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Comparing the military of Shardworlds to Terran countries


DiePie

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So I was thinking about how powerful we on earth really are militarily compared to other worlds in the Cosmere. And to try and show just how strong we are, I went back in time to historical empires and thought of this thread idea: What is the least powerful country that could invade a planet in the Cosmere?

Rules:

1. They have to be able to Invade any planet in the Cosmere

2. They have to occupy any planet in the duration of their invasion (so no modern-day micronations).

3. They have to exist, or have existed in the past, on earth.

4. Least powerful country is considered by theoretical military might (how powerful could they be, e.g. The U.S. would be counted as if it were fully mobilized, and not as how they are now)

 

I'll start, I'd say the Mongols at the height of their empire. The strongest world in the Cosmere (militarily) is probably Roshar, and as the Shin showed us, they have absolutely no idea how to deal with Horses. Mongols are extremely adaptable and their superior military tactics and insanely strong horse-archers would destroy just about anyone in the Cosmere. Rosharan Shardplate would probably pose a challenge, but they can be worn down after the rest of their army is defeated or killed using less conventional means. Scadrial is the other planet that may pose a threat (because of their industrial capacity), but over 300 years of complete peace have made it so they have no idea how to wage war, combine that with internal conflicts and extreme inefficiency, even if they do mobilize (the people in the Elendel Basin at least don't have a standing army) they would not be able to defeat the Mongols.

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1 hour ago, DiePie said:

I'll start, I'd say the Mongols at the height of their empire. The strongest world in the Cosmere (militarily) is probably Roshar, and as the Shin showed us, they have absolutely no idea how to deal with Horses. Mongols are extremely adaptable and their superior military tactics and insanely strong horse-archers would destroy just about anyone in the Cosmere. Rosharan Shardplate would probably pose a challenge, but they can be worn down after the rest of their army is defeated or killed using less conventional means. Scadrial is the other planet that may pose a threat (because of their industrial capacity), but over 300 years of complete peace have made it so they have no idea how to wage war, combine that with internal conflicts and extreme inefficiency, even if they do mobilize (the people in the Elendel Basin at least don't have a standing army) they would not be able to defeat the Mongols.

Except Roshar and Dayside taldain pose huge environmental problems to horses.  The reason that no one on Roshar has them except the shin is because the lack of good pasture makes them far too difficult to care for.  Same for Dayside taldain.  Also Mongols have no idea how to deal with highstorms.

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Mongolian hordes are also going to have it tough in either Scadrian era. About the only worlds they got a decent chance is Sel away from Elantris and Nalthis.

I'd say the modern American military destroys anything any Cosmere world could put up in defense,  but being a member of that military I admit possible bias. So let's go with another group.  Roman Legions. Supremely organized and disciplined,  led by generals that know the business, experience gained in countless battles. Infantry strength, adaptive in tactics, decent quality calvary.  Era 1 Scadrians get pants'd unless they have exceptional Mistborn, especially if one adds Koloss into the mix. Rhe Romans take a beating in Era 2 but can subdue what amounts to a small fighting population. Taldain gets smoked, as does Sel. Nalthis has Lifeless,  a tough nut to crack but not insurmountable.  Breaths are relatively easy to get and can therefore be used to support operations.  

The Roman army meets its match in Roshar. Between the Shards and surges it would be difficult for them to establish a beachhead or defend one once they got one. But if they start to draw spren then many bets are off.

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Mongols invading Roshar would be like thier attempts to invade Japan.  They would get wiped out by storms all over again. 

They would be quite successful on Sel however. They wouldn't take Elantris. Oh not in a million years but they could sweep over the rose and fjordell empires , teod and most of arelene as well. 

They might be successful on elendel too. They have guns and mistings but they might just get overwhelmed by the viciousness , speed and the numbers of the Mongols. They might not have similar success over the South tho. 

They might sweep through most of nalthis except for halladren. 

 

 

 

 

Edited by PrinceGenocide
A little polishing
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2 hours ago, Bigmikey357 said:

  Roman Legions. Supremely organized and disciplined,  led by generals that know the business, experience gained in countless battles. Infantry strength, adaptive in tactics, decent quality calvary.  Era 1 Scadrians get pants'd unless they have exceptional Mistborn, especially if one adds Koloss into the mix. Rhe Romans take a beating in Era 2 but can subdue what amounts to a small fighting population. Taldain gets smoked, as does Sel. Nalthis has Lifeless,  a tough nut to crack but not insurmountable.  Breaths are relatively easy to get and can therefore be used to support operations.  

The Roman army meets its match in Roshar. Between the Shards and surges it would be difficult for them to establish a beachhead or defend one once they got one. But if they start to draw spren then many bets are off.

I seriously doubt if the Romans would be that successful.

SEL away from elantris is easy to crack. Sure enough.

So might be most of nalthis apart from halladren. 

They would get wiped out in era 1 Scadrial. First the ash , they will have problems breathing within a few days 

Second the Lord ruler. He could single handedly wipe out the entire armies .

Third. He doesn't even need to bother since he has the Koloss . The kandra can be used to assassinate commsnders. 

Fourth . They rely too much on armour. A few iron or steel mistings alone would destroy the disciplined ranks. As would soothers . 

Inquisitors and mistborn would wreck havoc. Not to mention they can literally Marshall millions of soldiers . Not as disciplined but they can win by numbers alone. 

Worse comes to worse , Tlr releases the atium cache to his Inquisitors or mistborn. Not that that would even be necessary.

Suppose they overcome all that , suppose they kill tlr too somehow. They would be heavily weakened and then the full feruchemists would come down upon them. 

Era 2 is hard too. Now you don't have to worry about bigshots like Tlr , Inquisitors , mistborn or full feruchemists but you do have to deal with lots of mistings , ferrings and twinborn.

The Romans might be victorious at first. They may even take an outer city or too but then elendel could use it's rail and riverways to quickly mobilize militias and metalborn. 

Coinshots , lurchers , rioters and soothers would wipe out any discipline. Esp if they have Nicroburst to aid them. Once the shields are down , u get an hail of bullets. Bullets with the force of nicrobursted steel behind them 

Wax alone could decimate legions. 

Steelrunners , brutes , thugs , bloodmakers , spinners , oracles , sliders they could all give serious damage.

Firesouls could overheat the armour too I guess esp with Nicrobursts to aid them

 Pulsers could manage to isolate entire squads of men for days with minimal risks if they have Nicroburst working with them as well and once the bubble drops they will be overwhelmed by well rested troops. 

