Why the radiance seem a lot stronger than the Fused? Fused's powers possibly scale with radiant ideals

[Anomander Rake he/him]

9 minutes ago, Nameless said:

Is 16 associated with Preservation, or is Preservation associated with 16? I think that Leras saw 16 as an important number mainly because of the 16 shards. So yes, Preservation would be associated with 16, but if I had to guess, multiple other shards would be associated with 16 as well. 4 should also be an important number, given the Dawnshards.

I think that Preservation and 16 have the same relationship that we see with Honor and 10, Odium and 9, Endowment and 5, etc.  Sixteen absolutely does have a greater overall significance and association to multiple shards, but the way the number is hardcoded into Preservation's magic system(s, if you count Feruchemy), and the way it shows up in association to him and his decisions matching other shard/number pairings makes me think it's a more intrinsic relationship as opposed to the overall cosmere significance swaying things/decisions.

[NameIess]

2 hours ago, Anomander Rake said:

I think that Preservation and 16 have the same relationship that we see with Honor and 10, Odium and 9, Endowment and 5, etc.  Sixteen absolutely does have a greater overall significance and association to multiple shards, but the way the number is hardcoded into Preservation's magic system(s, if you count Feruchemy), and the way it shows up in association to him and his decisions matching other shard/number pairings makes me think it's a more intrinsic relationship as opposed to the overall cosmere significance swaying things/decisions.

Endowment has an association with 5? Where does that come from? Aren't there ten heightenings?

[SomeRandomPeasant she/her]

6 hours ago, Nameless said:

Endowment has an association with 5? Where does that come from? Aren't there ten heightenings?

Not every shard has a number.  Endowment's number isn't as set in stone like Honor's is.  But many people theorize that that five holds repeated significance on Nalthis.  The Five moons, the five scholars, it takes fives heightenings to earn a divine breath, and the ten heightenings are divisible by five.

But like I said, this is probably a topic for a different thread.  The main discussion should be on the power levels of the Knight's Radiant.

[Bort he/him]

On 1/20/2022 at 8:37 AM, ILIYA said:

e.g Kaladin doesn't seem to be able to do anything that the ancient radiance windrunners couldn't?

Except for those occasions when he surprises both Syl and the Stormfather by doing stuff he shouldn't be able to do. For example, in Oathbringer, just as he's about to flee the Singers and he stops to rescue people from a highstorm, he does something that transforms the windspren around him into a shield for the innocents he's protecting.

My theory is because this time around, Honor is gone, so his spren have picked up a bit more of his power than they had before.

[Frustration]

21 hours ago, SomeRandomPeasant said:

Because Allomancy, created by preservation, is composed of 16 base metals.  Also Leras says that 16 is the perfect number.  Hemalurgy, created by Ruin, using a single Hemalurgic spike to transport powers. 

But this topic has deviated far from the main topic.  I only mentioned the holy numbers in passing.  The main focus should be about why the Radiants are stronger than the Fused

There are 16 hemalurgic metals.

And 16 is important for the entire cosmere.

18 hours ago, Anomander Rake said:

 

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Chaos (paraphrased)

In the most recent Hero of Ages annotation, you said that Preservation chose Vin to be the recipient of the power, just as Preservation had chosen Alendi previously (thus, this was why Ruin had manipulated the Prophecies). Was Alendi also chosen precisely sixteen years before the Well of Ascension's power returned?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Yes. He was chosen exactly sixteen years before, but he was a bit older then Vin when he was chosen.

Ancient 17S Q&A (May 1, 2010)

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Questioner

Is ten of significance in Roshar as sixteen is on Scadrial?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, it is.

Oathbringer London signing (Nov. 28, 2017)

Despite the references to sixteen across the cosmere, these seem to point more to Preservation specifically as opposed to the cosmere wide phenomena with the number.  I'd guess the first Shards to inhabit a system dictate the number associated with it.  

On Scadrial - Ruin x Preservation - 1 and 16.  If we use multiplication (idk), we'd get 16 for the system.  This also works for Feruchemy, their joint system, having 16 base powers.

On Roshar - Honor x Cultivation show up first - 10 and 2(this is a guess, boon + curse) - 10 Orders, 2 powers each.  Odium shows up and invests Braize more heavily than Honor and Cultivation, trumping their 10 with his 9.

Preservation also pulled that 16% of the army gets sick thing, and i swear there were originally 16 beads of Lerasium left at the well, of which Rashek left two, though I can't for the life of my find the relevant WoB

I really think you are looking too far into that.

As stated before the Rosharan system has ten gas giants, and they predate Honor and Cultivation

[ILIYA]

On 23/01/2022 at 4:38 AM, Wandering Shade said:

To bring this thread back around to its main topic, I think we've kinda proven that the theory of the Fused increasing with power as Radiants swear higher Ideals would be very weird and incongruent with how Shardic power has been portrayed, and also isn't necessary to explain the struggles that humanity went through during each Desolation.

