Scadrial vs. Roshar post Lost metal.

alder24 · December 19, 2022

4 minutes ago, Ookla the Frustrated. said:

One of the ten essences is pulp, but they have soulcasters that can only make wood, not grain or other plant matter. And steel isn't only metal, and the fact tat Azimir has one that can make bronze is considered noteworthy.

Maybe there are soulcasters that can make only very specific material, like bronze, and those which can make all of one of the ten essences like all metals which are much rarer? I'm pretty sure, that in WoK Shallan thought that soulcasters that can make everything exist and not only Jasnah has one, but they are extremely rare. There are soulcasters that can soulcast material into three different ones.

But yeah, technically steel is not a metal, so only iron.

Frustration · December 19, 2022

5 minutes ago, alder24 said:

Maybe there are soulcasters that can make only very specific material, like bronze, and those which can make all of one of the ten essences like all metals which are much rarer? I'm pretty sure, that in WoK Shallan thought that soulcasters that can make everything exist and not only Jasnah has one, but they are extremely rare. There are soulcasters that can soulcast material into three different ones.

Yeah roughly 1/10 can do any essence.

SwordNimiForPresident · December 20, 2022

I see two scenarios, Roshar invades Scadrial. Or, Scadrial invades Roshar.

Rosharan magic cannot be taken off world so far as we have seen, even if it is theoretically possible. This leaves Roshar, which is slightly past the bronze age, invading a world where they have invented the radio and artillery, without magic. They would face problems at every level of warfare. Their supply lines would be a disaster because they normally depend on soulcasters for food. Their communications would be a mess because they depend on fabrials which presumably cannot be taken off of Roshar at this time due to the spren inside of them. Their weapons would be hopelessly, comically, overmatched (imagine how many spearman Wax could kill by himself, using just his guns). Their only advantage "might" be that there are presumably more people living on Roshar given Scadrial's recent apocalypse, and they could utilize human wave tactics. There's also the fact that Scadrial just experienced an attack from another world, and has shown the ability to repel that attack before it began. Roshar would need to successfully establish a perpendicularity to even attempt an attack at this point. I'll add as an addendum that it may be possible for the Fused to use their abilities while on Scadrial, which would certainly make the fight a little more fair. I think it would still be impossible for Roshar to win, but the Fused could make life on Scadrial a nightmare. You'd have the equivalent of a terrorist group with superpowers running around causing all kinds of mayhem.

Scadrian magic works everywhere, and uses easy to find resources as fuel. I've already detailed how they outclass Roshar technologically so I wont address that again. Their best bet would likely be to seize Cultivations perpendicularity and hold it as a beach head. Assuming Roshar didn't know the attack was coming the fight would probably be pretty easy, as the horneaters don't have any shards. The best move from there would probably be to send a small group to attack the Shin and steal the seven Honorblades that are left. Assuming that Hemalurgy is on the table, Scadrial could be fielding several types of twinborn, all enhanced with extra powers. Pairing your seven best metalborn with an Honorblade suited to their powerset would give Scadrial a very strong strike force that could even stand against Radiants in a Highstorm or the Fused. The Fused would present a big problem because they can be reborn, but I think Scadrial might be able to counter this by killing them with Hemalurgy. After Scadrial has established it's base of operations and acquired the Honorblades, their best bet would be subterfuge, assassination and propaganda. Killing off major leaders and Radiants would weaken Roshar's ability to strike against them, and if Scadrial can manage to kill Ishar, Nale or Taln they would also gain another Honor blade from each. Infiltrating the population and filling their heads with ideas about liberty and democracy would probably also go a long way. Most of Roshar lives under a feudal system where the common folk are little better than slaves. If you offer these people the chance at guaranteed freedoms and government through consent, you would likely see all of Roshar's nations crumble from the inside. Add to this the promise of modern amenities like electricity, mass transit and stable food/water supply and we are talking about cultural revolution that leaves Roshar unrecognizable. Scadrial could probably win without ever fighting a large scale battle.

Obviously that's a very specific attack plan, but I'm operating under the assumption that the attacking side has done their homework.

Overall, I'd say Scadrial has a much better chance, and a much clearer path.

edit: Just reading through the whole thread now and it seems to me that there are two types of people here. People who desperately want Roshar to win, and people that see the massive glaring problems Roshar would be facing. Just my two cents.

edit edit: Realized I made a mistake, the Shin only have six blades. Moash obviously has Jezrien's. I think we can all agree that Scadrial's death squad should pay Moash a visit.

Edited December 20, 2022 by SwordNimiForPresident

Frustration · December 20, 2022

5 hours ago, SwordNimiForPresident said:

I see two scenarios, Roshar invades Scadrial. Or, Scadrial invades Roshar.

