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

[alder24]

14 hours 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.

Excuse me, the what?? So 6 BILLION people who are Radiants/Mistings/Elantrians etc?

For comparison, US population is 332 mil, and have 1.35 million active military personnel with additional 0.8 million in reserves - that's 2.15 million which is 0.6% of US population! Additionally they have 17 mil that can be drafted - which is 5.1% of its population. There are around 28 mil active military personnel in the whole world (google), which is 0.35% of world population. If we assume 5.1% of people in the world can be drafted into the army, then Earth has around 408 mil people that can be drafted. However Earth doesn't have equipment nor supplies for even fraction of that number.

And you are giving 6 billion surgebinders to Cosmere? Like what? That's 700 mil Radiants in each order (without Bondsmiths). To say that's crazy is understatement. In that case even Scadrial wins...

 

I think you all are missing one point with Soulcasting from CR. When Shallan soulcast from PR, she touches the object and can talk to its cognitive manifestation. However in CR, she needs to first FIND the bead that represents that object (like it was shown in Jasnah unreleased chapter), and that beed doesn't need to be in the same place. So when you have a fast moving object, that often changes its location, its cognitive manifestation doesn't need to follow it. You won't find jet's cognitive manifestation where jet is flying in PR. Moreover, there is more trash on Earth than there are objects on Roshar. Finding cognitive manifestation of an jet or tank in CR will be like finding a needle in earth size haystack. Good luck with that. (I imagine that Earth cognitive manifestation of objects are not mists or beads, but just pieces of trash...)

14 hours ago, SteelBagel said:

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 windrunner, skybreaker or elsecaller would EVER catch up to a jet 15km in the air moving 6.5x faster than they ever could. Just no way.  They will never even get close to a jet. The sonic boom that jet generates would cause them harm. Adding to it, jet can fire laser guided missiles and shoot down from the sky all glowing people. 

15 hours ago, SteelBagel said:

For transportation, satellites can’t see inside buildings, or the CR, and they take time to check.

They can't but US spy satellites have a resolution of 5cm. Yes, they can see any object larger than 5 cm. They can see every glowing man on Earth. They can easily spot unusual concentration of people in some building and report their movements.

 

The only way for Roshar or Sel (with reasonable numbers of Surgebinders) to "win" that war is to fight from CR only - which is so boooooring. And it would still take a lot of time to destroy Earth resistance. 

[SteelBagel]

33 minutes ago, alder24 said:

Excuse me, the what?? So 6 BILLION people who are Radiants/Mistings/Elantrians etc?

For comparison, US population is 332 mil, and have 1.35 million active military personnel with additional 0.8 million in reserves - that's 2.15 million which is 0.6% of US population! Additionally they have 17 mil that can be drafted - which is 5.1% of its population. There are around 28 mil active military personnel in the whole world (google), which is 0.35% of world population. If we assume 5.1% of people in the world can be drafted into the army, then Earth has around 408 mil people that can be drafted. However Earth doesn't have equipment nor supplies for even fraction of that number.

And you are giving 6 billion surgebinders to Cosmere? Like what? That's 700 mil Radiants in each order (without Bondsmiths). To say that's crazy is understatement. In that case even Scadrial wins...

 

I think you all are missing one point with Soulcasting from CR. When Shallan soulcast from PR, she touches the object and can talk to its cognitive manifestation. However in CR, she needs to first FIND the bead that represents that object (like it was shown in Jasnah unreleased chapter), and that beed doesn't need to be in the same place. So when you have a fast moving object, that often changes its location, its cognitive manifestation doesn't need to follow it. You won't find jet's cognitive manifestation where jet is flying in PR. Moreover, there is more trash on Earth than there are objects on Roshar. Finding cognitive manifestation of an jet or tank in CR will be like finding a needle in earth size haystack. Good luck with that. (I imagine that Earth cognitive manifestation of objects are not mists or beads, but just pieces of trash...)

No windrunner, skybreaker or elsecaller would EVER catch up to a jet 15km in the air moving 6.5x faster than they ever could. Just no way.  They will never even get close to a jet. The sonic boom that jet generates would cause them harm. Adding to it, jet can fire laser guided missiles and shoot down from the sky all glowing people. 

