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Arms Race and Technology Ideas


Karnage

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"Now, as new technological discoveries begin to change the face of the war, the enemy prepares a bold and dangerous operation. The arms race that follows will challenge the very core of the Radiant ideals, and potentially reveal the secrets of the ancient tower that was once the heart of their strength"(Synopsis of Rythm of War).

I don't know if there is another thread talking about this but I am a bit excited about the idea of an "arms race" and "new technological discoveries". In Navani's notebook there were diagrams of a ship, that seems like an advancement the might make it if Gravitation fabrials were "rediscovered". Any theories and/or speculation?

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Sanderson likes making modern-world allusions in his writings. I kind of want to see a fabrial artilliary cannon of some sort. Just imagine going about your day when you see a huge glob of burning crem launch through the air and explode a building. I imagine this would incorporate soulcasting in some form, though I can't think of any specifics off the top of my head.

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12 minutes ago, Gilphon said:

On a related note, I hope we find out why it seems like they've only recently started to make real progress with Fabrials. 

Dalinar's visions providing a Rosetta Stone for the Dawnchant has a lot to do with it.  They are suddenly able to decode all these ancient relics and texts. 

Also years of War with the Singers (and each other).  That is always a big driver for tech development, unless you get blasted back to the stone age, as Desolations are want to do. .  

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I think just about everything in Urithiru could be a good example (pressure and climate control, "tvs", internal lighting, elevators, etc), but some ideas that I think could be possible are:

 

1. flying ships (obvious given Navani's drawings)

2. grav lift train without friction via abrasion

3. extensive tunnel system using cohesion to make it, and the attracting fabrials to drain water out of it

4. "replicators" in soulcasters once they are understood further

5. healing in regrowth fabrials as we have already seen

6. advancements in farming due to progression fabrials

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18 hours ago, Karnage said:

The arms race that follows will challenge the very core of the Radiant ideals, and potentially reveal the secrets of the ancient tower that was once the heart of their strength"

My guess: Someone notices that stronger spren create stronger fabrials, maybe even Dawnshard-level fabrials. This poses three distinct but related questions:

1. Is it ever acceptable to use a radiant spren/sapient spren in a fabrial? (Personally, I expect we will see someone capture a radiant spren and use the fabrial to prevent disaster somewhere in Book 1 or Book 2.)

2. Is it worth the risk to build a Nergaoul fabrial? (My guess is that they find out after the fact that it is NOT worth it)

3. Is it worth the risk to capture a Bondsmith-level spren (the sibling) and give up on another bondsmith or Urithiru? (My guess is they decide against it, leading to the Sanderlanche at the beginning of Book 5).

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27 minutes ago, Q10fanatic said:

My guess: Someone notices that stronger spren create stronger fabrials, maybe even Dawnshard-level fabrials. This poses three distinct but related questions:

1. Is it ever acceptable to use a radiant spren/sapient spren in a fabrial? (Personally, I expect we will see someone capture a radiant spren and use the fabrial to prevent disaster somewhere in Book 1 or Book 2.)

Came across a scene that I think is pertinent to this discussion. This is the oathgate spren talking:

 

"We are apologetic. We have been.....alone very long. We would enjoy granting passage to men again."

 

So at least on some level the radiant spren associated with the oathgate are doing so voluntarily, and they even enjoyed it. 

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9 hours ago, Quantus said:

Dalinar's visions providing a Rosetta Stone for the Dawnchant has a lot to do with it.  They are suddenly able to decode all these ancient relics and texts. 

Also years of War with the Singers (and each other).  That is always a big driver for tech development, unless you get blasted back to the stone age, as Desolations are want to do. . 

You misunderstand me. I'm not referring to the arms race that's apparently about to happen. I'm talking about the tech boom seems to have been already in progress when the series began, what with Spanreeds and Heatrials and Half-Shards and stuff like that. Like all the stuff we see Navani use is stuff that's been invented in her lifetime. 

It kinda feels like every actually useful (new) Fabrial was invented less than a century ago. I'm very curious about what breakthrough let them suddenly start advancing by leaps and bounds, and what was preventing that from happening sooner. 

Like, yeah, the translation of the Dawnchant and discovery of Urithiru are gonna make things accelerate even further, but that's pouring gasoline on the fire; I'm wondering about what actually lit the fire.

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18 minutes ago, Gilphon said:

You misunderstand me. I'm not referring to the arms race that's apparently about to happen. I'm talking about the tech boom seems to have been already in progress when the series began, what with Spanreeds and Heatrials and Half-Shards and stuff like that. Like all the stuff we see Navani use is stuff that's been invented in her lifetime. 

It kinda feels like every actually useful (new) Fabrial was invented less than a century ago. I'm very curious about what breakthrough let them suddenly start advancing by leaps and bounds, and what was preventing that from happening sooner. 

Like, yeah, the translation of the Dawnchant and discovery of Urithiru are gonna make things accelerate even further, but that's pouring gasoline on the fire; I'm wondering about what actually lit the fire.

Ah, gotcha.  I think you can chalk a lot of that up to development momentum itself.  For example, Spanreeds are basically the rosharan equivalent of the internet or telegraph, the first real continental telecommunications.  That alone makes collaborating with distant experts possible in a way that never could before, which will wildly accelerate development all on it's own.  And the more Artifabrians manage to  develop new useful Fabrials, the more useful he overall pursuit appears to those with the Funding, and thus more support is given to the development, and on and on the cycle continues.   

In that light, Taln's response to their level of development makes more and more sense to me, now that you mention it.  Imagine expecting the Stone Age and arriving in a pre-industrial Renaissance instead.

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7 hours ago, Gilphon said:

You misunderstand me. I'm not referring to the arms race that's apparently about to happen. I'm talking about the tech boom seems to have been already in progress when the series began, what with Spanreeds and Heatrials and Half-Shards and stuff like that. Like all the stuff we see Navani use is stuff that's been invented in her lifetime. 

It kinda feels like every actually useful (new) Fabrial was invented less than a century ago. I'm very curious about what breakthrough let them suddenly start advancing by leaps and bounds, and what was preventing that from happening sooner. 

I wonder if it is the ability to capture Spren in gems. It's mentioned that they teach this skill to the parshendi, but I don't think we know when it was actually discovered, or I guess rediscovered in the modern age.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Another MAJOR factor that I was forgetting was the Hierocracy.  They very intentionally scrubbed all knowledge of Shadesmar and the Radiants while they were conquering the world.  That would have trashed basically any knowledge of Fabrials right along with it.  The main exception was the Soulcasters, which WOB says were simply "too useful to give up", so instead they rationalized it, then wrapped it in as much mystery as they could and banned non-Ardents from seeing the process. 

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