Rosharan magic cannot be taken off world so far as we have seen, even if it is theoretically possible. This leaves Roshar, which is slightly past the bronze age, invading a world where they have invented the radio and artillery, without magic. They would face problems at every level of warfare. Their supply lines would be a disaster because they normally depend on soulcasters for food. Their communications would be a mess because they depend on fabrials which presumably cannot be taken off of Roshar at this time due to the spren inside of them. Their weapons would be hopelessly, comically, overmatched (imagine how many spearman Wax could kill by himself, using just his guns). Their only advantage "might" be that there are presumably more people living on Roshar given Scadrial's recent apocalypse, and they could utilize human wave tactics. There's also the fact that Scadrial just experienced an attack from another world, and has shown the ability to repel that attack before it began. Roshar would need to successfully establish a perpendicularity to even attempt an attack at this point. I'll add as an addendum that it may be possible for the Fused to use their abilities while on Scadrial, which would certainly make the fight a little more fair. I think it would still be impossible for Roshar to win, but the Fused could make life on Scadrial a nightmare. You'd have the equivalent of a terrorist group with superpowers running around causing all kinds of mayhem.

Scadrian magic works everywhere, and uses easy to find resources as fuel. I've already detailed how they outclass Roshar technologically so I wont address that again. Their best bet would likely be to seize Cultivations perpendicularity and hold it as a beach head. Assuming Roshar didn't know the attack was coming the fight would probably be pretty easy, as the horneaters don't have any shards. The best move from there would probably be to send a small group to attack the Shin and steal the seven Honorblades that are left. Assuming that Hemalurgy is on the table, Scadrial could be fielding several types of twinborn, all enhanced with extra powers. Pairing your seven best metalborn with an Honorblade suited to their powerset would give Scadrial a very strong strike force that could even stand against Radiants in a Highstorm or the Fused. The Fused would present a big problem because they can be reborn, but I think Scadrial might be able to counter this by killing them with Hemalurgy. After Scadrial has established it's base of operations and acquired the Honorblades, their best bet would be subterfuge, assassination and propaganda. Killing off major leaders and Radiants would weaken Roshar's ability to strike against them, and if Scadrial can manage to kill Ishar, Nale or Taln they would also gain another Honor blade from each. Infiltrating the population and filling their heads with ideas about liberty and democracy would probably also go a long way. Most of Roshar lives under a feudal system where the common folk are little better than slaves. If you offer these people the chance at guaranteed freedoms and government through consent, you would likely see all of Roshar's nations crumble from the inside. Add to this the promise of modern amenities like electricity, mass transit and stable food/water supply and we are talking about cultural revolution that leaves Roshar unrecognizable. Scadrial could probably win without ever fighting a large scale battle.

Obviously that's a very specific attack plan, but I'm operating under the assumption that the attacking side has done their homework.

Overall, I'd say Scadrial has a much better chance, and a much clearer path.

edit: Just reading through the whole thread now and it seems to me that there are two types of people here. People who desperately want Roshar to win, and people that see the massive glaring problems Roshar would be facing. Just my two cents.

edit edit: Realized I made a mistake, the Shin only have six blades. Moash obviously has Jezrien's. I think we can all agree that Scadrial's death squad should pay Moash a visit.

How does Scadrial deal with the massive hurricane class storms hitting every few days? And how do none of the thousands of spren not notice them?

And Roshar is late iron age minimum.

And getting Radiants and other resources off Roshar would be rather easy, even if they don't figure out the Connection trick. Just send someone to the Nightwatcher and ask for the ability.

therunner · December 20, 2022

On 16/12/2022 at 11:58 PM, Tglassy said:

But that's the thing. You're giving Roshar things they don't have. Like the ability to even get Stormlight off world.

We do that since Roshar has 10 more years to progress.
Scadrial 10 years before TLM did not have for example: grenade launchers, machine guns, artillery, rockets, radio, card, electric lights, skyscrapers.
10 years can do a lot .

And giving Roshar ability to get spren and light off-world is pretty much the only major concession. That is it, just ability to move Investiture off-world.
The rest is that fabrials they already have will become more wide-spread and a bit more advanced (i.e. more Fourth Bridges which are also more efficient to move around).

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They do have a Shard...

Direct Shard intervention is typically considered out-of-scope. And the Shard they do have is limited enough that Avatar was sufficient to block it (seemingly).
If we do allow Shards, well, Roshar has 2-3, and they are less restricted.

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Wax doesn't need bullets. He just needs steel, which is an abundant resource. Every spearhead and arrowhead and piece of armor in the Rosharan army are his bullets.
Edit: IN FACT! Because all the Steel in the Alethi army is soulcast, it is very likely pure, and I would say very likely allomantically viable. So their weapons could very well be his fuel.

Until he runs out of metal to burn, then he is toast. I.e. he has what minutes? He refuels with steel pretty regularly in combat, and every time he has to do that he has to stop.
One stray arrow at bad moment and Wax is down.
Additionally there is no such things as pure steel, it is an alloy, and allomantically viable steel needs precise ratios of the iron and carbon to be viable.

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Farmers are held in high regard all across the world becuase the world doesn't generate enough food. They'd never be able to mobilize a supply line. They'd have to soulcast the food at home and ship it through the CR to the front lines. And supply lines is not something the Alethi have any experience in dealing with.

There are more nations than just Alethkar, and some do specialize in trade and organization, so those could organize supply lines. Specialization is useful.
And they could still soulcast food on Roshar and then just transport it, so no need for farmers, only for organizing supply lines.

The bigger issue would be lack of means to transfer in/out of Cognitive, and general lack of 'special forces' (Radiants, forces with fabrials, etc.)

