at a severe initial disadvantage as we can't access our Cognitive Realm at all and would have no fore-warning. It wouldn't take infinite Investiture, just unkeyed Invested warriors - which @SteelBagel specified in the initial question. No matter how good we are, an army of Elsecallers dropping out of thin air into our main military instillations all at once would be pretty hard to repel. 

The Elantrian laptop thing is a weird note considering how wicked their powers are. Elantrians have access to near instant healing for any battlefield injury, of either themselves or other soldiers, as well as an Aonic shield that can likely repel bullets, as it draws energy from the Dor to match whatever energy is thrown it's way. That would probably work against grenade launchers as well. Their Aonic energy blasts would probably do decent damage against tanks, armoured cars and the like. Also, we really don't know the full extent of their powers yet. Elantrians are capable of near instant physical realm teleportation, something else we can't do either. 

Radiants with Plate aren't to be slept on either. Living Radiant plate especially. Large missiles and tank rounds would be their wheelhouse; I don't feel grenade launchers would be. 

The guided missiles and other flight based advantages are really our biggest advantage and I do agree, the cosmere has little to realistically compare. But again, that's the question that's been asked. Just how much of an advantage is it and what do the cosmere worlds have to counter or oppose it? 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 hours ago, Werewolff Studios said:

Would you mind me asking a clarification question? 

In this scenario, are we imagining that the cosmere armies are fighting Earth like an invading force from the Cognitive Realm, or is it more hypothetical in the sense of it's a blank field with an Earth army on one side and a cosmere army on the other? 

The only reason I ask is that, if it were more an actual war and Earth had no Cognitve Realm access, we wouldn't be able to get our jets, vehicles and infantry off world as we don't have any practical spaceships for something like that.

Thanks heaps! :)

Yeah, no problem. I was thinking more of a blank field with earth on one side and Cosmere on the other.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...