(Post TLM Update with Avatars) Theory: The Heralds Made Two Pacts With Honor

[The Stick]

Maybe the Dawnshard helped them all cross in a large wave? A massive influx of people would result in them having to rapidly expand just to feed themselves. This could even be the

SP4 spoilers

Quote

 

Spoiler

Sigzil's skipping ability related to his Dawnshard.

 

They would then make contact with singers much quicker and with Odium fanning flames, war would be only a matter of time.

Edited May 27, 2023 by The Stick

[cometaryorbit]

That's totally possible, but a need to expand outside Shinovar implies an incredibly large population being moved. If it was so last-moment that there was ash in the air, how did they get that many people together?

I guess it's possible that the entire land of Shinovar was Elsecalled across, complete with people and infrastructure, which would mean both a large population and existing infrastructure. But the RoW description makes them sound more desperate and without resources than that.

[alder24]

1 hour ago, cometaryorbit said:

That's totally possible, but a need to expand outside Shinovar implies an incredibly large population being moved. If it was so last-moment that there was ash in the air, how did they get that many people together?

I guess it's possible that the entire land of Shinovar was Elsecalled across, complete with people and infrastructure, which would mean both a large population and existing infrastructure. But the RoW description makes them sound more desperate and without resources than that.

What if they didn't get them together? What if Elscalling got boosted in such a way to pick up every living person and their animals off the planet, no matter where they are, and transport them all to Roshar, not as a one group, but individually together?

Then if tens of millions (or whatever number in hundreds of thousands) of people got transported and allowed into a "small" land, that could create a problem. Lack of food, lack of land to farm, lack of resources, mining, shelters etc. It would take time for them to build it all. Why bother when you can just walk across mountain ranges and steal farm animals from other people living there? Steal their houses, food, infrastructure and take what is already there, instead of starting from nothing? You have a numerical advantage over the villagers on the other side, even with primitive weapons, you should be able to take that by force before they call for help. Then just use their weapons and resources to advance further into their land, attacking more and more Dawnsingers with numerical advantage. It's not like all Dawnsingers are waiting on the other side of the mountain, by the time they would organize in large numbers capable of effective defense, you would not only take lots of land, but arm yourself using their weapons against them.

Barbarians didn't defeat Rome by having a more advanced technology or having more organized troops, but by attacking them with numerical advantage all across the border. Ambushing them in the forest and taking their weapons and armors from their bodies. Using their roads and traveling to the very heart of Rome with numbers that can’t be stopped. Settling in their houses, and crowning themself as new roman emperors.

[cometaryorbit]

1 hour ago, alder24 said:

What if they didn't get them together? What if Elscalling got boosted in such a way to pick up every living person and their animals off the planet, no matter where they are, and transport them all to Roshar, not as a one group, but individually together?

It didn't, because Ashyn still has humans (the "famous floating cities"). So not all the Ashynite humans were transported.

1 hour ago, alder24 said:

 Lack of food, lack of land to farm, lack of resources, mining, shelters etc. It would take time for them to build it all. Why bother when you can just walk across mountain ranges and steal farm animals from other people living there? Steal their houses, food, infrastructure and take what is already there, instead of starting from nothing?

I think you're really underestimating how alien and hostile non-Shinovar Roshar's environment would have been to people newly arrived from Earthlike Ashyn. All the characters in the books are used to it, and (except Szeth and worldhoppers) are from societies that have developed techniques to deal with it in basically every aspect of civilization - city sites, architecture, transportation, farming.

So I think it wouldn't have been easier. Those farm animals and food would have been Rosharan ones very alien to them. People just new from Ashyn wouldn't know how to raise Rosharan livestock, prepare Rosharan plants for food or fiber, etc. They wouldn't even know what was edible.

Also, they'd be walking into highstorm-land, which they would not have been prepared or equipped for.

Learning to live on non-Shinovar Roshar would have been a very difficult and long process even without fighting Dawnsingers. Agriculture on (non-Shinovar) Roshar works a lot different. Early British settlers had trouble in Australia and even America with farming, and that's a way more similar habitat.

1 hour ago, alder24 said:

Barbarians didn't defeat Rome by having a more advanced technology or having more organized troops, but by attacking them with numerical advantage all across the border.

The invasions that finished off the Western Roman Empire spanned a century (and it had been going downhill for at least a century and a half before that - probably since Marcus Aurelius' death in 180) so that's not really an argument for a one-generation conquest.

And it wasn't as simple as numerical advantage. The sides themselves were mixed, given how much of the Western Roman Empire was 'barbarian' by that point.

Edited June 1, 2023 by cometaryorbit

[alder24]

10 hours ago, cometaryorbit said:

It didn't, because Ashyn still has humans (the "famous floating cities"). So not all the Ashynite humans were transported.

Fair point. I see two explanations - not all could be transported, or some return there later from Roshar.

10 hours ago, cometaryorbit said:

I think you're really underestimating how alien and hostile non-Shinovar Roshar's environment would have been to people newly arrived from Earthlike Ashyn. All the characters in the books are used to it, and (except Szeth and worldhoppers) are from societies that have developed techniques to deal with it in basically every aspect of civilization - city sites, architecture, transportation, farming.

So I think it wouldn't have been easier. Those farm animals and food would have been Rosharan ones very alien to them. People just new from Ashyn wouldn't know how to raise Rosharan livestock, prepare Rosharan plants for food or fiber, etc. They wouldn't even know what was edible.

Also, they'd be walking into highstorm-land, which they would not have been prepared or equipped for.

Learning to live on non-Shinovar Roshar would have been a very difficult and long process even without fighting Dawnsingers. Agriculture on (non-Shinovar) Roshar works a lot different. Early British settlers had trouble in Australia and even America with farming, and that's a way more similar habitat.

The invasions that finished off the Western Roman Empire spanned a century (and it had been going downhill for at least a century and a half before that - probably since Marcus Aurelius' death in 180) so that's not really an argument for a one-generation conquest.

And it wasn't as simple as numerical advantage. The sides themselves were mixed, given how much of the Western Roman Empire was 'barbarian' by that point.

 

I think you severely underestimate human's endurance, resourcefulness and brutality they're capable of. We're not talking about dozens or hundreds of first settlers in America, we're talking about hundreds of thousands or millions of people, suddenly appearing on Roshar. And do you think that humans conquer all of Roshar in a single generation? No, I highly doubt so. 

Let's create a detailed possible scenario of the First Human Desolation:

• Humans arrive in Roshar and settle in Shinovar. There is some contact between Singers and humans, there is trade, conversation, Singers share their knowledge of Roshar with humans in Shinovar. Some might even still live there. Relations are friendly. Singers were helping humanity out of pity or Shards command. That would give humans a basic understanding of Roshar. Just like the first settlers in America kept friendly relations with local tribes, traded with them, hired them as guides etc, the same would happen here.
  The Eila Stele:

  Quote

   

  They came from another world, using powers that we have been forbidden to touch. Dangerous powers, of spren and Surges. They destroyed their lands and have come to us begging. We took them in, as commanded by the gods. What else could we do? They were a people forlorn, without a home. Our pity destroyed us. For their betrayal extended even to our gods: to spren, stone, and wind. Beware the otherworlders. The traitors. Those with tongues of sweetness, but with minds that lust for blood. Do not take them in. Do not give them succor. Well were they named Voidbringers, for they brought the void. The empty pit that sucks in emotion. A new god. Their god. These Voidbringers know no songs. They cannot hear Roshar, and where they go, they bring silence. They look soft, with no shell, but they are hard. They have but one heart, and it cannot ever live

   

• After a few months or years humans, dissatisfied with what they were given, launch a surprise attack across mountain ranges with significant, concentrated forces (not all needs to be warriors, it could start with settlers making their home among Singers which would cause disagreements, later developed into a casus belli for the invasion) - Dawnsingers are taken completely by surprise and are unable to mount a effective defense, their forces are spread across whole Roshar while humans are concentrated in a small area. Humans completely overrun Singers forcing them out.

• Humans turn Dawnsingers into slaves or second class citizens on conquered lands. They do the work from them, farming, herding, resource mining and processing. Human settlers are learning from them how to adapt to this new environment and work with new resources. Settlers take over Dawnsinger's home, soldiers take their weapons and carry on with the invasion. They treat every betrayal with harsh punishments but treat collaborators well, giving them “normal” life.

• How to avoid Highstorms? Take multiple Dawnsingers as prisoners (even before the invasion started), separate them and ask each of them independently when Highstorms are coming, if their answer will differ, they're lying - kill them all and their families too. After a few times humans would have a basic understanding of the Highstorm cycle, and maybe even do some calculations and predictions. They would base their movement on that to travel from village to village to have a shelter. They won't travel as a single army, but rather multiple smaller ones spread across the whole border, taking as many villages as possible. Dawnsingers living there would be unable to gather sufficient numbers to stop them.
  It's also very likely that in the months or years leading to the invasion, humans menaged to figure out the Highstorm pattern and are able to calculate when the next Highstorm will be. 

• Human armies are moving from village to village, city to city and taking over more and more land, Danwsingers are still spread over the whole Roshar, and just began to amass their troops. Humans take parts of Azir and Iri in the first period of the invasion.

• Dawnsinger army arrives, the advancement stalls and the frontlines are established. Humans managed to gather lots of resources and weapons to successfully face Dawnsinger army and even have an advantage over them. Second period of the invasion starts, with little gains for humans, but still them being dominant on a battlefield.

• Dawnsingers unable to defeat humans and facing betrayal of spren or their unwillingness to help, turn towards Odium for help. He turns them into Fused and the First Singer Desolation starts. Dawnsingers led by Fused are pushing humanity back, retaking conquered lands.

• The Oathpact is made, Heralds are sealing Fused on Braize. Humans and Dawnsingers are left alone. They continue fighting among themself, until eventually making peace. Humanity controls parts of today's Azir and Iri, with native Dawnsinger as slaves or second class citizens living there. Tensions remained high, but both Desolations ended.

• Over next generations, centuries, war is restarted multiple times. By the time of next war humans adapted to the new harsh environment, are able to predict Highstorms and mine metals for weapon production. With every war humanity is gaining new lands, but I doubt by the time of the Second Desolation centuries later humanity would have control over all of Roshar.