They can't but US spy satellites have a resolution of 5cm. Yes, they can see any object larger than 5 cm. They can see every glowing man on Earth. They can easily spot unusual concentration of people in some building and report their movements.

 

The only way for Roshar or Sel (with reasonable numbers of Surgebinders) to "win" that war is to fight from CR only - which is so boooooring. And it would still take a lot of time to destroy Earth resistance. 

For the record, just because 75% of the population has magic powers doesn’t mean they are automatically willing to fight in the military any more than the people of earth will be. Plenty will be non-combatants just like plenty of earthlings will be.and yeah, you’d have difficulty soulcasting jets and stuff from the cognitive realm, but what about people? They’d be pretty easy to storm up from the CR. You could also pop out for just a sec to stab them with the shardblade, then jump back in the Cr. And I do agree that the only way most of the Cosmere really stands a chance is to attack from the Cr. Everyone else is just gonna get bombed, except maybe elantrians who could generate a forcefield to protect themselves. It is kinda boring, but the earthlings are just gonna out range them otherwise. 

[therunner]

41 minutes ago, alder24 said:

I think you all are missing one point with Soulcasting from CR. When Shallan soulcast from PR, she touches the object and can talk to its cognitive manifestation. However in CR, she needs to first FIND the bead that represents that object (like it was shown in Jasnah unreleased chapter), and that beed doesn't need to be in the same place. So when you have a fast moving object, that often changes its location, its cognitive manifestation doesn't need to follow it. You won't find jet's cognitive manifestation where jet is flying in PR. Moreover, there is more trash on Earth than there are objects on Roshar. Finding cognitive manifestation of an jet or tank in CR will be like finding a needle in earth size haystack. Good luck with that. (I imagine that Earth cognitive manifestation of objects are not mists or beads, but just pieces of trash...

You can draw beads of given object to you, we see Shallan do this in Oathbringer, and I think Jasnah as well in flashbacks. (though I would need to double check)
They are also drawn to Investiture, so it should be possible to find them.

46 minutes ago, alder24 said:

No windrunner, skybreaker or elsecaller would EVER catch up to a jet 15km in the air moving 6.5x faster than they ever could. Just no way.  They will never even get close to a jet. The sonic boom that jet generates would cause them harm. Adding to it, jet can fire laser guided missiles and shoot down from the sky all glowing people.

The maximum speed of Gravitation user is just terminal velocity for given acceleration, so the only limit is 1) Durability of body 2) Amount of Stormlight. And point 1. is not relevant for 4th and Higher.
Windrunners could also speed up even higher and faster, as they can manipulate pressure through Adhesion, so they could accelerate until as needed.

Also recall that there are reverse lashings to make things miss (though this would be risky move).

And yeah, jet in air would be superior to Windrunners and Skybreakers. But the second it has to land, it has big issues. (you know, Soulcast the runway to liquid tar for example).
 

50 minutes ago, alder24 said:

They can't but US spy satellites have a resolution of 5cm. Yes, they can see any object larger than 5 cm. They can see every glowing man on Earth. They can easily spot unusual concentration of people in some building and report their movements.

But those satelittes cannot observe the entire surface of Earth 24/7, you need to pick and choose locations to observe.
Which against enemy that can drop out of thin air (Transportation from CR) and possibly teleport, is of limited value.
 

[SteelBagel]

8 minutes ago, therunner said:

The maximum speed of Gravitation user is just terminal velocity for given acceleration, so the only limit is 1) Durability of body 2) Amount of Stormlight. And point 1. is not relevant for 4th and Higher.
Windrunners could also speed up even higher and faster, as they can manipulate pressure through Adhesion, so they could accelerate until as needed.

 

Even with 16x earth gravitation, assuming no atmosphere manipulation terminal velocity is only ~300 mph. Any more gravitation than that is going to cause you to run out of stormlight super quick. They’re super fast compared to pre-industrial stuff, but compared to most modern jets they’re still relatively slow because humans just arent very aerodynamic compared to stuff like planes. Granted they can reverse thrust to any other direction in an instant, so they’re more maneuverable, but speed wise they don’t beat a jet.