Quick summary of why this theory was posed:
Radiants are more powerful than Fused, capable of using more Stormlight per-second (more Lashings) than Fused are. They also have the added benefit of Shardblades and Plate which drastically increases their power output.
We see Fused get beaten by our new Radiants a lot in O and RoW despite our new Radiants not having the long history of the previous orders and almost no Shardplate.
If the Knights Radiant of the past had more people with Shardplate (which we know is true, at least of the False Desolation time), then it should not have been too difficult for them to kill the Fused with impunity given their greater power, weapons, and armor.
If the Fused scaled in power with the Radiants, it would be an easy explanation as to how they were constantly a threat to humanity no matter how strong the Knights Radiant ever became.

"Quick" summary of why this theory is probably inaccurate:
It doesn't really make too much sense for Fused to have their power scale off of the Knights Radiant as they would need to be Connected to each other which we haven't seen too much evidence for.
While Kaladin can compare with Leshwi in combat, no other Windrunner can due to her thousands of years of experience. Kaladin is special and should not be treated as the baseline for Radiant power.
The Fused and Singers greatly outnumbered humanity in the past, causing the Radiants to be spread thin defending everyone at all times. And, as we learned in WoK "Shardbearers can't hold ground," which applies to Radiants and Fused as well. While the battles might be won by the Invested forces, it is the regular soldiers that do the bulk of the fighting.
Modern humanity has incredible fabrial and warfare technology which allow their regular forces to be far more efficient than in the past.
The other forces in the Fused's arsenal (Thunderclasts, Voidspren, Regals/Forms of Power) greatly enhance their army combat powers, and not all of the Fused and Thunderclasts have transferred from Braise to Roshar yet.
It is highly likely that the Fused have some type of Raysium weapons or something else which allow them to fight against Shardplate which we have not yet seen simply because there has not been a reason to use them yet and the Fused do not want to lose the element of surprise.

And yet, even with all the advantages the Fused and Singers have had against the Radiants, Humanity still won every Desolation in the past, something which can probably be attributed to the incredible power of the Knights Radiant, but also the determination and ingenuity of humans.

Haha not sure what's going on haha, I'll try to reply regarding this though. As I said I don't have much faith in theory but rather my issue is with the huge power gap that is present based on what we know. 

Kaladin compares to Leshwi in using the surge of gravitation for fighting, not combat, thing is if you have shard-plate and blade it doesn't matter if you are far less skilled than Leshwi in combat, She has to land multiple hits on you, mostly in the same area just to break your plate then finally start to deplete stormlight. Meanwhile you just need one hit, doesn't even have to be with your blade as a plate-enchanced strike is more than enough and considering that Fused's voidhealing is pathethic compared to stormlight she is pretty much dead from a single punch. Any windrunner of the 4th ideal has a huge advantage over the strongest heavenly one.

Wait how do we know the Fused and singers greatly outnumbered humanity in the past? possible at the start of the war but close to end as well?? Also shardbearers can't hold ground but surge-binders can destroy an entire nations leadership. We saw Szeth with a sinlge honor-blade throw entire nations into chaos. Despite them having shards and advanced fabrials they possessed little threat to Szeth.  It doesn't matter if your army is stronger if the enemy agents can just fly into your leaders palace and massacre everyone there and walk out. A nation or an army is nothing without leadership. Now imagine how destructive a skybreaker of the 5th ideal can be compared to Szeth with an honor-blade. We saw Nale deal with dalinar's squad like a soldier toying with children. 

 

But from what we know so far all the fused at least the strongest ones have been transferred and there is no reason for any to stay behind in Braize now that Odium has his new storm. The only ones in Braize are the banned ones like El. Odium did go all out in RoW as we know his plans heavily dependend on getting Kalain and the tower. As for regals the humans also have radiant squires to deal with them. 

 

I know the popular theory now is that the Fused have a weapon to counter plate but just have not decided to use it as they wanted to save it for when it matters. This doesn't make much sense as it would assume that theoretical weapon is somehow can only be used to counter plate but a weapon of that caliber should be effective against non-plate radiance as well. Aluminum might remove investiture effects but plate without investiture is still metal that can't be easily broken.   

Another reason this doesn't make sense is that humans already have access to hundreds of dead spren plate that are being used against the Fused. The first thing fused did after awaking was go after these plates which wouldn't make sense if they could just easily counter it. Also wouldn't make sense to not deploy such theoretical weapons in Oathbringer and RoW considering how important victories then were to Odium and the fact that time is against Fused. 

As for humanity "winning against the Fused" in the past, I wouldn't call not getting wiped out a victory. Each desolation they lost many and regressed technologically. The oath-pact was broken cause Heralds knew they will lose eventually.    