 

There is a question that nobody seems to ask - where Singers were living in between Desolations? If in the ancient times all of Roshar was conquered by humans, where did Singers live? Were they expelled into wastelands? No, that's not possible - Listeners went on exile into the wastelands of Narak before the Last Desolation, and between that event and the False Desolation they would be forced to live with all Singers if Singers were exiled from human controlled lands. Singers were living among humans. Not as slaves (that came fully after the Recreance), but as second class citizens, or separate enclaves of Singer communities. There was a contact between humans and Singers, as Radiants during the False Desolation recorded "they call themself Parsh now". If Singers were living among humans in between each Desolation, then during the First Desolation humans weren’t expelling Singers out of their land, but rather subjecting them and forcing them to work for them and teach humans. The full conquest of Roshar would last for centuries, and won’t happen in a single generation - there is just too much land and too many Singers to subjugate at once for it to be even possible. This was a long conflict, which likely was even incomplete before the Second Desolation, centuries later

[cometaryorbit]

Everything you say is possible. If humans arrived with a very large population; could organize fairly quickly; and most immediately agreed on breaking the original deal, it could have happened that way.

My complaint, though, is the idea that it would be easier to seek resources outside Shinovar than inside. That IMO would only be true if the population was so large that it couldn't be sustained in Shinovar at all.

It'd be way easier to live in Shinovar at 100 people per square mile than in Tashikk at 5 people per square mile, IMO, in the first few generations. From what we see of Tashikk in Edgedancer, even though it's much farther west than the rest of the books, it's still strongly highstorm-influenced.

And Shinovar is large, lies in a relatively warm latitude, and is described as well-watered and verdant. It should be able to support a very large population.

--

I don't think it was all conquered in one generation - but I do think that's the intended implication, what Dalinar and most of the other characters as of the end of OB believe happened.

-

I tend to think the inciting event of the First Desolation was the hinted-at spren betraying singers/singers betraying spren thing, which along with the arrival of Odium led to the singers turning to Odium and/or voidspren. I think the human invasion/conquest came later and wasn't necessarily primarily land/resource motivated as Dalinar and co think.

[alder24]

50 minutes ago, cometaryorbit said:

My complaint, though, is the idea that it would be easier to seek resources outside Shinovar than inside. That IMO would only be true if the population was so large that it couldn't be sustained in Shinovar at all.

Not at all. You just need greed and laziness. Many would want to conquer and plunder instead of farming and building. It's easier - for them. That's human nature. We have greed in our genes. Those people would just ignore what they were given and raise their hands to grab what Singers have, because for them it's easier to take a life, than to provide for their families all year round. That's what was said in OB - humans can't be satisfied with what they were given.

57 minutes ago, cometaryorbit said:

It'd be way easier to live in Shinovar at 100 people per square mile than in Tashikk at 5 people per square mile, IMO, in the first few generations. From what we see of Tashikk in Edgedancer, even though it's much farther west than the rest of the books, it's still strongly highstorm-influenced.

Easier? Did Honor create farms full of crops to accommodate them? Highly doubt it. Singers provided them with the majority of the food which for me is the most likely explanation. And humans, like humans, would quickly say "they're giving us the worst food they have, keeping the best for themself, don't we deserve to have that instead?".

Farming takes time, the whole year. "During the late middle ages, around 20 acres were needed to support a family of 5 people for a year." And all farming at that time was done by hand, manually, no machinery, even usage of animals wasn't that common as many couldn't afford an ox or mule. Farming is a very labor intensive job. Add to that herding and building their own house in the meantime, with resources you need to collect yourself, and you have a lot to do, with not enough time to do all of that.

1 hour ago, cometaryorbit said:

I don't think it was all conquered in one generation - but I do think that's the intended implication, what Dalinar and most of the other characters as of the end of OB believe happened.

That's the assumption they're making, but even Stormfather can't answer that question as he wasn't fully aware at that time yet. I think that's the wrong assumption as it is impossible to conquer a continent the size of Asia in a single generation - even Mongols didn't do that.

1 hour ago, cometaryorbit said:

I tend to think the inciting event of the First Desolation was the hinted-at spren betraying singers/singers betraying spren thing, which along with the arrival of Odium led to the singers turning to Odium and/or voidspren. I think the human invasion/conquest came later and wasn't necessarily primarily land/resource motivated as Dalinar and co think.

I think that the spren betrayal was happening during the First Desolation, when Singers were needing them the most. That's why it is the betrayal. Singers likely ask spren to grant the Surges so they can fight off the invasion, spren denied because they were already attracted to very expressive humans, thus Singers turned to Odium. They needed to be really desperate to turn to Odium, who was a Void, towards the Void of which they had been warned.

The only thing that confuses me are those words from the Song of Secrets: "The betrayal of spren has brought us here. They gave their Surges to human heirs"  but we know spren gave Surges to humans AFTER Heralds were already established, because they were mimicking their powers, maybe even in next Desolations. That requires Fused to already exist before the betrayal had happened, as Heralds were created in response to Fused, but Singers turned to Odium who made them Fused in response to "betrayal of spren who gave their Surges to humans" which doesn't make sense. That's a close loop. I can even write about it for it to make sense.

-> Fused created -> Heralds created -> "betrayal of spren, Surges were given to humans" -> Singers turned to Odium -> back to the begining

Am I missing something here?

[cometaryorbit]

6 hours ago, alder24 said:

[1] Not at all. You just need greed and laziness. Many would want to conquer and plunder instead of farming and building. It's easier - for them. That's human nature. We have greed in our genes. Those people would just ignore what they were given and raise their hands to grab what Singers have, because for them it's easier to take a life, than to provide for their families all year round. That's what was said in OB - humans can't be satisfied with what they were given.

[2] Easier? Did Honor create farms full of crops to accommodate them? Highly doubt it. Singers provided them with the majority of the food which for me is the most likely explanation.

[3] Farming takes time, the whole year. "During the late middle ages, around 20 acres were needed to support a family of 5 people for a year." And all farming at that time was done by hand, manually, no machinery, even usage of animals wasn't that common as many couldn't afford an ox or mule. Farming is a very labor intensive job. Add to that herding and building their own house in the meantime, with resources you need to collect yourself, and you have a lot to do, with not enough time to do all of that.

[4] The only thing that confuses me are those words from the Song of Secrets: "The betrayal of spren has brought us here. They gave their Surges to human heirs"  but we know spren gave Surges to humans AFTER Heralds were already established, because they were mimicking their powers, maybe even in next Desolations. That requires Fused to already exist before the betrayal had happened, as Heralds were created in response to Fused, but Singers turned to Odium who made them Fused in response to "betrayal of spren who gave their Surges to humans" which doesn't make sense. That's a close loop.

(Numbers added by me)

[1] I'm arguing that conquering and plundering alien resources in a hostile alien landscape would be harder than farming and building. These aren't Germanic tribes raiding Rome or Mongolians invading China. The environment is overwhelmingly more alien. Weekly Cat 5+ hurricanes are a big deal; so are food / fiber plants that would just look like rocks to them and are grown by shining gems on them and singing to them, elephant-sized coral-bugs for livestock, etc.

And with the mountains in the way, you can't just do brief raids between highstorms - it'd be a journey of weeks surely.

[2] Hmm, ok, we have totally different mental images of how this worked. I certainly wouldn't have expected Singers providing the food - or even very much day-to-day contact at all between humans and Singers in the early years after the bargain was struck and Shinovar was terraformed/transported/whatever. There are formidable mountains between Shinovar and the rest of Roshar.

(Surely there was some contact to make the bargain, but the mountains might have been created as part of the terraforming of Shinovar. Or the Shards might have mediated the bargain.)

[3] Sure, pre-industrial farming was very hard. I'm just arguing that the geography and Rosharan weather and ecosystem are such that stealing from Singers would be even harder. (And, indeed, completely unworkable as a major source of resources. Small groups of 'frontiersmen' stealing gemhearts, even living there by banditry - totally possible once they learned how to take good enough shelter from highstorms & what was edible. Transporting meaningful amounts of food, wood, etc home across the mountains - no way, unless they were very advanced.)

(I wouldn't compare to Late Middle Ages Europe though - that's a high latitude in a relatively harsh climate era. Shinovar is at a better latitude and Roshar is vastly less seasonal than Earth, certainly than Europe! I'd compare to southern coastal China / South or Southeast Asia, or Mesoamerica, which supported higher population densities even with limited technology.)

[4] Surgebinding as Heralds and KR use it is post-Fused. There was Surgebinding of a sort before; not only the Ashynite magic but the Dawnsinger Stoneshaping and whatever made the Dawncities / Shattered Plains (per WoB too large scale for even a group of Radiants). Those ancient Rosharan Surges (not the Ashynite ones) could totally still have been spren-based.

There's also the weird proto-fabrial-science stuff like the singing/shining Light from gems farming method.

Edited June 2, 2023 by cometaryorbit

[alder24]

7 hours ago, cometaryorbit said:

[1] I'm arguing that conquering and plundering alien resources in a hostile alien landscape would be harder than farming and building. These aren't Germanic tribes raiding Rome or Mongolians invading China. The environment is overwhelmingly more alien. Weekly Cat 5+ hurricanes are a big deal; so are food / fiber plants that would just look like rocks to them and are grown by shining gems on them and singing to them, elephant-sized coral-bugs for livestock, etc.

And with the mountains in the way, you can't just do brief raids between highstorms - it'd be a journey of weeks surely.

I think you forgot that the Highstom in the west is massively weaker than the Highstorm in the east. Read the first chapter of Edgedancer. The grass is tall and thick, trees are tall, growing up, and look like they were made out of vines, other trees are tall with wide branches tangled with other branches, and animals have little to none shell. Look at Yeddew, it is like chasms in Shattered Plains. Yet, in Yeddew, there are homes with walls, windows and doors. Only stairs separate Highstorm water from houses. In the Shattered Plains the water surge dozens of feet high (80 I think?). Even farming plants are much bigger in the east, the difference that was already very big in comparison between the Shattered Plains and Alethkar.

My point is that the environment in the west is much different than in the east, Highstorms are much weaker compared to the east. Even close to the Shattered Plains, a simple wooden wagon was enough to shelter from a very strong Highstorm. In the lands close to Shinovar, it would be much easier to build a shelter - just find a forest and within a few short hours you can build a primitive housing from wood. Roman Legionaries were able to build a full camp with fortifications in 4-5 hours. Every day. Even when crossing mountain ranges in Shinovar, a simple valley with a wall on the eastern side, would provide enough protection to wait Highstorm out even without any shelter. 

8 hours ago, cometaryorbit said:

[2] Hmm, ok, we have totally different mental images of how this worked. I certainly wouldn't have expected Singers providing the food - or even very much day-to-day contact at all between humans and Singers in the early years after the bargain was struck and Shinovar was terraformed/transported/whatever. There are formidable mountains between Shinovar and the rest of Roshar.

(Surely there was some contact to make the bargain, but the mountains might have been created as part of the terraforming of Shinovar. Or the Shards might have mediated the bargain.)

Mountain ranges aren't formidable. Hannibal crossed 2 mountain ranges on his path to Rome with elephants. He then spent 15 years pillaging Italy, undefeated by Romans. 