[Frustration]

1 minute ago, SteelBagel said:

Even with 16x earth gravitation, assuming no atmosphere manipulation terminal velocity is only ~300 mph. Any more gravitation than that is going to cause you to run out of stormlight super quick. They’re super fast compared to pre-industrial stuff, but compared to most modern jets they’re still relatively slow because humans just arent very aerodynamic compared to stuff like planes. Granted they can reverse thrust to any other direction in an instant, so they’re more maneuverable, but speed wise they don’t beat a jet.

Shardplate can become more aerodynamic, not to mention that it's weight will dramatically increase the speed of terminal velocity.

[SteelBagel]

14 minutes ago, Frustration said:

Shardplate can become more aerodynamic, not to mention that it's weight will dramatically increase the speed of terminal velocity.

I don’t know how aerodynamic shardplate can be, but here’s what I found for it’s weight:

It's been stated that a large horse can safely carry a full-grown man in shardplate so long as they mount the animal "carefully."  I take this to mean that the weight of the rider, plate, and saddle is close to the maximum weight the horse can carry around for a more-or-less extended period of time without injury, about 20-30% of its body weight.  A horse can weigh up to about 2,000 lbs.  0.3 x 2,000 lbs = 600 lbs of total carrying capacity, which would make the armor weigh at most about 400 lbs, and more likely closer to 250-300 lbs (since horses that large typically aren't suitable for riding).  This is also happens to be just heavy enough that most people would have extreme difficulty moving if the suit were to lose power, which also agrees with in-book references.

 

if we assume 300 lbs of weight added, that ups the speed to ~471 mph for sharplate. If we assume it can become very streamlined, matching that of a standard streamlined body, I’ll reduce the drag coefficient to 0.1 (from the 0.7 of a standard human body, and still higher than the 0.016 of a supersonic fighter jet.) we get a top speed of: 1,248 mph, or 2008 kmph. Of course, that’s assuming the plate doesn’t add any area to the cross section. But it is pretty fast. Well over Mach 1. However, a modern fighter jet is still faster, flying at around 1,600 mph on average, and faster ones could be found if need be. And at this speed, a the ability to manuver is greatly reduced for the radiants, as turning too quickly risks liquifying their insides, plate or no plate. Stormlight healing can make up for this, but it’s another drain on the already overtaxed stormlight that ensures they can’t keep up this speed for long, especially not in combat.

[ThatRedHead717]

21 hours ago, alder24 said:

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. 

The only Order that might have any trouble taking down a tank is Truthwatchers. Every single other order has at least one power that can just immediately destroy any armored land vehicle. 

Windrunners can run in, dodging any missiles or pushing them away with a reverse lashing, and cut the missile to shreds with their shardblade.

Skybreakers can do the same. They can't reverse lash but I'm still donfident one could get in close enough to cut with the Shardblade or use division. We haven't seen much on Skybreaker's division so i'll let their blade take this cause I know that could do the job.

Dustbringers don't need to get close to a tank to mess it up. they can just be 100ft away and tear up the ground under the tank, then run in and slice to shreds.

Edgedancers have it super easy. They will have no trouble dodging any missiles or the like and just have to get close enough to rip it to shreds with the magically shard and devastating shardblade.

Lightweavers and Elsecallers can literally melt bullets as they approach so they do no harm. all they have to do is walk up to the talk and turn it into fire. easy peasy. 

Willshapers can stoneshape under the tank and lift them up by the middle so they cant aim or move, then walk up and use shardblade.

stoneward can do the same but then they can also make the treads of the tank meld together so they can't turn, now they can't move even worse. Then walk up and use shardblade. 

Do I even need to defend bondsmiths here? Seeing as we have only scratched the surface of Bondsmith abilities and Dalinar can already do such incredible things, i think it's safe to say he could deal with one tank.

 

I'm talking about a specific 1 on 1 encounter between a tank and a radiant but this is applicable to any battlefield where there are tanks. (Assuming we're on earth) earthlings wont just nuke their own planet to get rid of them so we have to assume they will use other methods of fighting. If you genuinly think that a group of radiants couldn't stand their own against our military, you're out of your mind. 

[SteelBagel]

26 minutes ago, ThatRedHead717 said:

The only Order that might have any trouble taking down a tank is Truthwatchers. Every single other order has at least one power that can just immediately destroy any armored land vehicle. 