  

Edited January 24, 2022 by ILIYA

[NameIess]

5 minutes ago, ILIYA said:

Kaladin compares to Leshwi in using the surge of gravitation for fighting, not combat, thing is if you have shard-plate and blade it doesn't matter if you are far less skilled than Leshwi in combat, She has to land multiple hits on you, mostly in the same area just to break your plate then finally start to deplete stormlight. Meanwhile you just need one hit, doesn't even have to be with your blade as a plate-enchanced strike is more than enough and considering that Fused's voidhealing is pathethic compared to stormlight she is pretty much dead from a single punch. Any windrunner of the 4th ideal has a huge advantage over the strongest heavenly one.

Yes. Any fourth ideal or above radiant will have a big advantage over most fused. However, you assume that the fused would fight such a radiant one-on-one. I see no reason that they wouldn't swarm the radiant like they did Kaladin near the end of OB. Additionally, other fused seem to be better equipped for fighting shardbearers. Specifically, the fused with access to the surge of regrowth. They heal from shardblades quite well, are extremely strong, and can use carapace to incapacitate shardbearers. Although Jasnah isn't the most skilled of radiants in terms of combat prowess, the fact that she had to resort to taking the fused by surprise with her powers shows that Radiants don't have a completely overwhelming advantage over the fused. Also, something you seem to be overlooking is that Radiant shardplate uses the radiant's stormlight to repair itself, so hitting it enough will force the radiant to dismiss it or be drained of stormlight and let it lock up on them.

14 minutes ago, ILIYA said:

Wait how do we know the Fused and singers greatly outnumbered humanity in the past? possible at the start of the war but close to end as well?? Also shardbearers can't hold ground but surge-binders can destroy an entire nations leadership. We saw Szeth with a sinlge honor-blade throw entire nations into chaos. Despite them having shards and advanced fabrials they possessed little threat to Szeth.  It doesn't matter if your army is stronger if the enemy agents can just fly into your leaders palace and massacre everyone there and walk out. A nation or an army is nothing without leadership. Now imagine how destructive a skybreaker of the 5th ideal can be compared to Szeth with an honor-blade. We saw Nale deal with dalinar's squad like a soldier toying with children. 

Leadership... you mean the fused? Sure, you might be able to suicide mission your way into killing them, but there would be no lasting benefit to doing so. There's certainly no way that even a fifth ideal Skybreaker could pull an assassin in white on a fused stronghold and walk out alive. They'd run out of stormlight. And are you seriously using a herald with 7 thousand years of combat experience, an enhanced body, and access to an honorblade and a fifth ideal radiant bond as an example of a normal fifth ideal radiant? 

18 minutes ago, ILIYA said:

But from what we know so far all the fused at least the strongest ones have been transferred and there is no reason for any to stay behind in Braize now that Odium has his new storm. The only ones in Braize are the banned ones like El. Odium did go all out in RoW as we know his plans heavily dependend on getting Kalain and the tower. As for regals the humans also have radiant squires to deal with them. 

And Kaladin fought all the fused in Urithiru? No, he was being hunted by the pursuer, which kept most of the other fused from fighting him. Then the tower's protections were reactivated, which instantly KO'd all the fused in the tower. Additionally, There are far more regals than there are radiant squires. There were like 30,000 stormform parshendi when they summoned the everstorm, with no indication that they used all the stormform spren, and that's only one variety. Radiants had low thousands at their peak, which almost certainly includes the squires. That puts them with probably about 10-20,000 members at most, leaving them heavily outnumbered by the possible 100,000 regals.

 

Additionally, I don't think you really appreciate exactly how valuable Dalinar is as a stormlight recharge. under normal circumstances, radiants might have an initial advantadge over the fused, but in the long run they'd run out of stormlight. Battles can last for hours, and Radiants can run out of stormlight very quickly, even without the fused's stormlight stealing tech. If I had to guess, Shardplate will use even more stormlight, particularly to repair itself. This leaves Radiants with a short-term advantage, say in the first few hours of the battle, but after that point, they'll start running out of stormlight, particularly squires. So fighting a radiant in plate might be more of an endurance battle; you keep damaging their plate until they run low on stormlight and are forced to dismiss it. And every fourth ideal radiant you kill will probably take a lot longer than a couple of fused to replace. 

[Bort he/him]

2 minutes ago, Nameless said:

Leadership... you mean the fused? Sure, you might be able to suicide mission your way into killing them, but there would be no lasting benefit to doing so. There's certainly no way that even a fifth ideal Skybreaker could pull an assassin in white on a fused stronghold and walk out alive. They'd run out of stormlight. And are you seriously using a herald with 7 thousand years of combat experience, an enhanced body, and access to an honorblade and a fifth ideal radiant bond as an example of a normal fifth ideal radiant? 

I know it's a slight tangent, but no 5th Ideal Skybreaker would be an assassin. Their 5th Ideal is the Judge Dredd one... "I AM The Law!"

Then it's not assassination, it's judgement.