Now let's consider Singer-Human relations. I strongly believe that there was a significant contact between Singers (at least those living close by Shinovar) and Ashynites. It was not only driven by pity and will to help, but also out of curiosity! Like you pointed out, Rosharan environment would be alien to Ashynites. Rocky, barren, with weird fauna and flora, with massive Storms coming every few days. This will encourage humans to start a friendly exploration of that unknown land, ask Singers about the nature of Roshar etc. But the same would work for Singers. For them, humans with their soft, unshelled skin, animals full of fluffy fur, chickens of all kinds and plants with tall unreactive leafs would be equally as alien as Roshar was for Ashynites. They would go to Shinovar, explore this new unknown land and its strange inhabitants.

That's the one way of interactions, the second is pity and will to help. As said in The Eila Stele, Singers took them out of pity (and commanded by their gods) and provide help and succor for them. That means food, resources and advice. They were in contact with each other, they were talking, as they were "fooled by their sweet tongues". That for me means that humans had on opportunity to find out about Rosharan native food providing plants that look like rock, animals that have a hard shell, but can be hunted and eaten, and most importantly Highstorms. Even if Shinovar Highstorms are weak, they would still need a shelter and a warning - this warning would most likely be provided by Singers, who can hear in Rhythms when the storm is coming. 

And the clear difference of Singers hearing Rhythms of Roshar, and Ashynites not, would spark curious conversation - just like 7000 years later, when Gavilar discovered Parshendi, they were asking where are Rhythms of Parshman. The same would be here, Singers would ask about absence of human Rhythms, and they would ask about Singer's Rhythms, Ashynites would know Singers can detect incoming Highstorms.

Then you just give humans months or years to realize that this simple life of farming and separation isn't for them. That they want more, they want what Singers have, they want to have all of Roshar for themself, not just a small enclave. They would already have a necessary basic knowledge of Roshar and its environment, of Highstorms and how to hide from them, of native food and animals. That's all they need for an initial strike.

7 hours ago, cometaryorbit said:

[3] Sure, pre-industrial farming was very hard. I'm just arguing that the geography and Rosharan weather and ecosystem are such that stealing from Singers would be even harder. (And, indeed, completely unworkable as a major source of resources. Small groups of 'frontiersmen' stealing gemhearts, even living there by banditry - totally possible once they learned how to take good enough shelter from highstorms & what was edible. Transporting meaningful amounts of food, wood, etc home across the mountains - no way, unless they were very advanced.)

Are you familiar with the Napoleon Corps system? They didn't have a supply train carrying their food from France, they were living off the land they were in. Each soldier was carrying their own food. The same with Roman Legionaries, they were obligated to carry 15 days worth of food and water with them. Napoleon corps were small, independent armies, moving together with other corps, but on different roads, separately, from village to village taking peoples supply and food, but still operating closely together, that when the enemy army approached, they combined into a single army in no time. This gave Napoleon superior maneuverability and speed no enemy army could match.

Do that. Carry your own food on your back. Move from village to village in between Highstorms and hide there, in homes when Highstorm approaches. Don't do "small rides" do full scale invasion with small armies acting independently, small enough to hide in Singers village and live off the land, large enough to deal with any small scale resistance, operating close to other armies to combine together when the enemy army is closing. No need for a supply train, no need to be slow and rely on resources from Shinovar. Go there, with a full army and take what they have. 

Do not forget, Ashynites brought horses with them! They have cavalry with them, a unit unknown to Singer, that can travel very fast between armies as messengers, provide scouting, or even shock with cavalry charges. And also carry even more supplies without any need for slow moving wagons.

Also Raboniel mentioned that humans came with horribly burnt livestock, so they could use them and prepare provisions for the initial invasion.

8 hours ago, cometaryorbit said:

[4] Surgebinding as Heralds and KR use it is post-Fused. There was Surgebinding of a sort before; not only the Ashynite magic but the Dawnsinger Stoneshaping and whatever made the Dawncities / Shattered Plains (per WoB too large scale for even a group of Radiants). Those ancient Rosharan Surges (not the Ashynite ones) could totally still have been spren-based.

Good point, searching for more I've found this quote from Raboniel in RoW:

Quote

“She talked about the way your livestock moaned and cried from their burns. The result of humans Surgebinding without oaths, without checks. Of course, that was before any of us understood the Surges. Before the spren left us for you, before the war started.”

Those words suggest that spren first left and then war began. But I think it's the opposite based on the quote, Raboniel first said that was before they understood surges (and I think we know this came in following Desolations), then before spren left, and war started. I think the Raboniel quote supports the following order: war started -> spren left -> they started to use Surges.

But I don't think Dawnsinger Stoneshaping is the result of Surges, that is more similar to how Parshendi were growing plants, singing to them and playing music to increase growth rate, something not limited to a specific spren bond. I also think spren have never granted surges of any kind to Singers. 

[cometaryorbit]

1 hour ago, alder24 said:

Good point, searching for more I've found this quote from Raboniel in RoW:

Those words suggest that spren first left and then war began. But I think it's the opposite based on the quote, Raboniel first said that was before they understood surges (and I think we know this came in following Desolations), then before spren left, and war started. I think the Raboniel quote supports the following order: war started -> spren left -> they started to use Surges.

But I don't think Dawnsinger Stoneshaping is the result of Surges, that is more similar to how Parshendi were growing plants, singing to them and playing music to increase growth rate, something not limited to a specific spren bond. I also think spren have never granted surges of any kind to Singers. 

See, I disagree. It's "before any of us understood Surges", not necessarily before they were used.

There's a distinction between Surgebinding (the specific magic system) and the Surges (which are a lot broader). The spren are "living Surges".

Stoneshaping is an use of the Surge of Cohesion - it's in the RoW Ars Arcanum. It has to be the result of a Surge.

The singer plant growing method might be more like proto-fabrial science, but even if it is, that doesn't really rule out some involvement of the Surge of Progression. Fabrials might involve Surges, at least indirectly through the nature of the spren, though not Surgebinding. I'd argue that skyeel flight and chasmfiend lightening are the Surge of Gravitation. The Purelake magic fish probably involve Surges too. Etc.

I agree the Dawnsingers didn't have "a specific spren bond",  but Surges aren't limited to that. Even Surgebinding (the specific magic system we know) isn't - the Fused Surgebind without spren bonds, and the Honorblades aren't really spren either.

I think the implication is that some Surge use existed on both Ashyn and Roshar before the Heralds got Honorblades, starting Surgebinding (the magic system we know) - and that was eventually copied by Radiant spren/Radiants and arguably the Fused. Even if you don't think e.g. skyeel flight is Surge based, the destruction of Ashyn, Dawnsinger Stoneshaping, the Dawncities and the Shattered Plains...

I don't think either side understood the Surges as a set/system though. It kind of sounds like Ashyn was experimenting with powers they didn't understand, so it wasn't just the Dawnsingers who didn't understand them.

--

I thought Tashikk, while clearly way more verdant than eastern Roshar, was still very alien and highstorm-adapted with trees that lay flat and such.

I could easily be overstating it, though.

I definitely don't understand how the highstorm weakening works. If it's still moving at over 300 mph, it's going to be incredibly devastating even if the cloud bands are breaking up and the rainfall has decreased.

And I honestly don't see how a wooden wagon can protect people from the 390 mph winds of an eastern-Roshar highstorm. I've wondered about that scene with Kaladin in the slave wagon for years, and the best I can come up with is that the lower gravity (and the size of chulls, which are significantly larger than oxen) allows them to build it way sturdier than animal-drawn wagons in our world generally were. 390 mph is worse than any F5 tornado that ever existed on Earth, which peak about 300 mph. Even if the highstorm winds are more straight-line so less likely to pick up and drop the wagon...

(I was really surprised to learn the 390 mph thing. The wagon scene had honestly convinced me, previously, that outside the highstorm/Everstorm collision in WoR normal highstorms were more like a category 1-2 hurricane.

OTOH being left out in the highstorm is treated as a death sentence for Kaladin. So the wagon scene is really more the anomalous one. IDK.

But it likely is a construction thing. I know the bridges take advantage of both lower Rosharan gravity and a very high strength to weight, low density local wood. Wagons might be the same.)

Edited June 2, 2023 by cometaryorbit

[alder24]

37 minutes ago, cometaryorbit said:

See, I disagree. It's "before any of us understood Surges", not necessarily before they were used.

With this I meant Fused proper Surgebinding. Your interpretation is also likely.

37 minutes ago, cometaryorbit said:

There's a distinction between Surgebinding (the specific magic system) and the Surges (which are a lot broader). The spren are "living Surges".

Stoneshaping is an use of the Surge of Cohesion - it's in the RoW Ars Arcanum. It has to be the result of a Surge.

The singer plant growing method might be more like proto-fabrial science, but even if it is, that doesn't really rule out some involvement of the Surge of Progression. Fabrials might involve Surges, at least indirectly through the nature of the spren, though not Surgebinding. I'd argue that skyeel flight and chasmfiend lightening are the Surge of Gravitation. The Purelake magic fish probably involve Surges too. Etc.

I agree the Dawnsingers didn't have "a specific spren bond",  but Surges aren't limited to that. Even Surgebinding (the specific magic system we know) isn't - the Fused Surgebind without spren bonds, and the Honorblades aren't really spren either.

I think the implication is that some Surge use existed on both Ashyn and Roshar before the Heralds got Honorblades, starting Surgebinding (the magic system we know) - and that was eventually copied by Radiant spren/Radiants and arguably the Fused. Even if you don't think e.g. skyeel flight is Surge based, the destruction of Ashyn, Dawnsinger Stoneshaping, the Dawncities and the Shattered Plains...

I don't think either side understood the Surges as a set/system though. It kind of sounds like Ashyn was experimenting with powers they didn't understand, so it wasn't just the Dawnsingers who didn't understand them.

Yes, now I think it's very possible that the way Singer grew food or Dawnsingers were shaping stone is by using some primitive Surges. And I think we can say that's the case based on, Mistborn spoilers:

Spoiler

A-bronze differentiating between different Allomantic and Feruchemical powers. Each power has its own Rhythm. 

Singers were unknowingly singing/playing the Rhythm of the Surge of Cohesion, or the Surge of Progression, and this sparked the proper effect according to their intent. 

Skyeals or Chasmfiends do use Surgebinding, as they have a Nahel Bond formed with Gravitationspren. In return they got their weight reduced, with the use of the Surge of Gravitation.

I'm not arguing that.

44 minutes ago, cometaryorbit said:

I definitely don't understand how the highstorm weakening works. If it's still moving at over 300 mph, it's going to be incredibly devastating even if the cloud bands are breaking up and the rainfall has decreased.