Some dynamite thrown here and there could wipe them out. 

Imagine a stick of dynamite falling through the gaps in thier turtle shell shield defenses. :P. Imagine miles just walking into those formations with some dynamite. 

And there's no way they would succeed in roshar. 

Surgebinders or fused would wipe them out. The fused esp would hate them far more , seeing them as another unwelcome wave of human pests. 

There's the entire order of SkyBreakers. 

They have no defense against shardblade and shardplated warriors would decimate them. 

Then you have szeth with Nightblood, Thunderclasts , midnight essence , yalignar , aimians, the shin with the honorblades, Truthless. 

Warform warriors would be very hard to defeat as well. 

The Romans could bring diseases but the Parshendi won't be affected by it. 

Then u have the highstorms and the everstorms. 

They might manage to get Spren bonds if they survived long enough. Even then there would be few and they will too weak. 

 

As for taldain. Just no way. They would die out in the deserts , in the hot sun , wearing or carrying lots of heavy hot armour, thier circadian rhythms would go haywire, the sand creatures would swallow them whole. Then they would have to deal with sandmasters. 

On darkside, they might have more success but they would still get wiped out by guns. The environment might have deadly predators , thier circadian rhythms would go haywire again. 

Edited by PrinceGenocide
A little polishing
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I don't have much to add in regards to military comparisons but one thing to keep in mind for these situations is the differences in gravity across the different Cosmere worlds. Any invasion of Sel would have to deal with the higher gravity (that sounds wrong, would greater be the better adjective?), for example.

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37 minutes ago, Agent34 said:

I don't have much to add in regards to military comparisons but one thing to keep in mind for these situations is the differences in gravity across the different Cosmere worlds. Any invasion of Sel would have to deal with the higher gravity (that sounds wrong, would greater be the better adjective?), for example.

Oh yeah Selish gravity is 50% higher than Earth. Hmm , I guess they would have to stay somewhere inconspicuous for a while. Get acclimated to gravity and then march to conquer

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39 minutes ago, PrinceGenocide said:

Oh yeah Selish gravity is 50% higher than Earth. Hmm , I guess they would have to stay somewhere inconspicuous for a while. Get acclimated to gravity and then march to conquer

the coppermind article says 50% bigger (not clear if by "bigger" they mean by radius or by surface area) but only 20% more gravity.

 

I'll ignore mostly magic because in most cases magic users are too few to alter a battle too much, and i'll just look at the main factors: technology, numbers, environment.

Any modern army would absolutely pulverize anything in their way just with technology. kaladin may just be able to fly high and fast enough to take down a modern airplane, maybe. too bad we have thousands, with guns powerful enough that i'm not sure there would be enough left of kaladin to regenerate if he gets hit, and a single nuke on urithiru would just quell any resistance.

the lord ruler on scadrial would actually be able to stand even against a modern army, that's how crazy his power is. a close hit from a nuke would probably kill him - if nothing else, it releases enough heat to vaporize his metalminds, and goodbye powers. But good luck getting such a close hit. and nothing short of nuclear power would come close to inconveniencing him, so ancient scadrial is off limits for any other army if we count the lord ruler.

even industrial army would make piecemeal of any shardworld, because guns. and industrial production. seriously, guns are huge. there's a reason if europe conquered the rest of the world in the discovery age. modern scadrial has guns, but limited numbers and no military organization.

renaissance armies would probably fail to conquer modern scadrial, because modern guns are a lot better than renaissance guns. sure, modern scadrial does not have much military organization, but just mass produce guns and give them to the population and you should do the trick. they are an industrial society, they can mobilize, and with the basin being superfertile, they have a lot of population. perhaps a highly mobile army (mongols?) could invade them fast enough to be done before mobilization. maybe. or perhaps they'd get drowned in numbers. even at their height the mongols only had a few hundred thousands warriors, while the basin population is in the tens of millions, and some of them have guns. the constabulary forces may actually be enough to repel the mongols.

otherwise, renaissance armies would sweep most of the other shardworld with gunpowder and advanced armor.roshar would be a tough nut to crack mostly because of the unfriendly environment, but i doubt any rosharan army would be able to stand against muskets.

romans won't get very far anywhere. romans conquered most of the world because they had several advantages over their competitors at the time. they started to lose their edge near the end of the classical era. but aside from numbers and organization, their technology was far weaker than middle age military technology, which is what most shardworld have. roman armor was utilitarian, but in no way comparable with medieval armor. ancient scadrial (minus tlr) would drown them in numbers, plus environment (they'd have troubles surviving with the ash and different plants). roshar has a better technology, decent numbers, and environment. the romans may make some headway there because rosharan nations are so divided and disorganized, but shardbearers should tip the balance. we don't know enough of the military might of the selish empires to make any kind of estimate. nalthis has better soldiers with the lifeless, but their numbers (40 thousands for the hallandren empire) aren't impressive. still, when they mobilize they can probably pull many more. but nalthis would also be a potential conquest.

mongols wouldn't go far on roshar (unfriendly environment. they require pasture for the horses). but if they can graze the horses and survive the highstorms, then they could potentially take roshar. once you take those factors out, the environment (large expanses with scattered cities) is favorable to them, and the general lack of chivalry puts the rosharan armies in trouble when facing horse archers. if the horses don't have too many problems with the ash, they'd also conquer ancient scadrial; again, pastures, lots of space, few horses to give chase. nalthis would be harder: lifeless soldiers can march tirelessly, they should be able to overtake horses by endurance, thus negating the mongols main advantage, that of mobility. they may conquer a continent on sel (again, we don't know how powerful they are) but they'd stay there; they never had decent naval power. they'd die of thirst on threnody, who would pose no significant military resistance otherwise.

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On 3/8/2020 at 11:38 AM, Elsecaller_17.5 said:

Modern American, or just anyone with nukes. In an interplanetary war, nukes win. And @Bigmikey357 thank you for your service. 

If Roshar knew it was incoming, couldn't they (assuming a elsecaller could not teleport right onto it, which I would imagine would be difficult) have a windrunner fly an elsecaller up to the flying nuke, and soulcast it to air/smoke?

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7 minutes ago, Pathfinder said:

If Roshar knew it was incoming, couldn't they (assuming a elsecaller could not teleport right onto it, which I would imagine would be difficult) have a windrunner fly an elsecaller up to the flying nuke, and soulcast it to air/smoke?