7 hours ago, SwordNimiForPresident said:

Rosharan magic cannot be taken off world so far as we have seen, even if it is theoretically possible. This leaves Roshar, which is slightly past the bronze age, invading a world where they have invented the radio and artillery, without magic. They would face problems at every level of warfare. Their supply lines would be a disaster because they normally depend on soulcasters for food. Their communications would be a mess because they depend on fabrials which presumably cannot be taken off of Roshar at this time due to the spren inside of them. Their weapons would be hopelessly, comically, overmatched (imagine how many spearman Wax could kill by himself, using just his guns). Their only advantage "might" be that there are presumably more people living on Roshar given Scadrial's recent apocalypse, and they could utilize human wave tactics. There's also the fact that Scadrial just experienced an attack from another world, and has shown the ability to repel that attack before it began. Roshar would need to successfully establish a perpendicularity to even attempt an attack at this point. I'll add as an addendum that it may be possible for the Fused to use their abilities while on Scadrial, which would certainly make the fight a little more fair. I think it would still be impossible for Roshar to win, but the Fused could make life on Scadrial a nightmare. You'd have the equivalent of a terrorist group with superpowers running around causing all kinds of mayhem.

You have mistaken idea of Roshar, they are not 'slightly past bronze age', they are comfortably at late 18th early 19th century science (they can make vacuum tubes, have germ theory and generally more advanced medical science than Scadrial, advanced mathematics, nautical skills, can alloy steel, etc.) and behind in others (mainly lack of guns and gunpowder)
Sure, a lot of their more advanced tech is driven by fabrials, but that is just a different field of science there.

If we restrict Roshar to truly be unable to take anything stormlight powered-off world, then sure Roshar cannot really invade. At that point industrial espionage is their best bet (i.e. trade a bunch of gems or soulcast aluminum for a bunch of guns and schematics), and start playing catch-up.

E.g. your Wax vs spearman example, Wax could kill as many as he has bullets + how much metal he has. He would not be able to kill off entire army by himself.

Scadrial barely repealed invasion from off-world, and only because they 'closed the gate' so to speak.

And I would think that Fused also cannot leave Rosharan system, they are Cognitive shadows, so restricted similarly to Kelsier, who also cannot leave.

7 hours ago, SwordNimiForPresident said:

Scadrian magic works everywhere, and uses easy to find resources as fuel. I've already detailed how they outclass Roshar technologically so I wont address that again. Their best bet would likely be to seize Cultivations perpendicularity and hold it as a beach head. Assuming Roshar didn't know the attack was coming the fight would probably be pretty easy, as the horneaters don't have any shards.

Scadrian magic, while working everywhere, still needs specifically prepared resources to use. You cannot just grab piece of Iron and use it as fuel, for metals they need to be pure enough, and for alloys it needs to have precise ratios of compounds.

While Scadrial outclasses Roshar in physical tech, they are unable to get it off-world easily for following reasons:

Scadrial has only single perpendicularity, somewhere in mountains (so difficult to access).
Perpendicularity is not wormhole, you cannot really build tracks through it (as far as I know), so transporting items through would be time consuming.
Perpendicularity is too small to fit e.g. boats or planes, or even larger trucks.
Finally, CR on Scadrial consists of Mists and the only way to move around requires Invested items to float on. Considering how small typically metalminds are (bracelets, earrings, rings, etc.) Investing a single boat hull would take years if not longer.

I.e. Scadrial cannot really get off-world in any appreciable numbers, or get their heavier tech off-world at all.

Additionally, CR on Roshar is full of spren, who would notify their allies of any invasion, and would start fighting back (which would have effect on lower spren). If you consider united planets (not entirely sure based on your text), then Fused would also fight against them there + there would be Unmade in Shadesmare as well.

Finally, Cultivation perpendicularity is underwater, which would also make it a poor location to start Invasion from, and basically impossible to get any heavy equipment through.

So full-scale Invasion is basically also impossible for Scadrial.

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The best move from there would probably be to send a small group to attack the Shin and steal the seven Honorblades that are left. Assuming that Hemalurgy is on the table, Scadrial could be fielding several types of twinborn, all enhanced with extra powers. Pairing your seven best metalborn with an Honorblade suited to their powerset would give Scadrial a very strong strike force that could even stand against Radiants in a Highstorm or the Fused. The Fused would present a big problem because they can be reborn, but I think Scadrial might be able to counter this by killing them with Hemalurgy.

Sure Hemalurgy is on the table.
Few notes:

Twinborn are vanishingly rare (we have seen 3 across the entire Era 2, and 2 died), so your strike team starts as Mistings or Ferrings.
They can get up-to 4 spikes I would assume (based on what we have seen from Set), so they can have 5 powers in total. I'd assume you would go for A-pewter, A-Steel, F-gold, F-steel and maybe F-duralumin (so they can speak the language?) or A-duralumin.
They cannot compound, so they would require some months to build up stores of health and especially speed.
Thanks to spikes this strike force would be easily controlled through Connection. So Ishar, Dalinar and Navani could simply seize them and take control of them. Dalinar could do it especially easily and safely while they would be in Highstorm (he would not have to be physically close to them). So the strike team cannot ever be caught in Highstorm, as they would be immediately turned.
Also, even with Honorblades and other powers, any Radiant in plate would be able to easily dispatch them, as they lack the tools to easily get through it.