[Anomander Rake he/him]

10 hours ago, Frustration said:

There are 16 hemalurgic metals.

And 16 is important for the entire cosmere.

I really think you are looking too far into that.

I know 16 is important in the cosmere overall, it just seems to me that 16 has the same importance to Preservation as 10 does to Honor, beyond the general significate.

And I'm not really looking any further than this.  We know some shards have numbers associated with them, I'm just guessing as to which they could be - not trying to solve some great mystery here. 

Edited January 24, 2022 by Anomander Rake

[Karger he/him]

The stormfather claimed that humans could not deal with the fused even before the fused learned how to surgebind(way back in OB).  The problem with the fused is not that they can fight radiants as equals.  The problem is that they have a lower attrition rate then any army in real world history.  They can turn any civilian(including the old, the infirm, youths, and other noncombatants) into veteran soldiers.  This effectively means that their army is the size of their population.  A small group of elites cannot keep up with that indefinitely.  Inevitably they will fall apart due to exhaustion if nothing else.  It took Kaladin almost a year to train dedicated soldiers up to the third ideal.  Fused just respawn faster then radiants can train.

[cometaryorbit]

17 hours ago, Karger said:

The stormfather claimed that humans could not deal with the fused even before the fused learned how to surgebind(way back in OB).  The problem with the fused is not that they can fight radiants as equals.  The problem is that they have a lower attrition rate then any army in real world history.  They can turn any civilian(including the old, the infirm, youths, and other noncombatants) into veteran soldiers.  This effectively means that their army is the size of their population.

I agree in general.

(Though it's not clear how the Fused pre-Surges could effectively fight Heralds either. Especially if they all had Taln level reflexes.)

This also makes it way more baffling that the Singers survived the periods between Desolations, though, since any of them can become a Fused. Maybe it was just the honor of the Radiants... but they all have different codes, and frankly one Skybreaker on a crusade might have a decent shot at killing the entire species if there were no Regals or Fused involved.

[+Bzhydack he/him]

On 25.01.2022 at 8:03 PM, cometaryorbit said:

(Though it's not clear how the Fused pre-Surges could effectively fight Heralds either. Especially if they all had Taln level reflexes.)

Remember, Heralds were in that time not much stronger that normal humans. It was centuries of fighting what makes them so powerfull. Stormfather even said that "Not all Heralds were fighters at the begining".

 

On 25.01.2022 at 8:03 PM, cometaryorbit said:

This also makes it way more baffling that the Singers survived the periods between Desolations, though, since any of them can become a Fused. Maybe it was just the honor of the Radiants... but they all have different codes, and frankly one Skybreaker on a crusade might have a decent shot at killing the entire species if there were no Regals or Fused involved.

Rather that was simlpy lack of manpower and resources. Roshar is large, Humans were not so numerous as Singers. Heck, they also needet to simply rebuild their houses.

Also, few Radiants can be only in few places at once. This would be not enough to just patrol some region, not even mentioned to kill entire species.

Edited January 26, 2022 by Bzhydack

[+robardin he/him]

On 1/24/2022 at 8:18 PM, Karger said:

The stormfather claimed that humans could not deal with the fused even before the fused learned how to surgebind(way back in OB).  The problem with the fused is not that they can fight radiants as equals.  The problem is that they have a lower attrition rate then any army in real world history.  They can turn any civilian(including the old, the infirm, youths, and other noncombatants) into veteran soldiers.  This effectively means that their army is the size of their population.  A small group of elites cannot keep up with that indefinitely.  Inevitably they will fall apart due to exhaustion if nothing else.  It took Kaladin almost a year to train dedicated soldiers up to the third ideal.  Fused just respawn faster then radiants can train.

This, plus they gain experience that never goes away. Kaladin will live a mortal lifespan, but Leshwi (except for having turned away from Odium) has had thousands of years of fighting practice against Windrunners and Skybreakers alike. In fact, that's one of the reasons the Fused are increasingly insane - that's all they've done for thousands of years of physical existence on Roshar. Talk about battle fatigue!

Jasnah pointed this out at one of the early Team Radiant meetings in Oathbringer, that one way to defeat the Fused that was within their physical means to (try to) achieve would be to genocidally eliminate every living "parshman" host. No hosts, no Fused.

First, she'd suggested that they try to find more Heralds (than Ash and Taln, who were in their custody in Urithiru), then to kill them with the goal of sending them back to Braize to re-kick-start the Oathpact seal. "Perhaps they can still prevent the spirits of the enemy from being reborn. It's either that, or we completely exterminate the parshmen so that the enemy has no hosts... In the face of such an atrocity, I would consider the sacrifice of one or more Heralds to be a small price."

This horrified Kaladin, and clearly had never been the strategy of any previous Herald or Radiant forces, but it is in fact the choice the Heralds themselves had made originally, isn't it? "Our only hope [other than sacrificing the Heralds to torture] is to defeat their armies so soundly that even if their leaders are constantly reborn, they lack the manpower to overwhelm us."