And I honestly don't see how a wooden wagon can protect people from the 390 mph winds of an eastern-Roshar highstorm. I've wondered about that scene with Kaladin in the slave wagon for years, and the best I can come up with is that the lower gravity (and the size of chulls, which are significantly larger than oxen) allows them to build it way sturdier than animal-drawn wagons in our world generally were. 390 mph is worse than any F5 tornado that ever existed on Earth, which peak about 300 mph. Even if the highstorm winds are more straight-line so less likely to pick up and drop the wagon...

(I was really surprised to learn the 390 mph thing. The wagon scene had honestly convinced me, previously, that outside the highstorm/Everstorm collision in WoR normal highstorms were more like a category 1-2 hurricane.

OTOH being left out in the highstorm is treated as a death sentence for Kaladin. So the wagon scene is really more the anomalous one. IDK.

But it likely is a construction thing. I know the bridges take advantage of both lower Rosharan gravity and a very high strength to weight, low density local wood. Wagons might be the same.)

Yeah, that shouldn't be possible, no matter the quality of the wood used for that. Wood is just too light, and the side of the wagon too wide, to resist Highstorm. It should act like a sail. After all that Highstorm is able to pick up trees and stones off the ground, a wide wooden wagon should go flying, or be torn to shreds by rock and wood flying through it.

Those need to be heavy, not light, otherwise wide sides of the wagon would act like a sail. There are metal bars in it, that's additional weight, likely considerable, but I doubt normal wagons have bars for slaves too.

[cometaryorbit]

2 hours ago, alder24 said:

With this I meant Fused proper Surgebinding. Your interpretation is also likely.

Yes, now I think it's very possible that the way Singer grew food or Dawnsingers were shaping stone is by using some primitive Surges.

 

OK, yeah, that's a key distinction.

I'm kind of thinking that some of the stuff Dawnsingers did, either their proto-Surgebinding or rarer forms or both, required cooperation from rarer spren - maybe the actual sapient spren/truespren that later formed Radiant bonds, maybe just types of lesser spren that are a lot rarer than the basic lifespren, painspren, gravitationspren, etc used for the basic forms. We know there were (and apparently are now post-Everstorm) a lot more "normal" (non form of power) singer forms than the five they knew as of WoR.

(They might even have had forms directly based on the truespren?) 

And humans were more appealing to the spren and attracted them more, so there were less spren around the singers and they started to lose reliable access to some of those things. And that's how Odium started to sow conflict, offering voidspren and Forms of Power as replacements...

There's also the question of when Honor restricted the use of the Surges. Was it when he Invested in Roshar in the first place, or was it post-Ashyn, as a response to what happened there, maybe as part of handing out the Honorblades? If it's post-Ashyn, that also might have messed up some of what the Dawnsingers were doing (the scale of the Dawncities is pretty impressive... though that might have been a Dawnshard thing rather than a Dawnsinger Stoneshaping thing). That could also turn the singers away from Honor.

Edited June 2, 2023 by cometaryorbit

[alder24]

1 hour ago, cometaryorbit said:

And humans were more appealing to the spren and attracted them more, so there were less spren around the singers and they started to lose reliable access to some of those things. And that's how Odium started to sow conflict, offering voidspren and Forms of Power as replacements...

That's also a likely scenario. But conflict started with human invasion, and I doubt Singers were already having forms of powers before that (again The Eila Stele warns about the human's Void and their god, this means that Singers were not align with Odium at that time, nor did they had first bonds with Voidspren). Likely it was a combination of many different things happening at once, just like with Recreance.

2 hours ago, cometaryorbit said:

There's also the question of when Honor restricted the use of the Surges. Was it when he Invested in Roshar in the first place, or was it post-Ashyn, as a response to what happened there, maybe as part of handing out the Honorblades? If it's post-Ashyn, that also might have messed up some of what the Dawnsingers were doing (the scale of the Dawncities is pretty impressive... though that might have been a Dawnshard thing rather than a Dawnsinger Stoneshaping thing). That could also turn the singers away from Honor.

I don't think restrictions were put when Honor invested Roshar, as it's not about the planet Roshar, he was bound to the whole system, his restrictions would likely also affect Surgebinding on Ashyn and likely prevent its destruction from happening. Also I think it was said in books that Honor restricted Surges in response to the destruction of Ashyn.

[cometaryorbit]

3 hours ago, alder24 said:

That's also a likely scenario. But conflict started with human invasion, and I doubt Singers were already having forms of powers before that (again The Eila Stele warns about the human's Void and their god, this means that Singers were not align with Odium at that time, nor did they had first bonds with Voidspren).

See, this is what I'm skeptical of (that the conflict actually started with human invasion). That's totally what we are meant to believe at this point*, but I think there's more going on there -- just like the way our understanding of the Recreance went from "the Knights all murdered their spren" after WoR to "they were afraid they'd destroy the world" after OB to "WE CHOSE" after RoW.

I agree that the writer of the Eila Stele wasn't a follower of Odium, but I don't think all the singers switched over at once. I think this was written during the period of change-over, when some singers but not yet the majority had turned to Odium, and Odium was still playing both sides and not yet clearly backing one side as he later did when the Desolations were in full swing. This is probably after the betrayal occurred but before the betrayal turned to outright total war.

The wording sounds like it's intended to warn other singers about the dangers of dealing with apparently peaceful humans - "Beware the otherworlders. The traitors. Those with tongues of sweetness, but with minds that lust for blood. Do not take them in. Do not give them succor."

This to me implies that while there was probably already some violence ("minds that lust for blood"), it hadn't yet become a full on war - the warning implies that the writer thought there was a real risk of other singers pitying/taking in humans, and listening to their apparent friendship ("tongues of sweetness"). That doesn't sound like the wording of the losing side of an interspecies total war of conquest or even extinction.

It also sounds like the writer is primarily blaming the humans for causing a betrayal of "our gods - spren, stone, and wind" and for bringing Odium. Not for conquering them or driving them off their lands. I think the Eila Stele is likely pre-conquest (or at least large-scale conquest), written when most of Roshar was still singer lands. I think the betrayal mentioned has something to do with the Honor/Odium swap and spren/singer issue, not the invasion. 

The Eila Stele also talks about powers the singers were forbidden to touch, which implies they at least knew they existed (and maybe had been used before).

*I think there's a red-herring writing trick here. The characters are really concerned with Dalinar's attempt to build a Coalition vs the Alethi history of conquest, so that's what's on their minds. So when they discover that the singers were the original inhabitants of Roshar, and see the reference to a betrayal, they immediately assume the betrayal was a conquest. But I don't think the text we're given really supports that.

Edited June 2, 2023 by cometaryorbit

[cometaryorbit]

Another timeline point:

Raboniel says (ch 76 RoW) that she wasn't around when humans arrived, but her grandmother told her about what it was like, in a way that implies her grandmother was around to see it.

Essu, Raboniel's daughter, became a Fused, so given that apparently (according to Raboniel) all the Fused were "elevated" at once, and presumably Odium wouldn't have chosen a baby or young child, Essu was probably already adult or at least close at the time the Fused were created.

So there were probably about 3 singer generations between human arrival and the elevation of the Fused.

Singer generations are shorter than human ones, so that could be argued to be compatible, but it's a stretch.

Singers are considered adult at 10, so if that's equivalent to human 18... human generation times in a pre-industrial society are probably something like 25 years, so maybe 13-15 for singers? 3 generations would still be something like 40-45 years ... and according to the Stormfather, the Oathpact was created because humans couldn't win a war where their enemies kept reincarnating, which means there was more war between the creation of the Fused and the beginning of the Oathpact. I don't think the youngest Herald is like 50.

It's not completely definitive, because it's possible that Raboniel's mother was alive - maybe even adult and just somewhere else - at the time of human arrival, and that Essu was made a Fused before full adulthood. If Raboniel was born only a few years after the arrival (say 3 years), and Raboniel had Essu at say 12, and Essu was made a Fused at maybe 8, and only two years passed between the Fused being created and the Oathpact... then Shalash could be like 25 at the time of the Oathpact.

But that seems like a stretch.

 

Edited June 2, 2023 by cometaryorbit

[alder24]

16 hours ago, cometaryorbit said:

I agree that the writer of the Eila Stele wasn't a follower of Odium, but I don't think all the singers switched over at once. I think this was written during the period of change-over, when some singers but not yet the majority had turned to Odium, and Odium was still playing both sides and not yet clearly backing one side as he later did when the Desolations were in full swing. This is probably after the betrayal occurred but before the betrayal turned to outright total war.

I don't think it was written during the change (but the change likely wasn't a singular event), because the poem is warning specifically against humans and their god, at the time this poem was written, Odium was still associated with humans and humans with Odium. If Eila Stele was warning about Odium itself, then this could be written in the change-over period, and the author would be warning Singers about turning towards Odium, which they would be witnessing. If the author was warning only against humans with no mention of Odium, then the author would likely be turning themself towards Odium.

That's why this is happening before the turn to Odium, but likely after the spren betrayed them. Odium was likely already manipulating them, but not in a noticeable way for some to be worried about it. 

16 hours ago, cometaryorbit said:

This to me implies that while there was probably already some violence ("minds that lust for blood"), it hadn't yet become a full on war - the warning implies that the writer thought there was a real risk of other singers pitying/taking in humans, and listening to their apparent friendship ("tongues of sweetness"). That doesn't sound like the wording of the losing side of an interspecies total war of conquest or even extinction.

It also sounds like the writer is primarily blaming the humans for causing a betrayal of "our gods - spren, stone, and wind" and for bringing Odium. Not for conquering them or driving them off their lands. I think the Eila Stele is likely pre-conquest (or at least large-scale conquest), written when most of Roshar was still singer lands. I think the betrayal mentioned has something to do with the Honor/Odium swap and spren/singer issue, not the invasion. 

Yes that's very possible it was written before the full scale war happened. 

15 hours ago, cometaryorbit said:

Another timeline point:

Raboniel says (ch 76 RoW) that she wasn't around when humans arrived, but her grandmother told her about what it was like, in a way that implies her grandmother was around to see it.

Essu, Raboniel's daughter, became a Fused, so given that apparently (according to Raboniel) all the Fused were "elevated" at once, and presumably Odium wouldn't have chosen a baby or young child, Essu was probably already adult or at least close at the time the Fused were created.

So there were probably about 3 singer generations between human arrival and the elevation of the Fused.

Singer generations are shorter than human ones, so that could be argued to be compatible, but it's a stretch.