I don't think Hemalurgy could permanently kill Fused, maybe if you spiked the part that is giving them their link to Odium? But if they were Invested at the moment they would most likely just heal the damage to soul.

Also, Hemalurgy is complicated and Scadrial barely knows how it works on humans after 3 centuries. Fused are different species and cognitive shadows on top of that, their bind points would be most likely very different.

Also how do they know the Honorblades are in Shinovar? Basically no one on Roshar knows that outside of some Shin.

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After Scadrial has established it's base of operations and acquired the Honorblades, their best bet would be subterfuge, assassination and propaganda. Killing off major leaders and Radiants would weaken Roshar's ability to strike against them, and if Scadrial can manage to kill Ishar, Nale or Taln they would also gain another Honor blade from each.

I would note that subterfuge and propaganda are tools Roshar could employ also, if they attempted to invade Scadrial even without powers.

Also, your strike team (if not already turned on side of Roshar) would not be able to touch either of the Ishar, Nale or Taln.

Ishar could convert them (he has his blade)
Nale has plate
Taln is..well, Taln. (and does not in fact have his Honorblade, its location is unknown at the moment).

Heralds are ridiculously powerful, even now when Honor is dead and they don't have direct supply line of Stormlight. Just read their reaction times, they often move and react as if they had atium (I am not saying they do, just that their fighting style is comparable).

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Most of Roshar lives under a feudal system where the common folk are little better than slaves. If you offer these people the chance at guaranteed freedoms and government through consent, you would likely see all of Roshar's nations crumble from the inside

Another misconception about Roshar, common folk are not 'little better than slaves'.
Dahn and nahn system is basically hereditary nobility, except mainly along the lines of eye color not just bloodlines. But in practice if you are rich enough it does not matter as much, and lowest dahns can be in practice outranked by higher nahns.
And most of this is from Alethkar, which is in many ways worse than other countries, and even there vast majority have right to free travel and right to free education. Thaylenah is for example elective monarchy, and don't have nobility along the lines of eye color.

Let us not kid ourselves that Scadrian is that much better, Basin is basically ruled by a combination of 1. Scions of noble houses from Final Empire (like dear Wax) 2. Rich people.
Over half of Basin feels strongly that they are not properly represented by their government.

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Add to this the promise of modern amenities like electricity, mass transit and stable food/water supply and we are talking about cultural revolution that leaves Roshar unrecognizable. Scadrial could probably win without ever fighting a large scale battle.

Scadrial does not have mass transit (only few train lines, and I doubt those are cheap).
Roshar already has stable food and water supply, so not much Scadrial can offer there.
Roshar is also under going their equivalent of Industrial revolution, e.g. use of heating fabrials is spreading. They already use spheres for light and have spanreeds for long-distance communication, so electricity does not have much to offer them yet.

And you forget people fear unknown, even on Scadrial a lot of people are wary of the electricity and other advances. And you are forgetting the influence of religion on any cultural changes.

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Overall, I'd say Scadrial has a much better chance, and a much clearer path.

Scadrial has much better chance, if you ignore all the transport issues they would face, presence of spren in Shadesmar notifying Roshar of invasion (and starting to fight it off), the fact that strike team would be easily subverted (and would still be weaker than Radiant in plate), the cultural differences and the fact that Roshar is much more advanced then you give them credit for. Also there are two hurricane level storms moving around the planet every ~10 days, Scadrial is not really used to handling that.

7 hours ago, SwordNimiForPresident said:

edit: Just reading through the whole thread now and it seems to me that there are two types of people here. People who desperately want Roshar to win, and people that see the massive glaring problems Roshar would be facing. Just my two cents.

I would phrase it that there are people who realize just how powerful Radiants are, and that if they can get off-world in larger numbers Scadrial does not really have answer against them.

Edited December 20, 2022 by therunner
spelling

SwordNimiForPresident · December 20, 2022

8 hours ago, therunner said:

if they can get off-world

The TLDR of your reply.

SwordNimiForPresident · December 20, 2022

10 hours ago, Ookla the Frustrated. said:

How does Scadrial deal with the massive hurricane class storms hitting every few days? And how do none of the thousands of spren not notice them?

And Roshar is late iron age minimum.

And getting Radiants and other resources off Roshar would be rather easy, even if they don't figure out the Connection trick. Just send someone to the Nightwatcher and ask for the ability.

So what if the Soren notice them? “Hey there’s a group of people doing people things at Cultivation’s perpendicularity, weird.”.

Regardless of what age they’re in, it’s quite far behind the late Industrial Age.

They could ask the Nightwatcher for many things, but who knows what they would actually get. This also feels pretty close to involving a Shard. The only abilities we have seen from the Nightwatcher actually came from Cultivation as far as I remember.

Frustration · December 20, 2022

6 minutes ago, SwordNimiForPresident said:

So what if the Soren notice them? “Hey there’s a group of people doing people things at Cultivation’s perpendicularity, weird.”.

A bunch of people carrying weapons, and a whole lot more people than we have ever seen.

7 minutes ago, SwordNimiForPresident said:

They could ask the Nightwatcher for many things, but who knows what they would actually get. This also feels pretty close to involving a Shard. The only abilities we have seen from the Nightwatcher actually came from Cultivation as far as I remember.