I mean, we know the Fused were "a thing" before the Heralds were - the Oathpact was in response to Odium creating them, when they "switched" to his side as the humans turned to Honor. (Or did the humans only turn to Honor after the Fused came about, as well?) And there were no Radiants to help the Heralds at first, either - it was Heralds leading humans, versus Fused leading the singers.

Now, put yourself in the position of those Heralds; it could well be that they realized they could not permanently defeat the Fused with the Oathpact, only cause an indefinite stalemate, at the cost of their agony at the end of each Desolation. Why would they agree to that? Because the alternative was genocide.

Unless the deal or the game were changed. Say, like some new discovery as to how to perma-kill both Fused and Radiant spren and remove them from the board, or some kind of contest of champions binding the actions of a god that Odium seems to think he sees a loophole in, to his advantage.

Edited January 26, 2022 by robardin

[cometaryorbit]

57 minutes ago, Bzhydack said:

Remember, Heralds were in that time not much stronger that normal humans. It was centuries of fighting what makes them so powerfull. Stormfather even said that "Not all Heralds were fighters at the begining".

That's true, but their powers would probably make skill a lot less necessary when fighting non-powered opponents.

Especially if they had reliable access to the level of super speed/reflexes we see from Taln... but it must have been limited or unreliable in some way (only usable in short bursts???), since we know from the Prologue thunderclasts killed Heralds, with super speed dodging them should have been trivial.

And maybe the singers had Forms of Power before they had Surges.

1 hour ago, Bzhydack said:

Also, few Radiants can be only in few places at once. This would be not enough to just patrol some region, not even mentioned to kill entire species.

I don't think it's quite that simple; flying makes a big difference in terms of patrolling things. No, a Skybreaker on Crusade couldn't literally find and kill every single individual; but given say ten years to work on it, they probably could find and destroy every settlement or significant encampment. I think you could see a village from several miles up, so a search grid over the whole continent would probably be workable.

Without Forms of Power or surges, the actual fighting would be a non-issue.

Some individuals and small groups would survive, of course (some of those who fled, and small non-settled bands not found, maybe a village or two hidden by persistent clouds or something). But if there was a Desolation within, say, the next two generations, that would probably be the end of the singer species. (As the surviving population would be so small that most would become Fused and die in battle, others would die fighting alongside the Fused, etc.)

And that's one individual Skybreaker going for his Crusade. I think the Radiants had to actively protect the singers between Desolations; if even a small number of Radiants decided to kill them off, the species would not have survived.

[+Bzhydack he/him]

3 minutes ago, cometaryorbit said:

And maybe the singers had Forms of Power before they had Surges.

Or they can use Surges in other way, not with Forms of Power. Remember what stone in Urithiru shown Venli? Singers (nomen-omen) singing and comand the Surge of Cohesion? Remember Ardents using Surge of Progression with proper Rythm? Remember chanting Soulcasters?

Is said in Dawnchant that Singers were forbidden to touch some Surges even BEFORE Humans (and Odium, what mean Forms of Power) were forced to go to Roshar. What mean they could some Surges USE.

7 minutes ago, cometaryorbit said:

Some individuals and small groups would survive, of course (some of those who fled, and small non-settled bands not found, maybe a village or two hidden by persistent clouds or something). But if there was a Desolation within, say, the next two generations, that would probably be the end of the singer species. (As the surviving population would be so small that most would become Fused and die in battle, others would die fighting alongside the Fused, etc.)

And that's one individual Skybreaker going for his Crusade. I think the Radiants had to actively protect the singers between Desolations; if even a small number of Radiants decided to kill them off, the species would not have survived.

And I think you overestimate Radiant. First, we are talking about Crusade, what mean 3d level Radiant, so without Plate and who only starts using Division. Only Radiant with Plate could be able to survive encounter with entire... tribe? And we dont know what Skybreakers 4th Oath is. Second, Radiants would be limited with amount of Stormlight they can carry, what mean they cant have as large reach as they need to have. If there was no gems with light on the ground only suitable solution is to stop and wait for Highstorm to recharge gems. Third, we can assume most Radiants were killed during Desolations, so on the end of Desolation we have bunch of not bounded Spren and Radiants of first level, and it takes time to progress in Oaths. Fourth, Singers can breed faster than humans, they are faster adults and can decide when to breed (they enter the mateform).

[cometaryorbit]

17 minutes ago, Bzhydack said:

And I think you overestimate Radiant. First, we are talking about Crusade, what mean 3d level Radiant, so without Plate and who only starts using Division. Only Radiant with Plate could be able to survive encounter with entire... tribe? And we dont know what Skybreakers 4th Oath is. Second, Radiants would be limited with amount of Stormlight they can carry, what mean they cant have as large reach as they need to have. If there was no gems with light on the ground only suitable solution is to stop and wait for Highstorm to recharge gems. Third, we can assume most Radiants were killed during Desolations, so on the end of Desolation we have bunch of not bounded Spren and Radiants of first level, and it takes time to progress in Oaths. Fourth, Singers can breed faster than humans, they are faster adults and can decide when to breed (they enter the mateform).