If the Windrunner could catch it in air they could use lashings to redirect the thing. The Elsecaller would have to understand what it was in order to convince the Cognitive aspect of the thing to change it. The problem is speed and detection.  One has to identify the ICBM, its path so as to intercept it, and do so in time to effect it with magic.  Without computers that task is deadly difficult. It possibly could be done if one could mitigate these issues, but if earth decides to use saturation bombardment I don't see how we'd get enough Radiants to repel the attack. 

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21 minutes ago, Bigmikey357 said:

If the Windrunner could catch it in air they could use lashings to redirect the thing. The Elsecaller would have to understand what it was in order to convince the Cognitive aspect of the thing to change it. The problem is speed and detection.  One has to identify the ICBM, its path so as to intercept it, and do so in time to effect it with magic.  Without computers that task is deadly difficult. It possibly could be done if one could mitigate these issues, but if earth decides to use saturation bombardment I don't see how we'd get enough Radiants to repel the attack. 

to expand on this: a nuclear missile travels at thousands of kilometers per hour, well above the atmosphere. and it takes a few tens of minutes to go round half the globe. good luck seeing it by night. even by day, you'll have a hard time spotting it from more than ten kilometers away, which is awfully small compared to the whole world. and if one launches a nuclear missile, one generally launches many.

so, if kaladin knows that a nuclear missile has been launched against urithiru, he MAY be able to do something about it. maybe. considering his flying trip to his home village, the amount of stormlight required to reach a missile would be very impractical to gather, especially on short notice. it would be more practical to try and send some other object flying against it (nuclear weapons are quite delicate, they require some fine engineering to explode; break it, and the bomb won't go off. it will smatter radioactive material all over the place instead); but given how fast those things move, and how big is the sky, it would be extremely difficult. As difficult as hitting a bullet in flight. But still, a chance.

If kaladin knows that a nuclear missile has just been launched against somewhere else than urithiru, there's absolutely nothing he can do. perhaps contact someone via spanreed and telling them to hide in a basement, if they are far away enough from the explosion they may survive. or someone could try to leave the city on a fast horse. anyway, too late to stop the bomb.

if 1000 nuclear missiled are launched simultaneously at objectives all across roshar, then the only thing kaladin can do is to throw himself into the honor chasm.

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46 minutes ago, Bigmikey357 said:

If the Windrunner could catch it in air they could use lashings to redirect the thing. The Elsecaller would have to understand what it was in order to convince the Cognitive aspect of the thing to change it. The problem is speed and detection.  One has to identify the ICBM, its path so as to intercept it, and do so in time to effect it with magic.  Without computers that task is deadly difficult. It possibly could be done if one could mitigate these issues, but if earth decides to use saturation bombardment I don't see how we'd get enough Radiants to repel the attack. 

The reason I mentioned an Elsecaller was due to the concern that by trying to redirect it off course, or physically manipulating it could potentially set it off. So figured it would be far more efficient to just turn it to smoke. The understanding required you speak of, is in regards to understanding the end product. So if the elsecaller wanted to make plutonium, then yes he or she would need to understand what plutonium is. However transforming from plutonium into something he or she is familiar with, like the core essences should not present a problem in understanding. Merely will. 

There are alerting fabrials, and there are also spren in the cognitive realm. Normal planets would not have access to the cognitive realm to defend against spying and manipulation from that realm. Theoretically you could have an elsecaller set up shop at the cognitive realm side of the nuclear launch pads, soulcasting the interior to be inert. Then the enemy could fire as many as they wanted off and it would accomplish nothing more than the rocket hitting something. No boom. Just some thoughts that occurred to me. 

11 minutes ago, king of nowhere said:

to expand on this: a nuclear missile travels at thousands of kilometers per hour, well above the atmosphere. and it takes a few tens of minutes to go round half the globe. good luck seeing it by night. even by day, you'll have a hard time spotting it from more than ten kilometers away, which is awfully small compared to the whole world. and if one launches a nuclear missile, one generally launches many.

Theoretically depending on what Roshar could do with alerting fabrials, that could give them the warning well in advance. Also spren in the cognitive realm. Then there was the idea I just came up and posted above to bigmikey. 

Quote

so, if kaladin knows that a nuclear missile has been launched against urithiru, he MAY be able to do something about it. maybe. considering his flying trip to his home village, the amount of stormlight required to reach a missile would be very impractical to gather, especially on short notice. it would be more practical to try and send some other object flying against it (nuclear weapons are quite delicate, they require some fine engineering to explode; break it, and the bomb won't go off. it will smatter radioactive material all over the place instead); but given how fast those things move, and how big is the sky, it would be extremely difficult. As difficult as hitting a bullet in flight. But still, a chance.

If kaladin knows that a nuclear missile has just been launched against somewhere else than urithiru, there's absolutely nothing he can do. perhaps contact someone via spanreed and telling them to hide in a basement, if they are far away enough from the explosion they may survive. or someone could try to leave the city on a fast horse. anyway, too late to stop the bomb.

if 1000 nuclear missiled are launched simultaneously at objectives all across roshar, then the only thing kaladin can do is to throw himself into the honor chasm.

I already separated this portion from the other portion of your quote, and figure it would be too much trouble to reformat it, but basically what do you think of the ideas I came up with above?

 

edit: to clarify just in case. The scope I speak of would be much greater. So I mean an alerting fabrial that could detect the nukes far far before they got remotely close. The spren could have standing order to spy on the humans. A group of elsecallers stationed in the cognitive realm could potentially act as a form of "star wars" from the reagan administration. Soulcast them all from the cognitive realm as a counter measure. 

Again, just some ideas I had. 

Edited by Pathfinder
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3 hours ago, Pathfinder said:

The understanding required you speak of, is in regards to understanding the end product. So if the elsecaller wanted to make plutonium, then yes he or she would need to understand what plutonium is.

The end state is important but so is the starting product.  Remember Jasnah lecturing Shallan on Soulcasting,  about how one must try to coerce stone or be firm with air, ect.? If the caster doesn't know what the substance is then they won't know what strategy to use to induce the change.  Of course once someone does it once successfully then that particular issue is mitigated. 

I like the alerting fabrial idea. If one can couple that detection function with an auto Soulcast function then that indeed becomes a viable option.  Unfortunately the reaction times probably need a computer network for maximum effectiveness.  And even a system of that nature can be overwhelmed. 

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3 hours ago, Pathfinder said:

 

There are alerting fabrials, and there are also spren in the cognitive realm.