Windrunners can run in, dodging any missiles or pushing them away with a reverse lashing, and cut the missile to shreds with their shardblade.

Skybreakers can do the same. They can't reverse lash but I'm still donfident one could get in close enough to cut with the Shardblade or use division. We haven't seen much on Skybreaker's division so i'll let their blade take this cause I know that could do the job.

Dustbringers don't need to get close to a tank to mess it up. they can just be 100ft away and tear up the ground under the tank, then run in and slice to shreds.

Edgedancers have it super easy. They will have no trouble dodging any missiles or the like and just have to get close enough to rip it to shreds with the magically shard and devastating shardblade.

Lightweavers and Elsecallers can literally melt bullets as they approach so they do no harm. all they have to do is walk up to the talk and turn it into fire. easy peasy. 

Willshapers can stoneshape under the tank and lift them up by the middle so they cant aim or move, then walk up and use shardblade.

stoneward can do the same but then they can also make the treads of the tank meld together so they can't turn, now they can't move even worse. Then walk up and use shardblade. 

Do I even need to defend bondsmiths here? Seeing as we have only scratched the surface of Bondsmith abilities and Dalinar can already do such incredible things, i think it's safe to say he could deal with one tank.

 

I'm talking about a specific 1 on 1 encounter between a tank and a radiant but this is applicable to any battlefield where there are tanks. (Assuming we're on earth) earthlings wont just nuke their own planet to get rid of them so we have to assume they will use other methods of fighting. If you genuinly think that a group of radiants couldn't stand their own against our military, you're out of your mind. 

I don't know it's quite that easy. Edgedancer's might have some trouble. They're not as great at redirecting on the fly as windrunners & skybreakers, and their limited to a 2d plane of movement. They might have the same superior healing factors as truthwatchers (or maybe that's just corrupted truthwatchers? Who knows?) but I think there's an OK chance they get shot down en route. Lightweavers might also have some trouble. Soulcasting projectiles out of the air is beyond anything we've seen them do. Elsecallers could still make it by Transporting over there, though. Still, 7/10 of your people being able to 1v1 a tank is pretty impressive.

Edited January 18, 2023 by SteelBagel

[alder24]

1 hour ago, ThatRedHead717 said:

The only Order that might have any trouble taking down a tank is Truthwatchers. Every single other order has at least one power that can just immediately destroy any armored land vehicle. 

My point was a tank can just drive away, and only Windrunners and Skybreakers can catch up to it. The Abrams tank M1A1 has a speed on road: 45 mph (72 km/h), off-road: 30 mph (48 km/h). Even Edgedancers can't move that fast. Tank won't just stand and wait for Radiant to walk up to it, as you suggested, it will drive away. And tank can engage from several kilometers, and doesn't need to stop to fire. Radiant can't do that, most powers presented by them so far require touch. 

[Frustration]

1 minute ago, alder24 said:

My point was a tank can just drive away, and only Windrunners and Skybreakers can catch up to it. The Abrams tank M1A1 has a speed on road: 45 mph (72 km/h), off-road: 30 mph (48 km/h). Even Edgedancers can't move that fast. Tank won't just stand and wait for Radiant to walk up to it, as you suggested, it will drive away. And tank can engage from several kilometers, and doesn't need to stop to fire. Radiant can't do that, most powers presented by them so far require touch. 

Why would edgedancers not be able to keep up? They really don't have a top speed.

[SteelBagel]

1 hour ago, Frustration said:

Why would edgedancers not be able to keep up? They really don't have a top speed.

 they can’t really accelerate magically. They can only maintain speeds they already have, avoiding deceleration due to friction and air resistance. So maybe they could get that big a speed if they had a big hill to slide down first to get up to speed, but by default they really only can go about the speed a normal human can on flat ground. And only being able to defeat tanks while the tanks are downhill isn’t great. Especially when I don’t know how good an edge dancer is at turning without friction.

[Frustration]

24 minutes ago, SteelBagel said:

 they can’t really accelerate magically. They can only maintain speeds they already have, avoiding deceleration due to friction and air resistance. So maybe they could get that big a speed if they had a big hill to slide down first to get up to speed, but by default they really only can go about the speed a normal human can on flat ground. And only being able to defeat tanks while the tanks are downhill isn’t great. Especially when I don’t know how good an edge dancer is at turning without friction.