I disagree, Shallan doesn't have her Plate when she survives crossbow bolt through the head. Radiant Stormlight healing is really powerful. 3rd ideal is enough to be basically invulnerable to ordinary mundane attacks unless completely overwhelmed and run out of Stormlight... and Gravitation means they're not getting overwhelmed by non-flyers, their mobility is way too good.

(And that's assuming the non-powered singers even get to fight the Skybreaker, as opposed to just being crushed under a rain of stones Lashed from the sky or incinerated in some kind of Division attack setting the whole village on fire.)

Sure, they'd need to carry gems - but large gems aren't that unheard of, and it appears they were significantly more common historically (before greatshells were overhunted). Yes, they'd be reliant on Highstorms to periodically recharge, but those are pretty common on Roshar. And fighting one village shouldn't even be that hard for a highly-combative Radiant like a Skybreaker; I doubt they'd run out mid-fight.

I am not necessarily talking about immediately after a Desolation. Just some random Radiant between Desolations who decides, "well, if there are no living singers there will be no way for the Fused to return -> no more Desolations ever*. And now they have no Fused and no Forms of Power, so they basically can't fight me remotely effectively."

*I am not sure this would actually work, since thunderclasts appear to be Fused spirits animating rock; there might be other similar ways for Fused to animate things other than singer bodies. But it's a plausible enough idea that I think someone would probably have thought of it.

[+Bzhydack he/him]

Between Last Desolation and False Desolation was 2000 Years. Im sure there were plenty of humans who get your Idea of exterminating entire spceies. Especially like 20 years after Desolation. But still during False Desolation Singers were really numerous and powerful, and without Fused or Thunderclasts, and with only one Unmade.

11 minutes ago, cometaryorbit said:

I disagree, Shallan doesn't have her Plate when she survives crossbow bolt through the head. Radiant Stormlight healing is really powerful. 3rd ideal is enough to be basically invulnerable to ordinary mundane attacks unless completely overwhelmed and run out of Stormlight... and Gravitation means they're not getting overwhelmed by non-flyers, their mobility is way too good.

It is one bolt to the head and she survived. And now imagine 100. Or 500. Its not just about kill, radiant can still feel pain, they can be blinded, and even temporarly blinded oponent is vulnerable, also arrows and blades sticking in your body restrict your movments.. Remember way to kill Bloodmaker? Hit him utill he deplets his metalminds. Here we have the same rule. An Skybreakers cant shield himseld from projectiles, unless he has Plate (unlike Windrunner who has Reverse Lashing, but Windrunner will never attack civilians). So just keep him in the air and force to dodge until he deplets his Gems and he is dead. Remember if Singers survived, they are all veterans of war, untill we talk about brand new village.

[Karger he/him]

On 1/25/2022 at 2:03 PM, cometaryorbit said:

(Though it's not clear how the Fused pre-Surges could effectively fight Heralds either. Especially if they all had Taln level reflexes.)

The Herald's goals were not their own survival but rather minimizing human casualties.

On 1/25/2022 at 2:03 PM, cometaryorbit said:

This also makes it way more baffling that the Singers survived the periods between Desolations, though, since any of them can become a Fused. Maybe it was just the honor of the Radiants... but they all have different codes, and frankly one Skybreaker on a crusade might have a decent shot at killing the entire species if there were no Regals or Fused involved.

Singers can survive more easily in the hinterlands then humans can.  Additionally the radiants were focused on reviving human society and preventing its total collapse post devastation.  Not much time for attempted genocide(thankfully).

17 hours ago, cometaryorbit said:

Especially if they had reliable access to the level of super speed/reflexes we see from Taln... but it must have been limited or unreliable in some way (only usable in short bursts???), since we know from the Prologue thunderclasts killed Heralds, with super speed dodging them should have been trivial.

I think it is less "super speed" then "optimized movement."  He isn't the flash but more like batman.  Yeah extra investiture does make them a bit faster but the real deal is that his motions are right out of the spiritual realm(perfect).  Taln is also famous for his heroic deaths.  If a Herald is given the option to die but limit human casualties at the same time then ideally they would take it.

17 hours ago, cometaryorbit said:

No, a Skybreaker on Crusade couldn't literally find and kill every single individual; but given say ten years to work on it, they probably could find and destroy every settlement or significant encampment. I think you could see a village from several miles up, so a search grid over the whole continent would probably be workable.

Singers must have become adapt at hiding their settlements from overhead observation.  Roshar's rocky and ever altering terrain would help a lot with this as would regularly changing locations.  Remember settlements on roshar are generally made out of crem and at least partially underground.  That is to say the same substance as the ground and at ground level.  Good luck spotting that if you don't know where to look.