Singers are considered adult at 10, so if that's equivalent to human 18... human generation times in a pre-industrial society are probably something like 25 years, so maybe 13-15 for singers? 3 generations would still be something like 40-45 years ... and according to the Stormfather, the Oathpact was created because humans couldn't win a war where their enemies kept reincarnating, which means there was more war between the creation of the Fused and the beginning of the Oathpact. I don't think the youngest Herald is like 50.

It's not completely definitive, because it's possible that Raboniel's mother was alive - maybe even adult and just somewhere else - at the time of human arrival, and that Essu was made a Fused before full adulthood. If Raboniel was born only a few years after the arrival (say 3 years), and Raboniel had Essu at say 12, and Essu was made a Fused at maybe 8, and only two years passed between the Fused being created and the Oathpact... then Shalash could be like 25 at the time of the Oathpact.

But that seems like a stretch.

That's a good point. Raboniel could be born shortly after Ashynites arrival, so that's 15-20 years before her daughter was born, another 15-20 years before they were made into Fused. That sets up the time of Fused creation around 30-40 years after Ashynites arrival (enough for Ash to be born and grew up, she is the youngest and was likely born on Roshar). Then a few more years for Heralds to make Oathpact. But that's the minimum amount of time. It's possible that both Raboniel and her mother and grandmother were having their child very late, in their 30/40s, and Raboniel's grandmother was very young when Ashynites arrived. That can give us even more than a 100 years before Fused were made. Which would cause a lot of problems with Heralds' age and the overall timeline, so I think that's a far less likely scenario.

But that doesn't prove anything about when the First Desolation and human invasion started. It started a few years after their arrival and lasted for decades before Singers were turned into Fused.

[cometaryorbit]

1 hour ago, alder24 said:

That's why this is happening before the turn to Odium, but likely after the spren betrayed them. Odium was likely already manipulating them, but not in a noticeable way for some to be worried about it. 

Yes that's very possible it was written before the full scale war happened.

Yeah, ok, I can see that. I think we're basically on the same page here then. Things were going wrong well before the full scale war/continental conquest.

1 hour ago, alder24 said:

That's a good point. Raboniel could be born shortly after Ashynites arrival, so that's 15-20 years before her daughter was born, another 15-20 years before they were made into Fused. That sets up the time of Fused creation around 30-40 years after Ashynites arrival (enough for Ash to be born and grew up, she is the youngest and was likely born on Roshar). Then a few more years for Heralds to make Oathpact. But that's the minimum amount of time. It's possible that both Raboniel and her mother and grandmother were having their child very late, in their 30/40s, and Raboniel's grandmother was very young when Ashynites arrived. That can give us even more than a 100 years before Fused were made. Which would cause a lot of problems with Heralds' age and the overall timeline, so I think that's a far less likely scenario.

We don't know whether Shalash was born on Roshar or Ashyn, but Brandon was leaning toward Ashyn at the time of the WoB on it. That makes the timeline issue significantly more acute. Add the additional years of war... Shalash isn't physically 40-45, probably not even 35.

The other weirdness with 'the Heralds look the age they were when they became Heralds' is that Jezrien and Shalash don't look to have a sufficient difference in age to be father and daughter. Even if Shalash is physical-20, Jezrien is 30ish maybe early 30s.

Again, this could be reconciled ...

- Jezrien could have been mid-late 30s and just not showing it, and had Shalash really young;

- or it could really only have been a 10 year gap but she was his adoptive daughter rather than biological (say, Jezrien at 20 adopted Shalash as say a 10-year-old orphan)...

...but it's another straw on the pile of oddities with Herald ages/timelines.

1 hour ago, alder24 said:

But that doesn't prove anything about when the First Desolation and human invasion started. It started a few years after their arrival and lasted for decades before Singers were turned into Fused.

See, given the timeline oddities, and especially if you agree that Odium was manipulating both sides in the time period the Eila Stele was written, I don't see why you're confident that it started that soon.

Oh, and I think there's also ambiguity about what "the First Desolation" is. The Stormfather in OB 38 says "the start of Desolations" was with the Fused - so he's not including the conflict in which the Fused originally died as a Desolation.

--

Another oddity is the idea that Taln wasn't supposed to be a Herald. That'd be a somewhat odd thing to say if they were a simultaneously created set of ten. But if the Honorblades being given out was a separate event to the Heralds becoming Cognitive Shadows, Taln might not have been the original bearer of his Honorblade (the original bearer died pre-Oathpact and so didn't return, and needed to be replaced, for example).

--

Raboniel timeline evidence added to the first post.

Edited June 3, 2023 by cometaryorbit

[alder24]

16 minutes ago, cometaryorbit said:

We don't know whether Shalash was born on Roshar or Ashyn, but Brandon was leaning toward Ashyn at the time of the WoB on it. That makes the timeline issue significantly more acute. Add the additional years of war... Shalash isn't physically 40-45, probably not even 35.

That's why I said "likely born on Roshar", as it's not set in stone yet. We don't know that but she was born close to arrival on Roshar to be very young.

18 minutes ago, cometaryorbit said:

The other weirdness with 'the Heralds look the age they were when they became Heralds' is that Jezrien and Shalash don't look to have a sufficient difference in age to be father and daughter. Even if Shalash is physical-20, Jezrien is 30ish maybe early 30s.

Jez early 30? He has gray hair in prologue. In prelude yes, he's described as in his 30s:

Quote

The gure in white and blue glanced toward him. Even after all these centuries, Jezrien looked young, like a man barely into his thirtieth year. His short black beard was neatly trimmed, though his once-ne clothing was scorched and stained with blood. He folded his arms behind his back as he turned to Kalak.

Quote

A man with a long grey and black beard slumped in the doorway, smiling foolishly—though whether from wine or a weak mind, Szeth could not tell.

Because of the prologue description It would make him around 50-60 years old.

I've tried to find Ash's age description, but she's only described as beautiful with long dark hair, mixed race and faint violet eyes. No mention of her age. Certainly young but how young it’s hard to say. 

29 minutes ago, cometaryorbit said:

Again, this could be reconciled ...

- Jezrien could have been mid-late 30s and just not showing it, and had Shalash really young;

- or it could really only have been a 10 year gap but she was his adoptive daughter rather than biological (say, Jezrien at 20 adopted Shalash as say a 10-year-old orphan)...

...but it's another straw on the pile of oddities with Herald ages/timelines.

Ore Jez could have another form of agelessness, partial even, slowing down his aging. Or he was in his 50/60s but because of posture, behavior etc, he was able to look like in his 30s? It's a stretch but how else do you explain his gray beard in the prologue?

31 minutes ago, cometaryorbit said:

See, given the timeline oddities, and especially if you agree that Odium was manipulating both sides in the time period the Eila Stele was written, I don't see why you're confident that it started that soon.

Because Heralds are young, Ash looks young, only Ishar looks old. Others look more or less middle-aged. That's why the war had to start quite fast for them to remain that age. 

And just look at the history of Mexico - "The first Spanish settlement was established in February 1519 by Hernán Cortés in the Yucatan Peninsula, accompanied by about 11 ships, 500 men, 13 horses and a small number of cannons. In March 1519, Cortés formally claimed the land for the Spanish crown and by 1521 secured the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire." - yes there was a huge technological difference, and the Spanish weren't refugees needing help. It's just to show how quickly people turn from settling to conquest.

38 minutes ago, cometaryorbit said:

Oh, and I think there's also ambiguity about what "the First Desolation" is. The Stormfather in OB 38 says "the start of Desolations" was with the Fused - so he's not including the conflict in which the Fused originally died as a Desolation.

I distinguish them both, the First Human Desolation, when humans invited Roshar, and The First Fused Desolation.

39 minutes ago, cometaryorbit said:

Another oddity is the idea that Taln wasn't supposed to be a Herald. That'd be a somewhat odd thing to say if they were a simultaneously created set of ten. But if the Honorblades being given out was a separate event to the Heralds becoming Cognitive Shadows, Taln might not have been the original bearer of his Honorblade (the original bearer died pre-Oathpact and so didn't return, and needed to be replaced, for example).

Possibly but I find that to be weird. Nale was the "enemy" of Jezrien, and yet was asked by him to participate. There was some weirdness happening there for sure, they might be turned into CR before the Oathpact was made. But I don't believe humans were living peacefully for decades or longer before starting war. That's not possible.

[cometaryorbit]

8 hours ago, alder24 said:

Jez could have another form of agelessness, partial even, slowing down his aging. Or he was in his 50/60s but because of posture, behavior etc, he was able to look like in his 30s? It's a stretch but how else do you explain his gray beard in the prologue?

Mixed gray & black in one's 30s isn't that unusual.

I agree we don't have a description of Ash's age, but clearly adult.

8 hours ago, alder24 said:

Because Heralds are young, Ash looks young, only Ishar looks old. Others look more or less middle-aged. That's why the war had to start quite fast for them to remain that age.

My whole theory is that the Heralds stopped aging before the war, probably due to Honorblades being given to them/becoming avatars of Honor as part of the constraining of Surgebinding/ Honor-Odium swap / spren-singer betrayal events.

I agree that they were Invested enough to stop aging within 20 - 30 years of the transfer to Roshar. (Or, at least, some were; the Jezrien vs Shalash age thing, and Taln not being intended to be a Herald, could mean not all ten current Heralds were Invested at once.)

I just disagree that their initially becoming Invested was either the Oathpact or necessarily related to the human conquest of Roshar.

8 hours ago, alder24 said:

And just look at the history of Mexico - "The first Spanish settlement was established in February 1519 by Hernán Cortés in the Yucatan Peninsula, accompanied by about 11 ships, 500 men, 13 horses and a small number of cannons. In March 1519, Cortés formally claimed the land for the Spanish crown and by 1521 secured the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire." - yes there was a huge technological difference, and the Spanish weren't refugees needing help. It's just to show how quickly people turn from settling to conquest.

 

But that's exactly the key difference - Cortez went to conquer from the beginning. They didn't "turn from settling to conquest" at all - conquest was Plan A.

That's not a case of people starting out as hapless refugees and then becoming conquerors within a generation. People starting from basically nothing aren't generally in a position to do that.

Cortez also benefited from smallpox etc devastating the Aztec Empire within that two year span -- that kind of thing doesn't really happen on a high-Investiture planet like Roshar. Also, the Aztec Empire was tiny by Rosharan standards.

Edited June 4, 2023 by cometaryorbit

[alder24]

10 hours ago, cometaryorbit said:

Mixed gray & black in one's 30s isn't that unusual.

It isn't common. It happens but if you see someone with mixed gray and black hair it's far more likely that he is much older, at least in his 50s than 30s. That's why statistically Jez looks older. 

10 hours ago, cometaryorbit said:

My whole theory is that the Heralds stopped aging before the war, probably due to Honorblades being given to them/becoming avatars of Honor as part of the constraining of Surgebinding/ Honor-Odium swap / spren-singer betrayal events.