The Nightwatcher has real power, she can change your species, eye color, give you gems, what sounds like Nightblood, cloth etc.

therunner · December 20, 2022

4 hours ago, SwordNimiForPresident said:

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if they can get off-world

The TLDR of your reply.

First of all, a bit rude. Second, wrong TLDR so you clearly did not bother to actually read it.

It does fit my answer to the first part of your post (Roshar -> Scadrial), but not the second part where your analysis of Scadrial to Roshar invasion relied on gross mis-characterization of capabilities and of the situation.

So, to save you time, here is actual TLDR of my reply to your proposed scenario of Scadrial to Roshar invasion:

Scadrial is unable to get off world in larger numbers due to only one perpendicularity, lack of ability to establish supply lines, and lack of ability to actually get to Roshar (Cultivation perpendicularity is underwater).
Your idea for twinborn strike team upgraded with spikes stealing Honorblades requires them to have information nearly no one even on Roshar has, and opens them up for quick subversion by a Bondsmith (and Dalinar could do it safely from anywhere, if they step into Highstorm). So basically, not really functional plan.
Culturally Roshar is diverse, with Alethkar most traditional in many ways. Some countries have elected leadership, so Scadrial propaganda does not necessarily suggests things they don't already know (+ you have cultural and religious traditions to get over).
Technologically Roshar is not barely past bronze age, they are comfortably 18th century (outside of guns and associated tech). See vacuum tubes, advanced mathematics, ships etc. Scadrial has little to offer them, since a lot of fabrial tech is comparable or even better to electricity powered tech of Scadrial.
Scadrial has never encountered anything like Highstorm or Everstorm, which would hinder them quite heavily.

TLDR2: Your scenario which you finished by saying

20 hours ago, SwordNimiForPresident said:

Overall, I'd say Scadrial has a much better chance, and a much clearer path.

literally cannot work unless you ignore a lot fact about both Scadrial and Roshar.

alder24 · December 21, 2022

14 hours ago, therunner said:

You have mistaken idea of Roshar, they are not 'slightly past bronze age', they are comfortably at late 18th early 19th century science (they can make vacuum tubes, have germ theory and generally more advanced medical science than Scadrial, advanced mathematics, nautical skills, can alloy steel, etc.) and behind in others (mainly lack of guns and gunpowder)
Sure, a lot of their more advanced tech is driven by fabrials, but that is just a different field of science there.

I would not put them that tale. 18/19? Too late. They lack of industrial revolution(1760) or even printing press(1450). It's hard to compare medical, as in Mistborn we follow a guy who can heal himself, but judging form MeLaan description of Marasi's wound, (BoM when they fly to the temple) which was very technical, and no one asked any questions or was surprised by that description, Scadrial is also on very advanced stage. At least comparable to Roshar. That was likely the only medical description we got in BoM.

Yes they have few fancy tools and advance theories. They do not follow Earth development, as Roshar is vastly different than Earth, and with Stormlight and gems they can make these more advanced tools. But still the glaring lack of early machinery like printing press, manufacturing, early industry or mass production, makes me think that they are a bit earlier, 15-17th century at best.

14 hours ago, therunner said:

Another misconception about Roshar, common folk are not 'little better than slaves'.
Dahn and nahn system is basically hereditary nobility, except mainly along the lines of eye color not just bloodlines. But in practice if you are rich enough it does not matter as much, and lowest dahns can be in practice outranked by higher nahns.
And most of this is from Alethkar, which is in many ways worse than other countries, and even there vast majority have right to free travel and right to free education. Thaylenah is for example elective monarchy, and don't have nobility along the lines of eye color.

Let us not kid ourselves that Scadrian is that much better, Basin is basically ruled by a combination of 1. Scions of noble houses from Final Empire (like dear Wax) 2. Rich people.
Over half of Basin feels strongly that they are not properly represented by their government.

Most people on Roshar are uneducated poor/working class, like medieval peasants but better and with more rights. Far from slaves tho, but there still are slaves. East is kind of feudalish with high gender inequality. Half of Roshar can't write. And Thaylenah as elective monarchy - only naval officers and merchant councils can vote. It's merchant republic, very common in middle ages (Venice). Azir is even worst, just few viziers vote for emperor. So while on Scadrial people complain about representation, all can vote and live in democracy (not perfect), and it still much, much better than anything on Roshar where 99.9% can't do anything to influence their government, and even Reshi isles have kings. Only Shins don't have monarchy.

Scadrial would bring to Roshar revolutionary ideas of equality, democracy, and give more rights for commoners than there are on Roshar. (no guillotine this time)

15 hours ago, therunner said:

Scadrial does not have mass transit (only few train lines, and I doubt those are cheap).
Roshar already has stable food and water supply, so not much Scadrial can offer there.
Roshar is also under going their equivalent of Industrial revolution, e.g. use of heating fabrials is spreading. They already use spheres for light and have spanreeds for long-distance communication, so electricity does not have much to offer them yet.

No mass transit? Taxis everywhere! Huge railway industry, cheep enough to rival extensive canal networks and send trains straight to factories and warehouses. It has to be cheep, for people as well. Bilming has cheep public overground railway. New Seran has gondolas. And cars are in every city now. That's no mass transit for you?