17 hours ago, Bzhydack said:

And we dont know what Skybreakers 4th Oath is.

Taking on a mission and completing it to the satisfaction of your spren.

17 hours ago, cometaryorbit said:

I am not necessarily talking about immediately after a Desolation. Just some random Radiant between Desolations who decides, "well, if there are no living singers there will be no way for the Fused to return -> no more Desolations ever*. And now they have no Fused and no Forms of Power, so they basically can't fight me remotely effectively."

We don't know for a fact that all fused are killed each desolation.  In fact I'm willing to bet a couple stuck around for a while.  Same for forms of power.

17 hours ago, cometaryorbit said:

Sure, they'd need to carry gems - but large gems aren't that unheard of, and it appears they were significantly more common historically (before greatshells were overhunted). Yes, they'd be reliant on Highstorms to periodically recharge, but those are pretty common on Roshar. And fighting one village shouldn't even be that hard for a highly-combative Radiant like a Skybreaker; I doubt they'd run out mid-fight.

That is simply not a good use of a skybreaker's time when public order is collapsing.  I would want that skybreaker patrolling human settlements and keeping them from fighting each other not wiping out random villages of outsiders.  Even ignoring the moral implications your talking about preparing for the future rather then solving immediate problems.  Humans are terrible at that.

[cometaryorbit]

17 hours ago, Bzhydack said:

It is one bolt to the head and she survived. And now imagine 100. Or 500. Its not just about kill, radiant can still feel pain, they can be blinded, and even temporarly blinded oponent is vulnerable, also arrows and blades sticking in your body restrict your movments.. Remember way to kill Bloodmaker? Hit him utill he deplets his metalminds. Here we have the same rule. An Skybreakers cant shield himseld from projectiles, unless he has Plate (unlike Windrunner who has Reverse Lashing, but Windrunner will never attack civilians). So just keep him in the air and force to dodge until he deplets his Gems and he is dead.

Sure they could potentially be run out of stormlight by many wounds. But I don't see a fight like this lasting long enough to allow that. Surprise aerial attack with Lashed rocks, set stuff on fire with Division, then attack with Shardblade while flying around with Gravitation.

Sure a 3rd ideal skybreaker wouldn't have Plate or Reverse Lashing, but their mobility is good enough that hitting a ton of times is not going to happen. (They certainly won't have much time to try.) And nothing keeps them from wearing normal armor (and since Lashing flight is gravity based, and they can do a partial Lashing upwards to lighten themselves on land, it wouldn't even reduce their mobility).

I think you are really underestimating how huge an advantage Surges plus a Shardblade plus Stormlight enhancement/healing give over non-powered opponents.

BTW. I am not arguing this should have been done (it obviously shouldn't, morally). What I am arguing is that given how helpless non-powered individuals are against Radiants, the Radiants probably as part of their honor made sure nothing like this happened. Because the thought *is* obvious, and given that any singer can become Fused there probably would not be a strong idea of "civilians" in this kind of war.

 

[+Bzhydack he/him]

17 minutes ago, cometaryorbit said:

Surprise aerial attack with Lashed rocks, set stuff on fire with Division, then attack with Shardblade while flying around with Gravitation.

And he is out of Stormlight. After one strike. And like @Karger said, rosharan buildings are nothing like ours - you cant easily crush them or burn them, they are solid stone. And are not exactly easy to spot.

25 minutes ago, cometaryorbit said:

I think you are really underestimating how huge an advantage Surges plus a Shardblade plus Stormlight enhancement/healing give over non-powered opponents.

No. I just think they are not as hopless as you see them. Singers still can have Warform, and maybe even some can still have Forms of Power (we dont know if Voidspren had to be closed on Braize too). And not powered still can kill someone with power. Moash did this to Leshwi.

BTW, humans and Singers interbreed. So this mean in some time period was a peace between two species. This can be between Last Desolation and False Desolation, but is also possible that this happened earlier.

[cometaryorbit]

4 hours ago, Bzhydack said:

And he is out of Stormlight. After one strike. And like @Karger said, rosharan buildings are nothing like ours - you cant easily crush them or burn them

I don't think Stormlight runs out *that* fast, that you'd use up large gems (not just spheres) Lashing some rocks around.

As for strength of buildings... hmm. I was figuring that since the humans were repeatedly knocked back to stone age and they *won*, the Singers between desolations must also have been stone age and thus probably at least semi-nomadic... thus no large/sturdy buildings.

But that could be a totally wrong assumption.

OTOH I don't know how much stone fortifications would help.

Mistborn Era 1

Spoiler

Zane and Vin completely devastated a keep with hundreds of soldiers, plus hazekillers specifically trained to fight Allomancers.