Theoretically depending on what Roshar could do with alerting fabrials, that could give them the warning well in advance. Also spren in the cognitive realm. Then there was the idea I just came up and posted above to bigmikey. 

edit: to clarify just in case. The scope I speak of would be much greater. So I mean an alerting fabrial that could detect the nukes far far before they got remotely close.

the problem is that from the time the nuke is launched to the time it hits, it takes 10 to 20 minutes. So even if your fabrial can detect the missile the very moment it launches (without triggering false positives every time a plane passes), then "far far before" means no more than 20 minutes.

if you have common radars, make it closer to 5 minutes.

now, you may have spren watching those missiles, sending the alarm the moment they start to prepare to launch.

Problem is, in the nuclear stalemate, to ensure that you can retaliate with the 5-minutes warning (because, remember, that's the alert your radars are going to give you. 10 minutes at most) all of your missiles must always be ready to launch within 5 minutes.

so, even spy spren watching the missiles could increase the warning time to 25 minutes. without knowing where the missile is going to hit.

No, when missiles are flying, it's far too late to do anything. Before missiles are flying, that's when you want to do stuff

Quote

Normal planets would not have access to the cognitive realm to defend against spying and manipulation from that realm. Theoretically you could have an elsecaller set up shop at the cognitive realm side of the nuclear launch pads, soulcasting the interior to be inert. Then the enemy could fire as many as they wanted off and it would accomplish nothing more than the rocket hitting something. No boom. Just some thoughts that occurred to me. 

that's actually feasible. Not when the missiles are launched, of course, but at the first suspect that the other guys may want to really try something like that.

But that's not foolproof. while some nuclear missiles are stored in underground silos, some are hidden in submarines. who stay out at sea for months and whose sole mission is to stay hidden.

theoretically, an elsecaller could get them. but good luck finding them, the ocean is huge.

Thinking about it, to disables the ones on the ground, the elsecaller whould need to go deep under the ocean. also not trivial. and then there are other nukes hidden in safe places. your elsecaller is going to miss some.

there is also the risk that if the enemy discovers you (if roshar knows of nukes, there has probavbly been some contact, so earth will probably know of shadesmar, and will take countermeasures) and discover that you are tampering with their nukes, they may take it as an aggression and launch a nuclear strike while they still can!

that's how MAD (mutually assured destruction) works. the enemy trying to destroy you is not an aggressive act. during the nuclear war, the two superpowers never took much  notice when the other side made more bombs. we can obliterate them, they can obliterate us, it doesn't change the stalemate if they can obliterate us even more.

but when the US considered building a space shield, Russia grew very hot. because if the US could remove the threat of being nuked, then they had Russia at their mercy. "do what we want, or we'll nuke you, and you won't be able to strike back". being able to defend against the enemy is the most dangerous kind of offence in a MAD scenario. the russians may well have launched a strike before their position became unteneable.

So, perhaps the appropriate answer from roshar would not be to try and disable all the missiles. It would be to send a strike team of kaladin (flight), shallan (stealth), jasnah (demolition) and szeth (i'm sure he'll make himself useful) and show that they can go anywhere on the planet undetected and wreak havoc on a global scale. not sure they could assassinate any leader (one sleeping in a random room in a huge subterranean complex should be safe enough), but if nothing else they could set oil rigs on fire, soulcast acqueduct water into poison, and so on.

Not as destructive as massive nuclear apocalipse, but enough to act as deterrence. Now roshar can also threaten to cause massive destruction on earth, and there is equilibrium.

Also, Dalinar should easily understand the concept with a bit of help.

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Wouldn't all the differences between the planets of Roshar and Earth throw the most sensitive technology off? Like, fuel and propellants catching fire and exploding much more easily on Roshar, friction at high speeds being more dangerous ditto, lower gravity and different size of the world would affect targeting, submerging mechanism of submarines, etc. Highstorms would make airfields and air carriers impractical. IMHO, just plopping earth military on Roshar without extensive prior study and significant adjustments would be a recipe for disaster. Portable firearms would be the only weapons to reliably work and soldiers would need to lug all their supplies themselves.

 

On 8.3.2020 at 2:43 PM, king of nowhere said:

otherwise, renaissance armies would sweep most of the other shardworld with gunpowder and advanced armor.roshar would be a tough nut to crack mostly because of the unfriendly environment, but i doubt any rosharan army would be able to stand against muskets.

 

Pretty sure that primitive firearms and cannon would be more dangerous to their users on Roshar than to their opponents, due to increased tendency to explode. I'd say that even a modern military would have a hard time on Roshar, due to all our technology being optimized for Earth conditions. WWII-period military would almost certainly lose.

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On 3/8/2020 at 3:41 AM, Bigmikey357 said:

Roman Legions. Supremely organized and disciplined,  led by generals that know the business, experience gained in countless battles. Infantry strength, adaptive in tactics, decent quality calvary.  Era 1 Scadrians get pants'd unless they have exceptional Mistborn, especially if one adds Koloss into the mix.

Well, yes. If you're saying the Roman Legions, without magical powerups, invade a surprised Final Empire, of course there will be koloss held in reserve. I don't think a phalanx formation helps so much with koloss.

And you forget the biggest reserve weapon the Final Empire has got, in any pinch: The Lord Ruler. Who could kill tirelessly and endlessly, if he wanted to. He could decimate, then re-decimate and re-re-decimate, entire legions by himself. Per the Alethi maxim, of course, he couldn't hold ground by dint of his awesome power alone in terms of being a conquering or ruling force, but he certainly could destroy an invading force as a defensive power of territory he already controlled.

And unlike with Roshar, the Romans wouldn't be able to benefit from the local magic system, unless they managed to recruit Metalborn to their cause after arriving. Which in the Final Empire would likely mean finding the quite rare skaa Mistings and Keepers, as the nobility would probably align with TLR as they already form the ruling class. Most skaa Mistings seem to have hidden out in Luthadel, where the large number of legit Allomancers in the city shielded them from easy detection by the Steel Ministry, and that's going to be the LAST place that would fall in the Final Empire.

On 3/8/2020 at 11:38 AM, Elsecaller_17.5 said:

Modern American, or just anyone with nukes. In an interplanetary war, nukes win. And @Bigmikey357 thank you for your service. 

Well we need to set the goals here. Nukes are the proverbial (and literal) "nuclear option" - it's the scorched and salted earth option. Is the goal here to subdue and conquer, to leave the region and the people already there usable as resources afterward, or to eliminate as a threat, i.e., creating a barren buffer zone of death is an acceptable outcome?