Scadrial can mass produced canned food. This is a lot to offer.

And I would not call it Industrial revolution. Heating fabrial is not industry nor spanreeds. Electricity means engine, and that means true Industrial revolution. Roshar is not there yet.

15 hours ago, therunner said:

Thanks to spikes this strike force would be easily controlled through Connection. So Ishar, Dalinar and Navani could simply seize them and take control of them. Dalinar could do it especially easily and safely while they would be in Highstorm (he would not have to be physically close to them). So the strike team cannot ever be caught in Highstorm, as they would be immediately turned.

He could, if he knew that is possible. Simmilar to how Scadrial has to know about Honorblades, Dalinar has to know about Hemalurgy and how to fight it to control them. He won't have that knowledge. No one on Roshar ever heard of Hemalurgy (outside of Mraize and Hoid).

But still, I agree that Scadrial is in much worse position for invasion of Roshar than Roshar for invasion of Scadrial. They can't do it at all, not to mention succeed. They would fail in CR harassed from dozens of Oathgates by Rosharian troops, targeting supply chains and logistics. Highstorms are also a big obstacle. Scadrial can't invade Roshar.

Kuldak · December 21, 2022

One thing about this discussion that I really never liked is giving Roshar 10 years of speculative advancement without giving similar speculative advancement to Scadrial. I know they are ~10 years apart in the cosmere timeline, but this is already a hypothetical "what if" scenario, far outside the scope of possibility, so pausing/advancing time for one side and making it an "end of RoW vs end of TLM" type encounter is hardly impossible. Speculating what Roshar MAY have discovered in 10 years (which in this discussion I have often seen drift towards 10 years to specifically prep for fighting Scadrial off world), leads to a lot of "we have WoB that this is theoretically possible (if you ignore the context of WoB), so of course they have not only discovered it but mastered it in 10 years." We already know that one of the major advancements many were assuming earlier in the thread (before the WoB on it) is false, Radiants have not discovered a way off system while keeping their powers by the time of TLM. The simple fact is that nobody but Brandon and his inner circle have any way of telling what happens in 10 years time on Roshar, and any theoretical future state, is simply a fan fiction version of Roshar. This makes it hard to have a real discussion as 20 different fan fiction versions of Roshar are all being argued for simultaneously, ranging from somewhat likely to preposterous in what they are claiming Roshar knows or has access to.

I know the whole point of these discussions is speculation and theorizing, but I feel that having both "Roshar's military vs Scadrial's military" and "What do you think Roshar will look like in 10 years" discussions at the same time is muddying the waters a bit. I also feel that if you absolutely must have a decade of speculative advancement, only giving it to one side in this theoretical war is quite one sided, and makes it hard to debate the merits of one side vs the other when one side is effectively restricted to canon, and the other is often wild speculation.

Tglassy · December 21, 2022

Imma come out and say that if Twinborn are abitrarily limited in this dicussion, so are 4th ideal Radiants. We've only seen 2 with Plate, and know there are only two in the entire planet as of RoW, wheras we've seen 4 Twinborn (Wax, Wayne, Miles and the kid Wax killed when he was a kid) and had confirmation that, while rare, they DO exist. And it's been said that most Radiants never got past the third ideal. So if Wax is a rarity, so is Kaladin. That means you've got 3rd ideal at best, with a few 4th here and there. That does NOT make Roshar a powerhouse. In fact, I would say that there are probably more Mistings/Ferrings than Radiants total. There are only 50 Edgedancers and 3 Truthwatchers in the entire Rosharan Military. Not a one of them past the 3rd ideal. There are more Windrunners. So the bulk of the military is Windrunners and Stonewardens, with a smattering of others.

That would compare to Mistings/Ferrings, with probably the same number of Twinborn as there are 4th ideal Radiants. I'd say that cancels each other out.

And did no one else actually read TLM? Wax is, literally, the Sword of Harmony. He is Harmony's Ruin. He climbed a tower with a literal army in the way and killed ALL OF THEM. And he didn't even have Duralamin! And they had guns! Not bows and arrows! Not Spears! GUNS! Steel is CHEAP. If Wax jumped into the middle of a Rosharan army, increased his weight and used a Duralamin Steelpush in all directions? There'd be nothing left as far as he could push. Nothing. All by himself. Pop a quick steel vial and he's good to keep going. He can take out entire supply lines on his own, and only Windrunners or Skybreakers could attempt to catch him. Sure, they'd give him trouble, but he's still a powerhouse.

Or let's take a double Pewter Compounder. We're theorycrafting 4th lvl Radiants who can Soulcast around peope's heads, so let's theory craft one of these bad boys. What do you do to someone with, literally, infinite strenth? Someone burning Pewter is harder to injure, cause their muscles are stronger. If he burns pewter, stores the extra strength in a pewtermind, then burns THAT pewtermind, you get around the whole increased weight thing, but still gain literally infinite strength. That means muscles that are infinitely strong, along side the other effects of Pewter. Give him modern weapons and a suit of armor made of the same alloy of Alluminum they make the guns out of, and you've got someone no one on Roshar can defeat, including a Knight Radiant of whatever ideal you want to give them. And their power isn't limited to a planet. It's just metal. And a fairly cheap one.