At 3rd ideal, a Skybreaker is I think better in a fight than a Mistborn, though much less capable in other situations (no Mental or sensory powers).

I don't think giving the defending soldiers Warform abilities helps that much.

4 hours ago, Bzhydack said:

BTW, humans and Singers interbreed. So this mean in some time period was a peace between two species. This can be between Last Desolation and False Desolation, but is also possible that this happened earlier.

Oh surely there were significant times of peace... certainly post Last Desolation, and likely between the early Desolations centuries apart..

But it's more a question of, when the Desolations were coming closer and closer together toward the end, the Radiants must have been getting desperate, seeing civilization falling & humanity probably doomed.. what kept the Orders with more flexible concepts of honor, or even a relatively small number of members of those Orders, from trying something like this?

[Karger he/him]

1 hour ago, cometaryorbit said:

But it's more a question of, when the Desolations were coming closer and closer together toward the end, the Radiants must have been getting desperate, seeing civilization falling & humanity probably doomed.. what kept the Orders with more flexible concepts of honor, or even a relatively small number of members of those Orders, from trying something like this?

Lack of time and resources.  When every broam is needed for regrowth fabrails you don't have the leeway to go off after the possibility that maybe you can finally win this time.  Remember humans are just as close if not closer to collapse at this point.  I'm not saying it was never tried I just doubt it would be successful.  Also the unmade were still around and didn't loose any battle strength.  Radiants are needed to counter that too.  Also famine is a problem and poor sanitation and total collapse of public order, and remaining fused and...  Well there is just too much else that needs to be done.

Edited January 28, 2022 by Karger

[asterion137 he/him]

2 hours ago, cometaryorbit said:

I don't think giving the defending soldiers Warform abilities helps that much.

It definitely does. It's free, high-quality armor that grants strength and speed better than normal humans. The armor is especially valuable since the humans of the Desolations likely didn't have effective armor or weapons good enough to pierce warform armor. Odium also has the voidspren to create upwards of 30 thousand stormforms, who even lightly armed would be far more effective than any normal human soldier at the time. Alethi infantry could fight effectively against Regals in WoR and RoW due to the advances in technology since the Last Desolation, but I doubt normal humans would fare nearly as well without Alethi weapons and training. Remember that the Radiants have to defend an area roughly the size of Asia with a few thousand people. Even if the Radiants win quickly wherever they go, which they wouldn't, the sheer size of Roshar and number of enemies means that many towns and smaller cities are never going to see a Radiant before they are wiped out. That said, the fact that the humans won in every Desolation tells us that you're right about the Radiants having too many advantages to outright lose in the end.

Edited January 28, 2022 by asterion137

[cometaryorbit]

1 hour ago, Karger said:

Lack of time and resources.  When every broam is needed for regrowth fabrails you don't have the leeway to go off after the possibility that maybe you can finally win this time.  Remember humans are just as close if not closer to collapse at this point.  I'm not saying it was never tried I just doubt it would be successful.

Hmm. Maybe. In a stone age situation I don't know how much rebuilding infrastructure/public order stuff would really be workable. I'm sure they'd try, but all the Radiants of all orders? Even the Skybreakers, Dustbringers, Elsecallers?

(If Jasnah was faced with that situation, I think she'd see the long-term problem of increasingly frequent Desolations as more important than immediate issues. And she seems pretty willing to suggest things like this- e.g. let's kill all the Heralds, in OB. So I don't think Elsecaller oaths would prevent it.)

And if it were tried by even a few Radiants it would probably succeed... eventually. If you started a Desolation with only 5,000 or 10,000 singers left, they'd most all become Forms of Power or Fused and be killed... would enough make it through to preserve the species?

 

21 minutes ago, asterion137 said:

It definitely does. It's free, high-quality armor that grants strength and speed better than normal humans. The armor is especially valuable since the humans of the Desolations likely didn't have effective armor or weapons good enough to pierce warform armor. Odium also has the voidspren to create upwards of 30 thousand stormforms, who even lightly armed would be far more effective than any normal human soldier at the time.

Warform has very real advantages ... but they don't really help with the things you need to fight flying Radiants - mobility, a way to get past Radiant healing, and a way to block or survive Shardblades.

Vs normal soldiers, the advantages are major- warform strength is significantly better than un-boosted human, and they have better armor ... but armor is useless against a Shardblade.

No Forms of Power between Desolations (until Ba-ado-Mishram changed things for the False Desolation).

[Karger he/him]

29 minutes ago, cometaryorbit said:

(If Jasnah was faced with that situation, I think she'd see the long-term problem of increasingly frequent Desolations as more important than immediate issues. And she seems pretty willing to suggest things like this- e.g. let's kill all the Heralds, in OB. So I don't think Elsecaller oaths would prevent it.)

The problem isn't ruthlessness the problem is practicality.  When the survival of the human race is still in question due to food shortages, disease, refugees, and more you don't have leeway to worry about other problems.