Also, are we positing an invasion of Roshar by our modern conventional military, with the goal of occupation and conquest rather than destruction, with or without the Parshendi as an element? Because it would be pretty interesting if in the middle of the Final Desolation, there was a reason for the Fused and the Radiants to temporarily band together to repel an even more foreign invasion. "You think we cannot 'hear Roshar'? These guys aren't even FROM Roshar!"

Edited by robardin
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14 hours ago, Steel Inquisitive said:

The main problem I see with soulcasting is range. Jasnah has done the only ranged soulcasting so far and mostly only within a few feet (unless I'm forgetting a scene, which is more than possible with me;-)). But even if she could do a half mile, that's really not enough time to stop a nuke.

So since you and DiePie have similar concerns, I will reply to the both of you under DiePie. 

14 hours ago, DiePie said:

I would think a bigger problem would be that your standard ICBM is travelling 6-7 km every second, so how Jasnah would hone in on that would be a bigger issue.

To give a better idea of what I was envisioning when I mentioned about radiants in the cognitive realm acting like "star wars" during the Reagan administration would be this:

1. A large ring of spren far out, keeping track. Or even normal people. They have span reeds.

2. These span reeds are connected to the ring of elsecallers and lightweavers. When a nuke is spotted, they flick the span reed on and off

3. Due to the cognitive presence a nuke would have, I would imagine (admittedly this is all theoretical), you would see a rather large wake kicked up in its passing

4. A rough ring of elsecallers and lightweavers in the cognitive realm are now alerted and ready

5. Using stormlight pulls stones towards you. i theorize that as the nuke passes, the elsecaller/lightweaver could pull the corresponding stone for the nuke towards them. If not that, then potentially fashioning nets to catch any fast moving cognitive stone. 

6. Now having the stone, or stones depending on how many nukes were sent I see a few options depending on expediency and efficiency. They could either:

   A. soulcast the whole missile to harmless matter (stone, water, air, smoke, etc)

   B. soulcast the nuclear material innert in an effort to conserve stormlight or for expediency sake

   C. soulcast the fuel of the rocket to something inert so the rocket loses its propulsion and falls. This is less ideal as theoretically it could still go off. 

 

Now I do have a follow up question for DiePie that has presented this scenario. You state that the real world is invading a Cosmere planet. If that is the case, then wouldn't nuclear armament be limited in its delivery? There would be no firing from static nuclear silos as none would be present on Roshar, and building them would be difficult. Not sure how nuclear submarines would make the transfer. If we go the gravity route of dropping the bomb from a plane, it runs into the issue I presented. Intercontinental delivery which is what I think you and others were referring to requires static silos. Weapon mounted means of delivery (such as on a rocket pod on a truck) limits range. So I guess the question is, in your scenario, how would deployment work?

14 hours ago, Bigmikey357 said:

The end state is important but so is the starting product.  Remember Jasnah lecturing Shallan on Soulcasting,  about how one must try to coerce stone or be firm with air, ect.? If the caster doesn't know what the substance is then they won't know what strategy to use to induce the change.  Of course once someone does it once successfully then that particular issue is mitigated. 

The conversation was just discussing nuances that one experienced would learn. So could you coerce stone, and convince air? Sure. But it would make things easier if you convince stone to be free like air, and be firm with air to coerce it to be stone. See for example how Jasnah handled the ropes in the deleted scene. They kept saying they are rope, and she commanded it "you will change". I mentioned ways that the missile could be dispatched in varying ways for expediency, and efficiency. 

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I like the alerting fabrial idea. If one can couple that detection function with an auto Soulcast function then that indeed becomes a viable option.  Unfortunately the reaction times probably need a computer network for maximum effectiveness.  And even a system of that nature can be overwhelmed. 

Thank you. I like the idea of linking it up. As to the rest regarding nukes, I did have some follow up questions for DiePie that I feel were pertinent that I included above. 

13 hours ago, king of nowhere said:

the problem is that from the time the nuke is launched to the time it hits, it takes 10 to 20 minutes. So even if your fabrial can detect the missile the very moment it launches (without triggering false positives every time a plane passes), then "far far before" means no more than 20 minutes.

if you have common radars, make it closer to 5 minutes.

now, you may have spren watching those missiles, sending the alarm the moment they start to prepare to launch.

So I separated this part, because I expressed some questions and concerns to DiePie above. I am not sure based on the scenario as presented, that the "earth" side of the battle would have access to such nuclear armament. I am open to being wrong. 

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Problem is, in the nuclear stalemate, to ensure that you can retaliate with the 5-minutes warning (because, remember, that's the alert your radars are going to give you. 10 minutes at most) all of your missiles must always be ready to launch within 5 minutes.

so, even spy spren watching the missiles could increase the warning time to 25 minutes. without knowing where the missile is going to hit.

I elaborated above regarding the "star wars" esque system I was envisioning. I am curious of your thoughts on it. 

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No, when missiles are flying, it's far too late to do anything. Before missiles are flying, that's when you want to do stuff

that's actually feasible. Not when the missiles are launched, of course, but at the first suspect that the other guys may want to really try something like that.

But that's not foolproof. while some nuclear missiles are stored in underground silos, some are hidden in submarines. who stay out at sea for months and whose sole mission is to stay hidden.

theoretically, an elsecaller could get them. but good luck finding them, the ocean is huge.

Thinking about it, to disables the ones on the ground, the elsecaller whould need to go deep under the ocean. also not trivial. and then there are other nukes hidden in safe places. your elsecaller is going to miss some.

there is also the risk that if the enemy discovers you (if roshar knows of nukes, there has probavbly been some contact, so earth will probably know of shadesmar, and will take countermeasures) and discover that you are tampering with their nukes, they may take it as an aggression and launch a nuclear strike while they still can!

that's how MAD (mutually assured destruction) works. the enemy trying to destroy you is not an aggressive act. during the nuclear war, the two superpowers never took much  notice when the other side made more bombs. we can obliterate them, they can obliterate us, it doesn't change the stalemate if they can obliterate us even more.

but when the US considered building a space shield, Russia grew very hot. because if the US could remove the threat of being nuked, then they had Russia at their mercy. "do what we want, or we'll nuke you, and you won't be able to strike back". being able to defend against the enemy is the most dangerous kind of offence in a MAD scenario. the russians may well have launched a strike before their position became unteneable.

So, perhaps the appropriate answer from roshar would not be to try and disable all the missiles. It would be to send a strike team of kaladin (flight), shallan (stealth), jasnah (demolition) and szeth (i'm sure he'll make himself useful) and show that they can go anywhere on the planet undetected and wreak havoc on a global scale. not sure they could assassinate any leader (one sleeping in a random room in a huge subterranean complex should be safe enough), but if nothing else they could set oil rigs on fire, soulcast acqueduct water into poison, and so on.