Or how about a Steel Compounder? Infinite enhanced speed. The Flash. There's nothing on Roshar that can answer to that. If the speed is truly infinite, as Compounders have shown to be, then you send ONE of those to Roshar and it can kill the entire army and every Radiant around.

And if you're going to add in Hemalurgy, then you don't stop at giving spikes to your people. Yes, you give spikes to your people. But you also spike the Radiants. Steal their connection to Spren. Stormlight can heal spiritual wounds, but only if you can use Stormlight. Sure, the Spren can just break the bond, but in the moment, the Radiant loses all power. That might take some experimenting, but it's possible. Pretty sure Brandon said so.

I've been ignoring the Allomancy/Ferruchemy of the Scadrian army, cause in my mind they are fairly equal to Radiants, but people keep bringing up the Radiants, and forget that Scadrial has access to an alloy of Aluminum that can be used in making weapons. If they can do that, they can make armor that can't be affected by Radiants. Pewterarm shocktroops, without that armor, can take on any Radiant of less than the 4th ideal, and give them a Coinshot/Lurcher backup and they become insane. Give them Alluminum Armor and they can even take on a 4rth Ideal Radiant. Windrunner Lashing woudln't work, they'd block the Blade, and they'd have a similar increase in strength and speed. Vin, using Pewter, could lift a Koloss Sword with one hand with ease. Tineye Scouts can find information much easier. Bendalloy spies or assassins to get into their inner circles and steal info. Soothers and Rioters to demoralize enemies. Oh. And I forgot about Kolos. Scadrians have Kolos. Just send THEM after the Rosharans.

Seekers to find hidden Lightweavers. Copper Clouds to disrupt Spren. Guns, electricity, and the simple motor. If you include Southern Scadrial, you, at minimum, have medallions that grant Iron, Brass and Copper Feruchemy. Maybe more. Give all your Coinshots Feruchemical Iron and turn them ALL in to Wax. Why wouldn't you? They can't compound, but you don't need to. Spike all your Pewterarms with Gold healing.

And then give them all guns. All of them. And you can't say "until they run out of bullets" when I can just say "Until you run out of Stormlight."

My dinosaur eats your forcefield dog.

Frustration · December 21, 2022

27 minutes ago, Tglassy said:

Imma come out and say that if Twinborn are abitrarily limited in this dicussion, so are 4th ideal Radiants. We've only seen 2 with Plate, and know there are only two in the entire planet as of RoW, wheras we've seen 4 Twinborn (Wax, Wayne, Miles and the kid Wax killed when he was a kid) and had confirmation that, while rare, they DO exist. And it's been said that most Radiants never got past the third ideal. So if Wax is a rarity, so is Kaladin. That means you've got 3rd ideal at best, with a few 4th here and there. That does NOT make Roshar a powerhouse. In fact, I would say that there are probably more Mistings/Ferrings than Radiants total. There are only 50 Edgedancers and 3 Truthwatchers in the entire Rosharan Military. Not a one of them past the 3rd ideal. There are more Windrunners. So the bulk of the military is Windrunners and Stonewardens, with a smattering of others.

Twinborn are not "arbitrarily limited" they are limited by the population, misting are 1 in a thousand according to the books, and twinborn are even more rare. We calculated it somewhere earlier, but there is not enough twinborn to make any appreciable difference.

30 minutes ago, Tglassy said:

And did no one else actually read TLM? Wax is, literally, the Sword of Harmony. He is Harmony's Ruin. He climbed a tower with a literal army in the way and killed ALL OF THEM. And he didn't even have Duralamin! And they had guns! Not bows and arrows! Not Spears! GUNS! Steel is CHEAP. If Wax jumped into the middle of a Rosharan army, increased his weight and used a Duralamin Steelpush in all directions? There'd be nothing left as far as he could push. Nothing. All by himself. Pop a quick steel vial and he's good to keep going. He can take out entire supply lines on his own, and only Windrunners or Skybreakers could attempt to catch him. Sure, they'd give him trouble, but he's still a powerhouse.

Am I the only one who read RoW? Kaladin had almost all of his powers taken away, fought a guy who could literally teleport, and still won. Wax would have perished in his first interaction with Lezian, but Kaladin would have preformed even better against the Set's forces. And he's not even the best fighter Roshar has. Taln on his own could easily take every twinborn who ever existed. When it comes to supersoldiers Roshar far outpaces Scadrial.

34 minutes ago, Tglassy said:

Or let's take a double Pewter Compounder. We're theorycrafting 4th lvl Radiants who can Soulcast around peope's heads, so let's theory craft one of these bad boys. What do you do to someone with, literally, infinite strenth? Someone burning Pewter is harder to injure, cause their muscles are stronger. If he burns pewter, stores the extra strength in a pewtermind, then burns THAT pewtermind, you get around the whole increased weight thing, but still gain literally infinite strength. That means muscles that are infinitely strong, along side the other effects of Pewter. Give him modern weapons and a suit of armor made of the same alloy of Alluminum they make the guns out of, and you've got someone no one on Roshar can defeat, including a Knight Radiant of whatever ideal you want to give them. And their power isn't limited to a planet. It's just metal. And a fairly cheap one.