They can speed up, like we saw in RoW edgedanncers can propel themselves while also retaining previous momentum.

[IlstrawberrySeed]

Also, delayed lashings on an edgedancer (or tapping speed from a medalian) would greatly enhance their ability to get to various enemies.

[Werewolff Studios]

7 hours ago, therunner said:

The maximum speed of Gravitation user is just terminal velocity for given acceleration, so the only limit is 1) Durability of body 2) Amount of Stormlight. And point 1. is not relevant for 4th and Higher.
Windrunners could also speed up even higher and faster, as they can manipulate pressure through Adhesion, so they could accelerate until as needed.

One thing to add here for future discussion.

Radiants utilizing the Graviataion Surge can travel faster than terminal velocity, as per the following WOB.

Quote

Karen Ahlstrom (paraphrased)

1. Just as highstorms come less frequently around the Weeping, they are more frequent around Midpeace.

2. Following the advent of the Everstorm, the normal highstorm calculations/schedule was found to be thrown off by about four (Rosharan) months.

3. Highstorms move at about 370 miles per hour. The Everstorm moves at about 120 miles per hour. Those are variable of course, and shouldn't be taken as official, definitive numbers.

4. For approximate Everstorm timing calculations we used a cycle of 9.1 (Rosharan) days.

5. Roshar's circumference is about 22110 miles. Again, this shouldn't be taken as an official, definitive number.

JordanCon 2018 (April 21, 2018)

Since we've seen Radiants travelling and even fighting in front of a Highstorm, their maximum speed is, at the very least, around 370mph and, as you stated, Windrunners could likely go even faster through pressure manipulation.

[alder24]

22 minutes ago, Werewolff Studios said:

Since we've seen Radiants travelling and even fighting in front of a Highstorm, their maximum speed is, at the very least, around 370mph and

I think in that case it is because the masses of the air are "pushing" Windrunner along with them, so the air doesn't produce that big drag force, or the drag force is pushing them with the air.

4 hours ago, Frustration said:

Why would edgedancers not be able to keep up? They really don't have a top speed.

Their body is their limit. They need to use muscles and there will be a moment when they can't move any faster as they can't keep up with the acceleration they want to gain.

[Frustration]

7 minutes ago, alder24 said:

Their body is their limit. They need to use muscles and there will be a moment when they can't move any faster as they can't keep up with the acceleration they want to gain.

Not necesarily, they can use mechanical propultion, like Kaladin's glove, but without air resistance, and able to maintain that speed as long as they have stormlight.

[Werewolff Studios]

8 minutes ago, alder24 said:

I think in that case it is because the masses of the air are "pushing" Windrunner along with them, so the air doesn't produce that big drag force, or the drag force is pushing them with the air.

Their body is their limit. They need to use muscles and there will be a moment when they can't move any faster as they can't keep up with the acceleration they want to gain.

Perhaps that is the case. Still, they are at the very least capable of surviving greater speed then terminal velocity. 

Regarding Edgedancers, their body might limit their rate of acceleration, but not necessarily their top speed. As long as they have Stormlight to survive, it's kind of like accelerating in a vacuum.

[Tglassy]

6 hours ago, ThatRedHead717 said:

The only Order that might have any trouble taking down a tank is Truthwatchers. Every single other order has at least one power that can just immediately destroy any armored land vehicle. 

Windrunners can run in, dodging any missiles or pushing them away with a reverse lashing, and cut the missile to shreds with their shardblade.

Skybreakers can do the same. They can't reverse lash but I'm still donfident one could get in close enough to cut with the Shardblade or use division. We haven't seen much on Skybreaker's division so i'll let their blade take this cause I know that could do the job.

Dustbringers don't need to get close to a tank to mess it up. they can just be 100ft away and tear up the ground under the tank, then run in and slice to shreds.

Edgedancers have it super easy. They will have no trouble dodging any missiles or the like and just have to get close enough to rip it to shreds with the magically shard and devastating shardblade.