I agree that they were Invested enough to stop aging within 20 - 30 years of the transfer to Roshar. (Or, at least, some were; the Jezrien vs Shalash age thing, and Taln not being intended to be a Herald, could mean not all ten current Heralds were Invested at once.)

I just disagree that their initially becoming Invested was either the Oathpact or necessarily related to the human conquest of Roshar.

I get it, it's possible but there are problems. What I'm suggesting is that it could happen without any form of immortality. If the Oathpact was made around 30 years past Arrival, which fits with most generous estimations of Raboniel's birth, then they could easily all be born on Ashyn, age normally, as look the way they look as Heralds. Most of them would be around 20 years old on Ashyn when the catastrophe had happened, even Ash could be born there, and leave as a few years old kid. Ishar would be the oldest among them during the Arrival, around 50 years old, because as the Herald he has fully gray hairs, so he must be older. That's what I'm saying, it can all happen within a single generation. 

If the date of Raboniel's birth isn't that generous, then this explanation stops working, and yours is more probable, that they find a way to at least slow down aging before becoming Heralds. Which doesn't have to be about becoming CS - there are many ways in Cosmere to achieve that, most unknown to us, some so common that most Worldhoppers are using them. It's not a stretch that Heralds use those methods.

Taln is a problem. If it was like you said, that they were CS before making an Oathpact, then Taln age is a huge problem. He is also young, around 30-50 years old by appearance, and was born on Ashyn like others. If by saying "he wasn't supposed to be a Herald" you mean he wasn't a CS like others initially, then it can't work like you're saying. Because he would be dead by the time others made an Oathpact. Taln must have access to the same form of immortality as others did, or the Oathpact was made "shortly" after the Arrival. And if he was already immortal after arriving on Roshar, then your reasoning has a hole in it, as you can't combine him not being thought of as a Herald at the beginning with him being a part of the "immortal crew". As they would only turn towards him when they would start talking about the Oathpact - long decades, or hundred of years after the Arrival (at least by your timeline, you are arguing that generations had passed before the Oathpact was made, right?). So either he was immortal when leaving Ashyn like others, or the Oathpact was made within a single generation and he wasn't immortal before that. If it's the former, then it doesn't make sense that he would be included in the "immortal crew" long long time before the idea of Oathpact was even made, and thus the word "he wasn't supposed to be a Herald" doesn't make sense in that context. To fix that you would need to have tens or hundreds of CS/immortal people leaving Ashyn in the first place, then "the team" chose 10 people to be Heralds, one of them died, and Taln was suggested as a replacement. But if so many immortal people left Ashyn in the first place, then where are they now? That explanation doesn't make sense as it creates more issues than resolves them. My idea fits it better, as there is simply no need for any immortality in the first place. 

I don't know if I explained it clearly enough. I don't like the way I worded it but I can't think of a different way to explain the "Taln paradox".

11 hours ago, cometaryorbit said:

But that's exactly the key difference - Cortez went to conquer from the beginning. They didn't "turn from settling to conquest" at all - conquest was Plan A.

That's not a case of people starting out as hapless refugees and then becoming conquerors within a generation. People starting from basically nothing aren't generally in a position to do that.

Cortez also benefited from smallpox etc devastating the Aztec Empire within that two year span -- that kind of thing doesn't really happen on a high-Investiture planet like Roshar. Also, the Aztec Empire was tiny by Rosharan standards.

The first Europeans to arrive in Mexico were in 1511/1517, a few years later the Aztec Empire fell. It literally took 30 years from Columbus' discovery of America, because he was searching for new trade routes to India, to the Aztec Empire fall. The first people that arrived there didn't plan to conquer those lands, but they saw the riches, the gold of those people, and they wanted them for themself.

It's so hard to believe that Ashynites, who arrived with almost nothing, would look at Singers and their homes, their tools, their food and livestock, their gemstones and metals with jealousy and greed, angry at them that they don't share all of that with them, when they need that more than Singers, and then decided to take all those things for themself? For me that's the most obvious thing that would happened, history of humanity 101.

Also the Aztec Empire had a population of like 5-10 million people, the city of Tenochtitlan was one of the biggest in the world, and while it suffered tremendously from diseases, many of those people allied with small Cortes forces (of around 3000 man) and fought together with him. It certainly wasn't tiny by Rosharan population standards - because I don't believe that humans conquered all of Roshar within a single war, a single generation or a single Desolation. That's not possible. Do you agree that Roshar couldn't be conquered all within a single Desolation? My point with the Aztec Empire was to show how quickly it can go from first contact to war and conquest.

[cometaryorbit]

30 years is barely workable yeah. But it takes enough stretches on both sides that we should consider the other possibility IMO.

10 hours ago, alder24 said:

Taln is a problem. If it was like you said, that they were CS before making an Oathpact, then Taln age is a huge problem. He is also young, around 30-50 years old by appearance, and was born on Ashyn like others. If by saying "he wasn't supposed to be a Herald" you mean he wasn't a CS like others initially, then it can't work like you're saying. Because he would be dead by the time others made an Oathpact. Taln must have access to the same form of immortality as others did, or the Oathpact was made "shortly" after the Arrival. And if he was already immortal after arriving on Roshar, then your reasoning has a hole in it, as you can't combine him not being thought of as a Herald at the beginning with him being a part of the "immortal crew". As they would only turn towards him when they would start talking about the Oathpact - long decades, or hundred of years after the Arrival (at least by your timeline, you are arguing that generations had passed before the Oathpact was made, right?).

Nah, that's really not a problem for what I'm suggesting - not necessarily. Though I can see why you think so, because I was leaving it open for a very long timeline, so maybe being a bit inconsistent -- because my main point was that the "obivous" implied timeline (20-30 years between arrival and Oathpact) doesn't seem to work, rather than arguing for a specific other option.

[Although, it's not just a pure timeline thing - this kind of model where the Honorblades predate the "cage forged of spirits" Oathpact explains why the Blades weren't irrelevant and the greater power of them that the Stormfather hints at.]

But while Raboniel's family is a problem for the "obvious" timeline (20-30 years between arrival and Oathpact) it also seems to rule out the very long timeline (>100 years between arrival and Oathpact).

I actually think adding about 20-25 years to the "obvious" timeline works better with the Taln issue, Herald ages, and Raboniel family timeline.

It works fine if Taln is physically 40s and he is chronologically just a few years older than Shalash ... ie about 20 years passed between the initial Investment/stopped aging and the Oathpact. That makes the Raboniel's family 3-singer-generations timeline work a lot better (it's 45-50 years not 20-30).

ie something like

Year 0 - cataclysm /transfer from Ashyn to Roshar. Shalash born right around here, Taln is only a few years old. Jezrien is a young man; only Ishar is mature and heavily involved in these events (though since Jezrien was a king, it's likely he inherited the throne around here due to the cataclysm). Raboniel's grandmother is a fairly young adult. (Surges limited by Honor? Humans lose access to Ashynite magic?)

Years 1-25 - Spren start being drawn to humans more and more, and Odium starts sowing discord as singers start having trouble with rarer forms/abilities/etc.

Year 5 - Raboniel's mother born

Year 20 - Raboniel born

Year 25 - spren/singer betrayal event. (Surges limited by Honor?) Honorblades handed out, 10 people (nine known Heralds excluding Taln + someone else) become highly Invested, likely Avatars of Honor, and essentially stop aging. (Humans perhaps lose access to Ashynite magic, replaced by Honorblades?)

Year 25-~40 - Tensions escalate. Singers begin to turn toward Odium. Eila Stele written.

Year 35 - Essu born

Year 40-45 - outright war breaks out. Singer turn to Odium accelerates. The previous holder of the Stoneward Honorblade is killed; Taln takes it up. All current Heralds are now non-aging, and frozen at the ages they still look.

Year 45 - Fused elevated from those killed by war. Essu is 10 and newly adult by singer timelines, Raboniel is 25. Forms of Power granted by voidspren.

Years 45-55 - Fused reincarnate, war gets much worse for humans due to both immortal Fused champions and improved singer morale. Nearly all singers turn to Odium, and become more and more dependent on Fused and voidspren. Humans despair.

Year 50 - Oathpact established. Heralds become Cognitive Shadows, Fused and voidspren trapped on Braize. Singer morale collapses, they suffer a crushing defeat, humans conquer large areas on the other side of the Shinovar mountains (though still a small proportion of the entire continent)

Years 50 - ?400 or something - humans slowly expand at the expense of singers, learning to live in more and more strong-highstorm regions as they press eastward. Fused are on Braize, eventually figure out that torturing Heralds is a possibility.

Next 2,000+ years - cycle of repeating Desolations

10 hours ago, alder24 said:

The first Europeans to arrive in Mexico were in 1511/1517, a few years later the Aztec Empire fell. It literally took 30 years from Columbus' discovery of America, because he was searching for new trade routes to India, to the Aztec Empire fall. The first people that arrived there didn't plan to conquer those lands, but they saw the riches, the gold of those people, and they wanted them for themself.

Difference is that Spain in the 1492-1521 period was a new union of kingdoms, a rising power coming out of victory in a long period of wars, with an intact homeland and the ability to project power into the Americas at zero risk to the homeland (as well as a dramatic tech advantage + the crushing advantage of disease) .

They weren't refugees with almost nothing who had lost their homeland.

10 hours ago, alder24 said:

It's so hard to believe that Ashynites, who arrived with almost nothing, would look at Singers and their homes, their tools, their food and livestock, their gemstones and metals with jealousy and greed, angry at them that they don't share all of that with them, when they need that more than Singers, and then decided to take all those things for themself? For me that's the most obvious thing that would happened, history of humanity 101.

 

See, here's the problem I have. If it was like that -- the humans had nothing, the Dawnsingers had a lot -- why didn't the Dawnsingers just utterly crush the humans in the initial conflict?

The Dawncities suggest that the Dawnsingers were powerful civilizations with Invested abilities of their own, not scattered super-low-density extended-family groups (who wouldn't have had a use for large stone cities).

Sure, humans were more warlike (supposedly - maybe singers didn't know warform until the conflict started?) but that wouldn't make up the difference. Not even close.

I think the spren/singer betrayal thing, possibly combined with Honor's limiting of Surges, had greatly limited their ability to use what they previously had before open war started. Thus why they turned fully to Odium, rather than simply crushing the humans trivially and leaving their way of life unchanged.

The other key point for me is ... Honor wouldn't have backed humans if they started the war by breaking the agreement. So I think that humans had at least largely moved to Honor/Cultivation's side, and the singers had at least largely turned to Odium, before open war broke out.