Not as destructive as massive nuclear apocalipse, but enough to act as deterrence. Now roshar can also threaten to cause massive destruction on earth, and there is equilibrium.

Also, Dalinar should easily understand the concept with a bit of help.

So I think one big point in Roshar's favor in regards to the points you mention are lightweavers and spren. Spren are literal invisible spies, and lightweavers can infiltrate just about anywhere. They can mask themselves from radar. They can change their voices, appearance, and environment as needed for infiltration. Use a spren to find and detail multiple alters. Generic low rank soldier. Midrank and finally high rank. Use generic low rank soldier when they are out on patrol, or elsewhere in the compound to enter. Make it to a wall to the installation that has already been scounted and detailed by the spren. Use illumination to keep the area looking normal. Soulcast the wall to air, walking through, soulcast the wall back. Switch disguises. Move deeper into the complex. Switch disguises, and using soulcasting to get into rooms undetected. Attain data needed. In this case nuclear sites, armaments, and codes. Then get out. Make sure via lightweaving and soulcasting there is not a sign nor disturbance. The level of detail cryptic spren have with patterns and etc could be used to ensure everything remains exactly as it was. Including the lightweaver mnemonic ability. Take a memory of where everything was, and put it all back to the way it was. Now with the locations of the nukes. the elsecallers can make the material inert. If done correctly, the enemy would have no idea till they fired, and by then their entire nuclear arsenal would be neutered. Further them firing would be in retaliation to an attack from the Rosharans. Expecting their ace in the hole, but turns out to be a dud, they wouldn't have time to compensate. 

Just some ideas. 

1 hour ago, Isilel said:

Wouldn't all the differences between the planets of Roshar and Earth throw the most sensitive technology off? Like, fuel and propellants catching fire and exploding much more easily on Roshar, friction at high speeds being more dangerous ditto, lower gravity and different size of the world would affect targeting, submerging mechanism of submarines, etc. Highstorms would make airfields and air carriers impractical. IMHO, just plopping earth military on Roshar without extensive prior study and significant adjustments would be a recipe for disaster. Portable firearms would be the only weapons to reliably work and soldiers would need to lug all their supplies themselves.

Good points. 

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Pretty sure that primitive firearms and cannon would be more dangerous to their users on Roshar than to their opponents, due to increased tendency to explode. I'd say that even a modern military would have a hard time on Roshar, due to all our technology being optimized for Earth conditions. WWII-period military would almost certainly lose.

Good point. 

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19 hours ago, Pathfinder said:

If Roshar knew it was incoming, couldn't they (assuming a elsecaller could not teleport right onto it, which I would imagine would be difficult) have a windrunner fly an elsecaller up to the flying nuke, and soulcast it to air/smoke?

We have never seen any Windrunner move that quickly.  ICBMs move at trans sonic speeds and without radar the Rosharans don't know exactly where the nuke is coming from.

1 hour ago, Isilel said:

Pretty sure that primitive firearms and cannon would be more dangerous to their users on Roshar than to their opponents, due to increased tendency to explode. I'd say that even a modern military would have a hard time on Roshar, due to all our technology being optimized for Earth conditions. WWII-period military would almost certainly lose.

You would just reduce the amount of explosive material in each charge.  This would not be difficult.  If you fired an earth gun on Roshar without taking the new atmospherics into account it could go badly but the right gun or one manufactured for rosharan conditions would work fine.

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3 hours ago, Isilel said:

Wouldn't all the differences between the planets of Roshar and Earth throw the most sensitive technology off? Like, fuel and propellants catching fire and exploding much more easily on Roshar, friction at high speeds being more dangerous ditto, lower gravity and different size of the world would affect targeting, submerging mechanism of submarines, etc. Highstorms would make airfields and air carriers impractical. IMHO, just plopping earth military on Roshar without extensive prior study and significant adjustments would be a recipe for disaster. Portable firearms would be the only weapons to reliably work and soldiers would need to lug all their supplies themselves.

Pretty sure that primitive firearms and cannon would be more dangerous to their users on Roshar than to their opponents, due to increased tendency to explode. I'd say that even a modern military would have a hard time on Roshar, due to all our technology being optimized for Earth conditions. WWII-period military would almost certainly lose.

Actually, explosive does NOT rely on atmospheric oxygen. the reaction would be too slow. explosives carry their own oxydizers in the mixture. bullets and bombs would explode in the vacuum just as well as they would in the atmosphere.

there's a good point concerning combustion engines, but i don't think they will just catch fire so easily. consider that pretty much all of modern technology still works in high mountains (as long as it's not the top of the everest), with a very different amount of air and oxygen.

so, it's true that some technology would be off, but nowhere near as much as you think. rifles would still fire. trucks would still move. airplanes would still fly. radios would still communicate. authomatic tracking systems would require some correction for the lower gravity, which could easily be done by a patch (it's just one single value in the program).

You mentioned WWII. Do you really think swords and spears could stand up to tanks, machine guns and strategic bombers? A heavy caliber machine gun punches holes through thick concrete walls. shardplate is strong, but is it stronger than a concrete wall? and remember than you have maybe 100 plates in the whole roshar. while you can mass produce millions of machine guns

1 hour ago, Pathfinder said:

 

5. Using stormlight pulls stones towards you. i theorize that as the nuke passes, the elsecaller/lightweaver could pull the corresponding stone for the nuke towards them. If not that, then potentially fashioning nets to catch any fast moving cognitive stone. 

 

how does a cognitive bead work when its object is moving?

Still, I don't think that's feasible. if the bead moves with the rocket, then it also moves at kilometers per second, and you have no chance of ever seeing it. if the bead stands still, then it may be standing still anywhere from america to russia. you may be able to collect the beads beforehand without raising the alarm, but there is always the risk of missing some. Condier also that we have no indication there are easy ways to find a specific bead, even when you are in the right place and know what you're looking for.

also, it seems the number of radiants is somewhat limited for some reason. even at their apex there were a few thousands, but not millions. they'd be stretched thin. i doubt you'd ever have enough radiants to make a ring around the border.

so, i think scale is still the greater problem. this is not kaladin facing a fused in the air. this thing happens on the scale of whole continents, which are crossed in minutes.