Lightweavers and Elsecallers can literally melt bullets as they approach so they do no harm. all they have to do is walk up to the talk and turn it into fire. easy peasy. 

Willshapers can stoneshape under the tank and lift them up by the middle so they cant aim or move, then walk up and use shardblade.

stoneward can do the same but then they can also make the treads of the tank meld together so they can't turn, now they can't move even worse. Then walk up and use shardblade. 

Do I even need to defend bondsmiths here? Seeing as we have only scratched the surface of Bondsmith abilities and Dalinar can already do such incredible things, i think it's safe to say he could deal with one tank.

 

I'm talking about a specific 1 on 1 encounter between a tank and a radiant but this is applicable to any battlefield where there are tanks. (Assuming we're on earth) earthlings wont just nuke their own planet to get rid of them so we have to assume they will use other methods of fighting. If you genuinly think that a group of radiants couldn't stand their own against our military, you're out of your mind. 

I think y'all are underestimating how quickly a round from a tank is moving.  A bullet from a Tank is shot at over 4,000 ft per second.  That's nearly a mile.  Per second.  Despite how they are written, Radant's are not anime characters.  They will not be swinging their swords and slicing missiles and bullets out of the air.  There will be no "I soulcast the bullets into nothing as it's flying towards me".  4,000 ft per second.  PER SECOND.  It's just too fast.  A Fullborn, sure.  A Bondsmith who manages to slow down time by a factor of 15 as Frustration is always talking about, maybe.  4,000/15 is 266.57 ft per second, so that way it's onlyl crossing a freaking football field in a second's time.  May have some time to move out of the way if they're a thousand feet out.  

But anything else?  I'm sorry, but there is no response to Tanks on Roshar.  There is no response to jets.  Or computer controlled drones firing self guided missiles.  Reverse Lashings work on free flying arrows, but those are flying at fairly slow speeds compared to a tank bullet or a missile from a jet, and even if it could veer the missle off course a bit, it would just correct itself.  

At the current level of tech on all the worlds, there is nothing that can compare to what mankind has made in the last hundred years.  Now, that will change, as shown by the new Tress book.  Once they start having personal computers with usable AI's, things will change dramatically.  Once Brandon gets into Era 3, this entire conversation could very well up and change course.  

But as of right now, if you bar Earth from the CR, then the only thing they can do is attack us from the CR.  If Earth is like Roshar, with all the beads, then good luck finding things to soulcast, but it probably isn't.  Not sure what it WOULD be like.  Roshar is beads becasue spheres are their currency so that's always on their minds.  Scadrial is like mist because the Mists play such an important part of their mental state.  So our world would be...no idea.  Probably exlectic.  Our cultures are too diverse.  

Also, pretty sure Radiants would have a hard time just breathing in our atmosphere.  

[Kuldak]

A couple clarifying questions/concerns. Are we restricting Cosmere magics to what we have seen/can be reliably assumed based on the last written book from each world, or are we giving the Cosmere access to "Theoretically possible" feats, but that we have not actually seen in any book, or is lost knowledge. An example would be lightweavers being able to manipulate radio waves, since as of RoW none of the radiants even know what radio is, much less how to manipulate it. Another example would be advanced uses of Hemalurgy. Currently Scadrial knows a very limited subset of what is possible with Hemalurgy, but in theory, Scadrial would have access to create millions of Steel Inquisitors or even more powerful beings if they had access to the more advanced Hemalurgic techniques.

The other issue is in regards to your population increase of magic users perhaps needing rebalancing. For example on Scadrial, by increasing the population to earth numbers (~8 Billion) and the number of metalborn from 0.1% of the population to between 50-75%, that would by extension proportionally increase the number of twinborn and natural compounders to a ridiculous degree. Lets say that Southern Scadrial has about the same population as the basin, ~15 million, for a total population of ~30 million on Scadrial. If we also assume that Miles was the only living gold compounder on Scadrial, and he was statistically proportional (1 out of 30 million). If you then increase the percent of the population of metalborn to 50%, then statistically there should now be around 500 gold compounders. If you then increase the population from 30 million to 8 billion, you are now looking at potentially over 130,000 natural gold compounders.