10 hours ago, alder24 said:

Do you agree that Roshar couldn't be conquered all within a single Desolation?

Yes, I totally agree with that. (Though I also think that Dalinar as of the end of OB probably thinks it was all one event.)

Edited June 4, 2023 by cometaryorbit

[alder24]

13 hours ago, cometaryorbit said:

ie something like

Year 0 - cataclysm /transfer from Ashyn to Roshar. Shalash born right around here, Taln is only a few years old. Jezrien is a young man; only Ishar is mature and heavily involved in these events (though since Jezrien was a king, it's likely he inherited the throne around here due to the cataclysm). Raboniel's grandmother is a fairly young adult. (Surges limited by Honor? Humans lose access to Ashynite magic?)

Years 1-25 - Spren start being drawn to humans more and more, and Odium starts sowing discord as singers start having trouble with rarer forms/abilities/etc.

Year 5 - Raboniel's mother born

Year 20 - Raboniel born

Year 25 - spren/singer betrayal event. (Surges limited by Honor?) Honorblades handed out, 10 people (nine known Heralds excluding Taln + someone else) become highly Invested, likely Avatars of Honor, and essentially stop aging. (Humans perhaps lose access to Ashynite magic, replaced by Honorblades?)

Year 25-~40 - Tensions escalate. Singers begin to turn toward Odium. Eila Stele written.

Year 35 - Essu born

Year 40-45 - outright war breaks out. Singer turn to Odium accelerates. The previous holder of the Stoneward Honorblade is killed; Taln takes it up. All current Heralds are now non-aging, and frozen at the ages they still look.

Year 45 - Fused elevated from those killed by war. Essu is 10 and newly adult by singer timelines, Raboniel is 25. Forms of Power granted by voidspren.

Years 45-55 - Fused reincarnate, war gets much worse for humans due to both immortal Fused champions and improved singer morale. Nearly all singers turn to Odium, and become more and more dependent on Fused and voidspren. Humans despair.

Year 50 - Oathpact established. Heralds become Cognitive Shadows, Fused and voidspren trapped on Braize. Singer morale collapses, they suffer a crushing defeat, humans conquer large areas on the other side of the Shinovar mountains (though still a small proportion of the entire continent)

Years 50 - ?400 or something - humans slowly expand at the expense of singers, learning to live in more and more strong-highstorm regions as they press eastward. Fused are on Braize, eventually figure out that torturing Heralds is a possibility.

Next 2,000+ years - cycle of repeating Desolations

That's a possible scenario. But I don't think Taln was that young when the exodus from Ashyn happened. Brandon when asked about it wasn't sure only about Ash, if Taln was that young, it's likely he wouldn't be sure about his birth as well.

Spoiler

Willshaper Wallar

...Were the Heralds alive for the human exodus from Ashyn?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. They were not Heralds then, but they all made that trip. I believe. My timeline-- You can't nail me down on that one, because it's possible that Ash was born after, but I don't think so.

Skyward Denver signing (Nov. 15, 2018)

To add more, we have this from RoW ch 17:

Quote

“Ash,” Jasnah said. “During our last interview, you were telling me what you knew of my uncle’s abilities. The powers of a Bondsmith.”

[...]

Dalinar walked over, curious. Jasnah held weekly meetings with the Heralds, trying to pry every bit of historical knowledge from their minds. She’d claimed the meetings were mostly fruitless, but Navani knew to hang on to the word “mostly” when coming from Jasnah. She could hide a great deal in the spaces between those letters.

[...]

“He forged the Oathpact,” Jasnah said. “The ... binding that made you immortal and trapped the Voidbringers in another realm of reality.”
“Braize isn’t another realm of reality,” Ash said. “It’s a planet. You can see it in the sky, along with Ashyn—the Tranquiline Halls, you call it. But yeah, the Oathpact. He did that. We all simply went along with it.” She shrugged.
Jasnah nodded, showing no sign of annoyance. “But the Oathpact no longer functions?”
“It’s broken,” Ash said. “Done, shattered, upended. They killed my father a year ago. Permanently, somehow. We all felt it.” She looked directly at Navani, as if having seen the reverence in her eyes. The next words came with a sneer. “We can do nothing for you now. There is no more Oathpact.”
“And do you think Dalinar,” Jasnah asked, “as a Bondsmith, could repair or replicate it somehow? Sealing the enemy away?”
“Who knows?” Ash said. “It doesn’t work the same for you all as it did for us, when we had our swords. You’re limited, but sometimes you do things we couldn’t. At any rate, I never knew much about it.”

From this part we know that Jasnah was interrogating Ash every week. One time Ash told her about Oathpact, she told her that Ishar made it and it, the Oathpact, made them immortal. Because of the way this conversation is going, I think Ash literally told Jasnah that the Oathpact made them immortal, which Jasnah repeated in presence of Dalinar and Navani, asking Ash to tell them more about it. For me it's a strong point against your theory, that there were 2 events, first when proto-Heralds were made immortal, second when they were made into proper Heralds. 

Also Honorblades have to be part of the Oathpact, otherwise Heralds wouldn't have to leave them behind after Aharietiam, or Honorblades connection to the Oathpact wouldn't be so strongly suggested in WoK prelude: 

Quote

“Leave your sword,” Jezrien said.
“What?” Jezrien nodded to the ring of weapons. “I was chosen to wait for you. We weren’t certain if you had survived. A … a decision has been made. It is time for the Oathpact to end.”

[...]

Jezrien walked back to the ring of swords. His own Blade formed in his hands, appearing from mist, wet with condensation. “It has been decided, Kalak. We will go our ways, and we will not seek out one another. Our Blades must be left. The Oathpact ends now.” He lifted his sword and rammed it into the stone with the other seven.
Jezrien hesitated, looking at the sword, then bowed his head and turned away. As if ashamed. “We chose this burden willingly. Well, we can choose to drop it if we wish.”

 

14 hours ago, cometaryorbit said:

See, here's the problem I have. If it was like that -- the humans had nothing, the Dawnsingers had a lot -- why didn't the Dawnsingers just utterly crush the humans in the initial conflict?

The Dawncities suggest that the Dawnsingers were powerful civilizations with Invested abilities of their own, not scattered super-low-density extended-family groups (who wouldn't have had a use for large stone cities).

Sure, humans were more warlike (supposedly - maybe singers didn't know warform until the conflict started?) but that wouldn't make up the difference. Not even close.

There are many possible explanations. One might be that Dawnsingers lived a very peaceful life, in balance with Roshar, devoid of large scale conflicts and wars. The closest they had to fighters were hunters, but other than that they were fully unfamiliar with war and fighting. It just didn't happen among them. This would leave them fully unprepare and exposed to human invasion. They knew no strategy, no tactic, nor how to fight and coordinate attacks. They weren't able to organize any kind of defense against humans who came with blood lust and in tight formations supported by combined arms doctrine.

The other is that Singers were accustomed to war, so much that they weren't united, but divided into multiple tribes and nations. They were constantly at war with each other, similar to humanity, and this is the reason for their demise. As when humans attracted tribes closest to Shinovar, their neighbors looked at this as an opportunity and attacked as well, or at least waited and didn't provide any help. Humans picked up Singer tribes and nations one by one with superior numbers. This continued until the rest realized that humans don't plan to stop and attacked deeper into Roshar, further away from Shinovar, thus leading to Singers unification.

Likewise some Dawnsiger tribes might even allied themself with Ashynites in hope of defeating their enemy tribes. Humans became another faction in Singers conflicts, but later backstab their Singer allies after successfully defeating their common enemy. This might even explain why humans were called "The traitors, with tongues of sweetness, but with minds that lust for blood." in the Eila Stele (not like humans just leaving Shinovar and starting a war wouldn't be enough reason for that).

Or as I said previously, humans attacked with superior numbers and the element of surprise, overrunning the region close to Shinovar, before the Singers across the whole Roshar could organize an effective defense. 

14 hours ago, cometaryorbit said:

The other key point for me is ... Honor wouldn't have backed humans if they started the war by breaking the agreement. So I think that humans had at least largely moved to Honor/Cultivation's side, and the singers had at least largely turned to Odium, before open war broke out.

That's a good point. Very likely. But there is a possibility that Honor was so focused on keeping Odium bound to Roshar that he immediately supported the group that was in opposition to Odium, and thus choosing Humans after Singers turned to Odium. Also at that point Honor wasn't that focus on upkeeping oaths like he was during Recreance.

[cometaryorbit]

2 hours ago, alder24 said:

That's a possible scenario. But I don't think Taln was that young when the exodus from Ashyn happened. Brandon when asked about it wasn't sure only about Ash, if Taln was that young, it's likely he wouldn't be sure about his birth as well.

  Hide contents

Willshaper Wallar

...Were the Heralds alive for the human exodus from Ashyn?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. They were not Heralds then, but they all made that trip. I believe. My timeline-- You can't nail me down on that one, because it's possible that Ash was born after, but I don't think so.

Skyward Denver signing (Nov. 15, 2018)

To add more, we have this from RoW ch 17:

From this part we know that Jasnah was interrogating Ash every week. One time Ash told her about Oathpact, she told her that Ishar made it and it, the Oathpact, made them immortal. Because of the way this conversation is going, I think Ash literally told Jasnah that the Oathpact made them immortal, which Jasnah repeated in presence of Dalinar and Navani, asking Ash to tell them more about it. For me it's a strong point against your theory, that there were 2 events, first when proto-Heralds were made immortal, second when they were made into proper Heralds. 

Also Honorblades have to be part of the Oathpact, otherwise Heralds wouldn't have to leave them behind after Aharietiam, or Honorblades connection to the Oathpact wouldn't be so strongly suggested in WoK prelude: 

I was thinking Shalash is questionable because she was born literally right around the transfer (like, within the length of a pregnancy of the event) whereas Taln might be like 3-5 years earlier. Not a large time gap but enough to make it unambiguous.

I think the Oathpact did make them immortal, in the sense of unkillable/surviving death/reincarnating. I think that is what Shalash is referring to there. Slowed or stopped aging beforehand is also possible, and compatible with that -- and wouldn't be terribly relevant to mention there, in a conversation about the Oathpact, especially as in practice they became Cog Shadows before they outlived a normal human lifespan anyway.

It wouldn't have had to be true agelessness either - they could have been simply slower aging (like, apparently, many worldhoppers have, or [Warbreaker spoilers]

Spoiler

the life-extending effects of Heightenings below 5th).

And yeah, I don't doubt that Honorblades are tied to the Oathpact. They absolutely are. I just think that came later than their original creation (ie the Honorblades were heavily involved in building the Oathpact, and were built into it).