 

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You state that the real world is invading a Cosmere planet. If that is the case, then wouldn't nuclear armament be limited in its delivery? There would be no firing from static nuclear silos as none would be present on Roshar, and building them would be difficult. Not sure how nuclear submarines would make the transfer. If we go the gravity route of dropping the bomb from a plane, it runs into the issue I presented. Intercontinental delivery which is what I think you and others were referring to requires static silos. Weapon mounted means of delivery (such as on a rocket pod on a truck) limits range. So I guess the question is, in your scenario, how would deployment work?

 

 

good point, but this raises the question: how exactly are we defining this scenario? certainly the earthlings would not arrive by space ships, as that would imply a technology. let's say there is a portal? large enough to move armies and big machinery, but not for flying a missile? (why would this portal be so specific?) and are we even assuming the magic would work on the earth side?

anyway, you can always bring a long range truck-transported missile through that portal, and launch it from roshar. maybe won't go round the world, but it will certainly go a 1000 kilometers. in fact, in roshar's lower gravity, it may even go around the world. or, you can deliver it from an airplane. which is only mildly slower than an ICBM

me, i was assuming that a continent was just popped into the middle of roshar ocean, in which case icbm are available

 

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So I think one big point in Roshar's favor in regards to the points you mention are lightweavers and spren. Spren are literal invisible spies, and lightweavers can infiltrate just about anywhere. They can mask themselves from radar. They can change their voices, appearance, and environment as needed for infiltration. Use a spren to find and detail multiple alters. Generic low rank soldier. Midrank and finally high rank. Use generic low rank soldier when they are out on patrol, or elsewhere in the compound to enter. Make it to a wall to the installation that has already been scounted and detailed by the spren. Use illumination to keep the area looking normal. Soulcast the wall to air, walking through, soulcast the wall back. Switch disguises. Move deeper into the complex. Switch disguises, and using soulcasting to get into rooms undetected. Attain data needed. In this case nuclear sites, armaments, and codes. Then get out. Make sure via lightweaving and soulcasting there is not a sign nor disturbance. The level of detail cryptic spren have with patterns and etc could be used to ensure everything remains exactly as it was. Including the lightweaver mnemonic ability. Take a memory of where everything was, and put it all back to the way it was. Now with the locations of the nukes. the elsecallers can make the material inert. If done correctly, the enemy would have no idea till they fired, and by then their entire nuclear arsenal would be neutered. Further them firing would be in retaliation to an attack from the Rosharans. Expecting their ace in the hole, but turns out to be a dud, they wouldn't have time to compensate. 

elsecallers are good spies, but not perfect. they can imitate appearence well, but if their exhistence is known, there are many ways to counter them. i expect a lot of patrol groups shouting at each other "what's your grandmother's name? which college did you attend?" and touching each other's faces to find illusions.

also heat sensors (maybe lightweaving can fool the infrared, but your body heats surrounding air, that could give you away), movement sensors, trip wires, closed doors. and perhaps composite materials are harder to soulcast because they lack a unitarian cognitive identity (it works against forging, which works on similar principles). rosharans are not the only ones who can adapt to counter new tricks.

so, it can be attempted, but it's far from foolproof. the only reason shallan does so well is that nobody is prepared

Edited by king of nowhere
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2 hours ago, king of nowhere said:

how does a cognitive bead work when its object is moving?

So we know a few things. 

 

1. We know if a shardblade is moved away, but the dead spren is restrained, it will remain where it is. We know if it is let go, it will try to walk to where ever the blade is located

2. We know beads are in the general area of the object they are connected to. We have not seen such an object move to see how reactive the bead is

3. The beads do not gain resistance due to being brought away from the source object. In other words, Shallan has taken beads of walls, and then traveled the length of the cognitive realm, without feeling any tug or demanding pull from the bead to be returned to where it was from. 

 

So I think this tells us that the bead will move along with the object, but can be stopped, and there is no concern of force (momentum) of the object to take into account)

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Still, I don't think that's feasible. if the bead moves with the rocket, then it also moves at kilometers per second, and you have no chance of ever seeing it. if the bead stands still, then it may be standing still anywhere from america to russia. you may be able to collect the beads beforehand without raising the alarm, but there is always the risk of missing some. Condier also that we have no indication there are easy ways to find a specific bead, even when you are in the right place and know what you're looking for.

Jasnah was able to anticipate attacks in the physical realm via watching the way the spren in the cognitive realm reacted to things happening in the physical realm. So for instance a fused came at jasnah, the spren in the cognitive realm reacted to this. Jasnah seeing them react, knew to side step the attack coming even through she did not see it herself. The reason why I mention that, is actions in the cognitive do seem to reflect in the cognitive realm, and are strong enough to be noticeable. Also as I said, when an elsecaller or lightweaver uses stormlight, stones are drawn to the individuals. They have to actively work to resist it. So (although theoretical), I do not think it a stretch to imagine the "nuke bead" flying along, and then curving and then shooting right to an elsecaller with stormlight, while the physical nuke flies on. The other option I mentioned was nets strung out fine enough to catch the bead to be soucasted. To locate the bead, it is simply the one moving lol. 

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also, it seems the number of radiants is somewhat limited for some reason. even at their apex there were a few thousands, but not millions. they'd be stretched thin. i doubt you'd ever have enough radiants to make a ring around the border.

There are plenty of spren to coordinate a patrol. They then alert the radiants, to then counter the nukes. Unless you are saying they will be firing millions of nukes? Jasnah was able to soulcast at range two humans at the same time. We don't know how many objects could be soulcasted at the same time. It does not necessarily have to be one radiant per one nuke. We know it can be already one radiant per two nukes, and feasibly more than that. 

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so, i think scale is still the greater problem. this is not kaladin facing a fused in the air. this thing happens on the scale of whole continents, which are crossed in minutes.

Which is why I moved my theory to spren and elsecallers/lightweavers having an alert and respond system in place in the cognitive realm. 

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good point, but this raises the question: how exactly are we defining this scenario? certainly the earthlings would not arrive by space ships, as that would imply a technology. let's say there is a portal? large enough to move armies and big machinery, but not for flying a missile? (why would this portal be so specific?) and are we even assuming the magic would work on the earth side?

That is why I inquired to DiePie who came up with the scenario. I would be hesitant to include flying nukes through portals a la Avengers as we do not know how one would program targeting information for the nuke going through the portal.

If it is a continual signal from the base, then would the portal sever that signal? If it is pre-programmed, then highstorms will need to be taken into account, and geographic knowledge will need to be gained in order to properly target it.

Further if it is going through a portal, what would stop multiple elsecallers from simply soulcasting a giant barrier covering it from the cognitive realm? Assuming a forward base for the humans on Roshar, the explosion would damage them on both sides of the portal. 