The population issue only gets worse when we expand to other worlds with more powerful individual magic users, the numbers you mention would put it at BILLIONS of Radiants or Elantrians. I know the population change was to try to balance the earth's population/tech level, but this change puts it way too far on the Cosmere side, Earth would stand no chance based purely on numbers. 

[Frustration]

3 hours ago, Tglassy said:

I think y'all are underestimating how quickly a round from a tank is moving.  A bullet from a Tank is shot at over 4,000 ft per second.  That's nearly a mile. 

No it's not, a mile is 5280 feet. And while rounds can fly that fast, aiming takes time.

3 hours ago, Tglassy said:

Reverse Lashings work on free flying arrows, but those are flying at fairly slow speeds compared to a tank bullet or a missile from a jet, and even if it could veer the missle off course a bit, it would just correct itself. 

Reverse lashings can affect bullets.

Spoiler

VindicationKnight

Could a Full Lashing bend the path of bullets? Or do they have too much momentum?

Brandon Sanderson

It could.

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/100/#e3523

 

 

And self guided missiles are rare, almost no militaries have them.

3 hours ago, Tglassy said:

At the current level of tech on all the worlds, there is nothing that can compare to what mankind has made in the last hundred years.

Taldain could.

[NameIess]

I think something that's being overlooked is the ubiquity of aluminum on earth. It's pretty easy to start plating tanks in aluminum to protect them from Shardblades, and if Scadrial can figure out aluminum bullets, so can we. (Although it'll probably take a while to get production up and running).

[Werewolff Studios]

31 minutes ago, UnfortunatelyNamed said:

I think something that's being overlooked is the ubiquity of aluminum on earth. It's pretty easy to start plating tanks in aluminum to protect them from Shardblades, and if Scadrial can figure out aluminum bullets, so can we. (Although it'll probably take a while to get production up and running).

Yeah, this is very relevant if we're talking invasion of Earth and how each world would cope with that. However, I believe the question is more referring to a straight battle between two armies on an open plain, kind of thing. 

[NameIess]

8 minutes ago, Werewolff Studios said:

Yeah, this is very relevant if we're talking invasion of Earth and how each world would cope with that. However, I believe the question is more referring to a straight battle between two armies on an open plain, kind of thing. 

In that case, barring any Elsecaller+Bondsmith/Elantrian shenanigans in the CR completely wiping them out, earth wins. The simplest indication of this in RoW, where Hoid mentions that Roshar is nearing the end of a traditional army formation's usefulness, approaching the time when just getting a bunch of troops to line up and attack the enemy just won't work. Modern earth has been past that point for over a century. The American Civil War was pushing it and by World War I using traditional formations would have been suicide for whatever army tried it. That was a hundred years ago.

For Roshar, Radiants might be strong, but their ranged attacks are pitiful compared to modern earth. Any ground based Radiant that's unable to travel into the CR will die before they get close to striking distance, along with the rest of the Rosharan army. Windrunners, Skybreakers, Elsecallers, Willshapers, and Bondsmiths might be strong, but at best they'll manage a pyrrhic victory that leaves everyone in the physical realm dead.

If Sel can access the CR, they have a chance. Otherwise, dead.

Scadrial has pretty much nothing but Fullborn going for it, and they currently have nothing but some drained Bands to go off of. Their slight advantage in magic is not enough to offset the massive tech disadvantage.

Unless Taldain has modern earth tech, they lose too. Sandmasters ain't doing crem against bombing.

Nalthis has literally nothing. Awakeners will die to ordinary bullets, as will Lifeless.

TLDR: If earth has access to the CR, they win 10/10 against any army in the Cosmere, barring direct Shardic intervention. Otherwise, they win 9/10 against Roshar, with that 1/10 being the case where they kill the entire Rosharan army in the physical realm, then Elsecallers and Bondsmiths slowly Soulcast their army from the CR. If Sel can access the CR and earth can't, then it's basically the same as Roshar.

[Werewolff Studios]

43 minutes ago, UnfortunatelyNamed said:

In that case, barring any Elsecaller+Bondsmith/Elantrian shenanigans in the CR completely wiping them out, earth wins. The simplest indication of this in RoW, where Hoid mentions that Roshar is nearing the end of a traditional army formation's usefulness, approaching the time when just getting a bunch of troops to line up and attack the enemy just won't work. Modern earth has been past that point for over a century. The American Civil War was pushing it and by World War I using traditional formations would have been suicide for whatever army tried it. That was a hundred years ago.