2 hours ago, alder24 said:

There are many possible explanations. One might be that Dawnsingers lived a very peaceful life, in balance with Roshar, devoid of large scale conflicts and wars. The closest they had to fighters were hunters, but other than that they were fully unfamiliar with war and fighting. It just didn't happen among them. This would leave them fully unprepare and exposed to human invasion. They knew no strategy, no tactic, nor how to fight and coordinate attacks. They weren't able to organize any kind of defense against humans who came with blood lust and in tight formations supported by combined arms doctrine.

The other is that Singers were accustomed to war, so much that they weren't united, but divided into multiple tribes and nations. They were constantly at war with each other, similar to humanity, and this is the reason for their demise. As when humans attracted tribes closest to Shinovar, their neighbors looked at this as an opportunity and attacked as well, or at least waited and didn't provide any help. Humans picked up Singer tribes and nations one by one with superior numbers. This continued until the rest realized that humans don't plan to stop and attacked deeper into Roshar, further away from Shinovar, thus leading to Singers unification.

This is entirely possible, but it doesn't feel right to me. I doubt personally that a civilization that could build the Dawncities would have been that helpless. It wouldn't have taken a continentwide union; one city state should have been powerful enough.

Even if they were initially totally unprepared, they'd have learned fast. I see no reason to think they're less adaptable than humans (probably more, actually, since the forms give them practice with changing mindsets). They could have smashed the humans with their existing powers, even after an initial defeat, without need to turn to Odium -- if their existing powers were in fact still available. I think they weren't.

(Similarly the bit about "forbidden" powers of Surges in the Eila Stele. I think that implies they were known before and had been forbidden -- Honor's limiting of Surgebinding? One doesn't forbid something that's never even been a possibility.)

Especially as I don't see why we'd expect the humans from Ashyn to be a highly organized fighting machine; they'd be an utterly shattered culture, having lost their entire world, and probably still reeling from whatever led to the destruction, and likely bits of different nations/city-states/whatever Ashyn had thrown together.

(Though it's possible only one Ashynite nation escaped, the one Jezrien was king of, to be fair. In that case, though, I'd expect him to have maintained control & prevented a breaking of the original deal so early.)

Also, something had to wipe out the ability to build Dawncities. It feels more Occam's Razor to relate this to the spren/singer betrayal and Honor limiting Surges events that we know were also happening.

(Though, again, to be fair, this could have been a Dawnshard thing.)

It's possible. But I feel like we don't actually have strong enough evidence for an initial invasion to make it likely. If Raboniel or Leshwi in RoW had mentioned a physical invasion, I'd be totally on the same page with you here.

2 hours ago, alder24 said:

That's a good point. Very likely. But there is a possibility that Honor was so focused on keeping Odium bound to Roshar that he immediately supported the group that was in opposition to Odium, and thus choosing Humans after Singers turned to Odium. Also at that point Honor wasn't that focus on upkeeping oaths like he was during Recreance.

Honor when Tanavast was fully coherent wasn't mindlessly upholding oaths, but he still couldn't have totally ignored his Intent in a large-scale Shardic action (handing out Honorblades / making them from Splinters of himself), imo.

I agree that the Singers had already - at least largely - turned to Odium by then and that this was Honor's motivation. But my argument is that if we accept this, there's actually no evidence that a human physical invasion of lands (as opposed to the spren/singer betrayal, Honor/Odium swap stuff) was actually the event that set off the conflict.

The characters in OB conclude that, but that's I think because of their concerns at the moment. The Eila Stele itself doesn't seem to be describing a primarily physical invasion - it seems more focused on spren betrayal/Odium stuff. IMO it's a very skillful writing trick - Dalinar's conclusion makes perfect sense from and in his POV.

Edited June 5, 2023 by cometaryorbit

[alder24]

2 hours ago, cometaryorbit said:

I was thinking Shalash is questionable because she was born literally right around the transfer (like, within the length of a pregnancy of the event) whereas Taln might be like 3-5 years earlier. Not a large time gap but enough to make it unambiguous.

I think the Oathpact did make them immortal, in the sense of unkillable/surviving death/reincarnating. I think that is what Shalash is referring to there. Slowed or stopped aging beforehand is also possible, and compatible with that -- and wouldn't be terribly relevant to mention there, in a conversation about the Oathpact, especially as in practice they became Cog Shadows before they outlived a normal human lifespan anyway.

I don't find this argument compelling. I understand you but in the face of this quote I don't think this is convincing. For me it just makes more sense that they get their blades when making the Oathpact. 

2 hours ago, cometaryorbit said:

(Similarly the bit about "forbidden" powers of Surges in the Eila Stele. I think that implies they were known before and had been forbidden -- Honor's limiting of Surgebinding? One doesn't forbid something that's never even been a possibility.)

I believe it's different. They were forbidden the Surges not because of Honor, but because True Spren didn't want to bond with them. And while it was ok before Ashynites arrived, during the First Desolation they were in dire need of them. The Song of Secrets:

Quote

The betrayal of spren has brought us here.
They gave their Surges to human heirs,
But not to those who know them most dear, before us.
'Tis no surprise we turned away
Unto the gods we spent our days
And to become their molding clay, they changed us. 

For me it was a conscious decision of Spren to deny them Surges, deny them Nahel Bond. The reason for that doesn't need to be related to Surges, maybe just True Spren were too "proud" to be bound in a gemheart like normal spren.

In this case I'm talking about proper Surgebinding, not the proto-Surges Singers could have access to before.

3 hours ago, cometaryorbit said:

This is entirely possible, but it doesn't feel right to me. I doubt personally that a civilization that could build the Dawncities would have been that helpless. It wouldn't have taken a continentwide union; one city state should have been powerful enough.

Even if they were initially totally unprepared, they'd have learned fast. I see no reason to think they're less adaptable than humans (probably more, actually, since the forms give them practice with changing mindsets). They could have smashed the humans with their existing powers, even after an initial defeat, without need to turn to Odium -- if their existing powers were in fact still available. I think they weren't.

Tbf we don't know anything about Dawnsingers except that they build Dawncities somehow, and they use songs to mold stone into shapes and tools. I think Dawncities were built by singing - maybe amplified by Dawnshards, or maybe with a collective voice of thousands Dawnsingers, or maybe some special kind of spren was involved too. Hard to say. 

But this doesn't make them invulnerable. The power of a single Dawncity might be useless if they don't know how to utilize them properly. Or if they're already involved in conflict with another nation of Singers. 

Or maybe, because of their stone shaping ability, Singers were using only stone for their crafting, Humans who came to Roshar would dig for metal in the first place, as metal tools are far better than any stone. In that case humans would just massively outclass them after a few short years.

3 hours ago, cometaryorbit said:

Especially as I don't see why we'd expect the humans from Ashyn to be a highly organized fighting machine; they'd be an utterly shattered culture, having lost their entire world, and probably still reeling from whatever led to the destruction, and likely bits of different nations/city-states/whatever Ashyn had thrown together.

(Though it's possible only one Ashynite nation escaped, the one Jezrien was king of, to be fair. In that case, though, I'd expect him to have maintained control & prevented a breaking of the original deal so early.)

A massive, near death extinction event might unite them under a single cause. Or their kings united, not only Jez was a king, in OB Ash said that Taln was a king who never wore a crown or something like that. 

And what better unites people than a new common enemy? 

3 hours ago, cometaryorbit said:

Also, something had to wipe out the ability to build Dawncities. It feels more Occam's Razor to relate this to the spren/singer betrayal and Honor limiting Surges events that we know were also happening.

There might be many reasons. One is why would they build new Dawncities when they're in a desperate war losing people?

3 hours ago, cometaryorbit said:

Honor when Tanavast was fully coherent wasn't mindlessly upholding oaths, but he still couldn't have totally ignored his Intent in a large-scale Shardic action (handing out Honorblades / making them from Splinters of himself), imo.

If that was the case then Honor would stop supplying Heralds with Investiture after they broke for the first time on Braize. I don't think there would be anything preventing Honor from forming new bonds with people who had broken their oaths previously - the same limitation would be forced upon Stormfather yet he accepted Dalinar and Navani's marriage bond despite him pointing out that they had broken their oaths before.

3 hours ago, cometaryorbit said:

I agree that the Singers had already - at least largely - turned to Odium by then and that this was Honor's motivation. But my argument is that if we accept this, there's actually no evidence that a human physical invasion of lands (as opposed to the spren/singer betrayal, Honor/Odium swap stuff) was actually the event that set off the conflict.

I think there had to be a full scale invasion, simply because otherwise Singers would not turn to Odium just like that. They might be tempted, but the Eila Stele clearly warns Singers from humans, the Void, their blood lust and that "where they go they bring silence". Singers were aware of what Odium is, what he brings with him (the Void) and they would have to be desperate to turn towards Odium for help. Them simply losing their spren friends or whatever that betrayal was wouldn't be enough. Their very life had to be on stake.

But it is possible that the invasion was not what made them turn to Odium, the Eila Stele said: "For their betrayal extended even to our gods: to spren, stone, and wind." They know what a god is - Shard - they know Honor and Cultivation, as they order them to help Ashynites. This part suggests that Honor and Cultivation align themself with humans, turning away from Dawnsingers, before they turned towards Odium. Dawnsingers going to Odium might be in response to their Shards abandoning them, not the other way around.

[cometaryorbit]

 

23 hours ago, alder24 said:

I don't find this argument compelling. I understand you but in the face of this quote I don't think this is convincing. For me it just makes more sense that they get their blades when making the Oathpact.

Completely fair. I think we may have taken the main point of this argument as far as we can go without further evidence.

I do have two points on smaller details, though...

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Or maybe, because of their stone shaping ability, Singers were using only stone for their crafting, Humans who came to Roshar would dig for metal in the first place, as metal tools are far better than any stone. In that case humans would just massively outclass them after a few short years.

 

I wouldn't be surprised if Singer civilization was stone based... but does Roshar's bizarre, crem-based geology actually provide decent metal ore deposits? I thought much of their metal was Soulcast.

I'm sure modern Rosharans can find at least some deposits (maybe they use something like bog iron?) but I am not at all sure it would be an easy, quick adaptation.

Unless Shinovar has more Earthlike geology? I don't know how deep the "terraforming" goes. Is it basically just the ecosystem/soil level or is the whole deep geology different?

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There might be many reasons. One is why would they build new Dawncities when they're in a desperate war losing people?

That's not quite what I meant. I think RoW implies that the ancient Dawnsinger Stoneshaping was lost when they turned to Odium, somehow?

Anyway, unless Stoneshaping was the only Surge they could access (which is admittedly possible if the singer plant-growing trick is proto-fabrial science not proto-Surgebinding) the ability to use Surges on that kind of scale would be absurdly powerful.

Edited June 6, 2023 by cometaryorbit