So personally I think for the sake of all the variables, then missile silo launched nukes should be off the table. Or further details need to be laid out. 

As to magic working on the earth side, I believe the original scenario was regarding earth military (of various eras) invading shard worlds.

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anyway, you can always bring a long range truck-transported missile through that portal, and launch it from roshar. maybe won't go round the world, but it will certainly go a 1000 kilometers. in fact, in roshar's lower gravity, it may even go around the world. or, you can deliver it from an airplane. which is only mildly slower than an ICBM

But that would reduce the number of nukes being fired, and the locations it could be fired from. Which to me would make it more manageable. 

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me, i was assuming that a continent was just popped into the middle of roshar ocean, in which case icbm are available

I was assuming a certain amount were ported over for attack. Guess gotta wait for DiePie to ring in. 

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elsecallers are good spies, but not perfect. they can imitate appearence well, but if their exhistence is known, there are many ways to counter them. i expect a lot of patrol groups shouting at each other "what's your grandmother's name? which college did you attend?" and touching each other's faces to find illusions.

Lightweavers can perfectly mimic voices, and appearances with their mnemonic abilities. Keep in mind Shallan is training, and also has hiccups because she is having trouble with her truths. We have WoB that lightweavers manipulate wavelengths, radio waves, and etc. So they could food infrared. As to the shouting grandmother's names, perhaps Bigmikey can ring in, but I do not believe that would work on earth in the military, nonetheless in this situation. There are too many people, and not everyone knows each other. That is why identification, pass codes, and etc are employed. Regardless, having a spren set up shop to explore the installation, and keep track of whose grandmothers name is who would solve all of that. Coupled with lightweavers mnemonic ability for memorization, they would be able to answer with perfect recollection. Finally although not expressely confirmed, oathbringer definitely implies physical illusions are possible. There goes the touching the face solution out the window. 

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also heat sensors (maybe lightweaving can fool the infrared, but your body heats surrounding air, that could give you away), movement sensors, trip wires, closed doors. and perhaps composite materials are harder to soulcast because they lack a unitarian cognitive identity (it works against forging, which works on similar principles). rosharans are not the only ones who can adapt to counter new tricks.

They can create lasers with lightweaving. I would imagine through use of light they could increase the temperature at particular areas to make the image match the illusion. Movement sensors would not sense the spren gaining intel, and the movement sensors would sense a person walking through that looks like a member of the military. Trip wires would be covered in the spren spying. You can send multiple spren, and have the entire layout of the complex. I do not recall anywhere in the novels that composite materials are harder to soulcast. They are seen as one thing and have one identity in the cognitive realm. A soulcasting savant, or radiant can separate parts and soulcast them, but normally it is seen as a whole. WoB used baking a cake as an example. Another example is the ship of theseus. Soulcasting is not forgery. You do not need to know the history of each component part to change it. 

 

edit: WoB regarding Cake having a soul, and the ship of theseus

 

Questioner

I wanted to ask whether cake has a soul? In Realmatic theory, stuff has souls. So, somebody turns wheat into flour, and flour has a soul. Do they come together when I bake the cake?

Brandon Sanderson

...So, this gets into some weird cosmere theory stuff. The level that if you are a student of philosophy, you'll recognize just wearing on the sleeve where this one came from. This is a mashup of Shinto beliefs and the theory of the forms by Plato, and kind of its own weird thing, that became Realmatic theory in the cosmere...

So, in the cosmere, things take on an Identity and a soul based on how people perceive them. It's human perception that is creating a lot of this, because the various powers that made the universe have this sort of desire to be sentient. And power left long too long in the cosmere starts thinking, that's just how it goes, and starts thinking of itself the way it is perceived. So, that cake, as soon as its created, the disparate parts of the souls start being thought of as a cake, and start gaining some traction as a cake. If you left that cake alone long enough, which wouldn't take too long for a cake because people don't look at cake and think "Oh, a bunch of wheat and flour." They think "Cake." That thing will start having a combined soul of the various bits of power, and the longer you leave it, the more permanency it's gonna have as a Spiritual artifact in the cosmere.

So, yes, cake has a soul.

Oathbringer Glasgow signing (Dec. 2, 2017)

 

 

Oversleep

I have a philosophy question that could actually be answered in cosmere:

Ship of Theseus in cosmere. If I went and replaced every part of the ship, would it still - Cognitively - be the same thing?

What if I replaced everything and made a second ship out of the parts from the first one? What could somebody watching all of that from Shadesmar tell me?

Brandon Sanderson

You're right, part of the design of the cosmere (which has some deep roots in classical philosophy) was an attempt to answer the Ship of Theseus question.

In the cosmere, part of the Cognitive--and even spiritual--aspect of a thing (particularly if it isn't sentient) is delineated by the way that thinking beings define it. Per the old joke about the axe, if you replace your axe head and think of the new axe as "Your Axe," then the cognitive and spiritual aspects of that thing will grow to reflect that.

If you replaced every part of your ship, and gave the sailors time to sail it, thinking of it as the same ship--it would become the same ship.

Stormlight Three Update #6 (Feb. 9, 2017)

 

 

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so, it can be attempted, but it's far from foolproof. the only reason shallan does so well is that nobody is prepared

Never said it was fool proof. Just I think Roshar has more options to counter than originally shown. 

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The Lightweaver problem is the same as the Kandra problem although to a lesser degree.  If we know that people can perfectly mimic others it's going to be difficult to detect them.  Our strategies aren't foolproof but we are trained.  For instance,  we are trained in something called  OPSEC, or operations security.  What that means is basically we aren't just slinging information around.  You know as much as you need to know to do whatever your task is. And you don't poke around trying to get information you don't need. You don't speak about your mission in public places or detail to others what your mission is or when it's supposed to take place. And everyone watches each other for changes in behavior.  It's amazing how many mundane spies are caught in this manner. I assume it's going to catch a few supernatural spies as well but of course not foolproof.  Basically,  the better the Lightweaver the less mistakes they'll make, therefore the harder they will be to catch.  And of course we have no defense at all from anything coming from the CR.

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On 3/8/2020 at 0:45 AM, PrinceGenocide said:

They might be successful on elendel too. They have guns and mistings but they might just get overwhelmed by the viciousness , speed and the numbers of the Mongols. They might not have similar success over the South tho. 

 

they would get bombarded by heavy artillery guns that would scare the hell out of them and break a charge their horses would freak out at the sound of guns too.

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