For Roshar, Radiants might be strong, but their ranged attacks are pitiful compared to modern earth. Any ground based Radiant that's unable to travel into the CR will die before they get close to striking distance, along with the rest of the Rosharan army. Windrunners, Skybreakers, Elsecallers, Willshapers, and Bondsmiths might be strong, but at best they'll manage a pyrrhic victory that leaves everyone in the physical realm dead.

If Sel can access the CR, they have a chance. Otherwise, dead.

Scadrial has pretty much nothing but Fullborn going for it, and they currently have nothing but some drained Bands to go off of. Their slight advantage in magic is not enough to offset the massive tech disadvantage.

Unless Taldain has modern earth tech, they lose too. Sandmasters ain't doing crem against bombing.

Nalthis has literally nothing. Awakeners will die to ordinary bullets, as will Lifeless.

TLDR: If earth has access to the CR, they win 10/10 against any army in the Cosmere, barring direct Shardic intervention. Otherwise, they win 9/10 against Roshar, with that 1/10 being the case where they kill the entire Rosharan army in the physical realm, then Elsecallers and Bondsmiths slowly Soulcast their army from the CR. If Sel can access the CR and earth can't, then it's basically the same as Roshar.

I think this is a pretty reasonable breakdown of how open combat fares. The Knights Radiant have some truly nutty abilities, and they would certainly be hard to take down, but they just don't have enough holding power against long ranged missiles and similar attacks. 

Unless we're talking about 4th Oath Radiants powered by a permanent Bondsmith perpendicularity so both themselves and their Shardplate are able to constantly heal, their numbers would eventually dwindle. I agree, best case scenario is a handful of Radiants left with everyone else dead. Very Desolation of them, I have to admit. 

Roshar as a whole does fair worse, as you've said. An army line doesn't resist aerial superiority, or even automatic rifles, very well. 

Sel as a whole is probably similar, though I do hesitate at the Elantrians specifically. So long as they're unkeyed via Connection, there isn't much they can't do. Who's to say they couldn't create a barrier impervious to bombs and missiles, or teleport directly behind enemy lines, or make long range guided energy blasts of their own? Especially with all of them gathered together and focused on repelling an army. 

But yeah, from what we know of Sel, most other armies wouldn't stand a chance. On a battlefield it'd probably be a bubble of Elantrians surrounded by their dead fellows.

Scadrial's similar, as you've said. Their technology just isn't there, and while their magic would be powerful in skirmishes, overall it likely wouldn't offer much. Not unless we're dealing with that 50% or 75% number 

Nalthis and Taldain's pretty much toast at their current book level of technology. Advanced Awakening would be rather wicked, but we really don't know enough to quantify it. 

Edited January 19, 2023 by Werewolff Studios

[alder24]

11 hours ago, Werewolff Studios said:

Perhaps that is the case. Still, they are at the very least capable of surviving greater speed then terminal velocity. 

Terminal velocity happens when drag force of the air is equal to the force of gravity, both of those forces cancel each other out resulting in 0 acceleration. Terminal velocity isn't killing or hurting anyone.

11 hours ago, Werewolff Studios said:

Regarding Edgedancers, their body might limit their rate of acceleration, but not necessarily their top speed. As long as they have Stormlight to survive, it's kind of like accelerating in a vacuum.

Again, it's not about them being hurt by greater speeds, it's about their muscles that can't move as fast as the speed they currently have. At some speed they simply won't be able to push themself any further as if they try, it will slow them down or they will stumble and fall down.

7 hours ago, Frustration said:

No it's not, a mile is 5280 feet. And while rounds can fly that fast, aiming takes time.

It takes less time than you think, tank turret can fully rotate in 9 seconds. 

7 hours ago, Frustration said:

And self guided missiles are rare, almost no militaries have them.

 You're kidding me? AA-missiles? Air-air missiles? Almost all missiles contain some form of guidance and control mechanism. That's how they stay on course. Missiles have speed of Mach 5, ICBM of Mach 23. Reverse lashings just won't do anything to them.