Or how about a Steel Compounder? Infinite enhanced speed. The Flash. There's nothing on Roshar that can answer to that. If the speed is truly infinite, as Compounders have shown to be, then you send ONE of those to Roshar and it can kill the entire army and every Radiant around.

You do not understand compounding. Compounding has hard limits, with the amount of power received being equal to the amount of metal consumed. It is far from infinate. And that's not to mention they have to be natural compounders of which maybe one has ever existed for those metals.

36 minutes ago, Tglassy said:

And if you're going to add in Hemalurgy, then you don't stop at giving spikes to your people. Yes, you give spikes to your people. But you also spike the Radiants. Steal their connection to Spren. Stormlight can heal spiritual wounds, but only if you can use Stormlight. Sure, the Spren can just break the bond, but in the moment, the Radiant loses all power. That might take some experimenting, but it's possible. Pretty sure Brandon said so.

Do you know how specific your placement has to be? You can't just hit the heart, you have to hit a very specific region of the heart.

38 minutes ago, Tglassy said:

I've been ignoring the Allomancy/Ferruchemy of the Scadrian army, cause in my mind they are fairly equal to Radiants,

Brandon has said surgebinding is stronger.

Spoiler

Yamato

Out of all your magic systems, which one would you choose to be a user of?

Brandon Sanderson

I'd be a Mistborn if possible. So many fun interactions. Not quite as powerful as some of those on Roshar, perhaps, but very fun.

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/105/#e1196

42 minutes ago, Tglassy said:

Scadrians have Kolos. Just send THEM after the Rosharans.

Nergoaul will take control of them.

43 minutes ago, Tglassy said:

Give them Alluminum Armor and they can even take on a 4rth Ideal Radiant.

No they can't. Shardplate is stronger than anything Scadrial has other than a pewter compounder, and can easily tank anything Scadrial could throw at them.

45 minutes ago, Tglassy said:

My dinosaur eats your forcefield dog.

You have a lizard, not a dinosaur.

SwordNimiForPresident · December 21, 2022

5 hours ago, therunner said:

First of all, a bit rude. Second, wrong TLDR so you clearly did not bother to actually read it.

It does fit my answer to the first part of your post (Roshar -> Scadrial), but not the second part where your analysis of Scadrial to Roshar invasion relied on gross mis-characterization of capabilities and of the situation.

So, to save you time, here is actual TLDR of my reply to your proposed scenario of Scadrial to Roshar invasion:

Scadrial is unable to get off world in larger numbers due to only one perpendicularity, lack of ability to establish supply lines, and lack of ability to actually get to Roshar (Cultivation perpendicularity is underwater).

Your idea for twinborn strike team upgraded with spikes stealing Honorblades requires them to have information nearly no one even on Roshar has, and opens them up for quick subversion by a Bondsmith (and Dalinar could do it safely from anywhere, if they step into Highstorm). So basically, not really functional plan.

Culturally Roshar is diverse, with Alethkar most traditional in many ways. Some countries have elected leadership, so Scadrial propaganda does not necessarily suggests things they don't already know (+ you have cultural and religious traditions to get over).

Technologically Roshar is not barely past bronze age, they are comfortably 18th century (outside of guns and associated tech). See vacuum tubes, advanced mathematics, ships etc. Scadrial has little to offer them, since a lot of fabrial tech is comparable or even better to electricity powered tech of Scadrial.

Scadrial has never encountered anything like Highstorm or Everstorm, which would hinder them quite heavily.

TLDR2: Your scenario which you finished by saying

literally cannot work unless you ignore a lot fact about both Scadrial and Roshar.

They don't need large numbers in my hypothetical scenario, they would just need enough to hold the caldera around Cultivation's perpendicularity. It being under water wouldn't likely be a major barrier to various twinborn enhanced with spikes and armed with medallions (one of which can provide breath). You would probably need less than 1000 people.

The fact that it is unlikely that Scadrian's would know about the Honorblades being in Shinovar doesn't change the fact that taking them would be the most viable strategy, which is what I was postulating. I'm also not clear on where Bondsmith are gaining their mind control powers from? I don't recall seeing this in the books.

I guess this is an agree to disagree? Roshar is basically feudal, even in the "democratic" governments the only people voting are the rich (merchants in Theylen) and influential (bureaucrats in Azir). This makes almost everyone else little better than slaves. Offering them something better will likely lead to revolution, as it did in pretty much every human society on Earth.

Roshar's tech level is nowhere near 18th century, someone else already addressed this in a post above. Fabrial tech is all well and good, but it does basically nothing for the common people. Offer people clean water, reliable food and the comfort of electricity, and they will be appreciative.

Do Highstorms even reach the tops of the Horneater peaks? Even if they did, the mountains are volcanoes with calderas, which would provide natural shelter. The only people venturing into the storms should be armed with Honorblades. I could see the storms being a problem if Scadrial were trying to invade Roshar with an army, but that isn't at all what I suggested.

I didn't ignore anything. If anything, you ignored the fact that I was outlining a potential plan of attack, not writing SA5 and Era3.

10 hours ago, Ookla the Frustrated. said:

A bunch of people carrying weapons, and a whole lot more people than we have ever seen.

The Nightwatcher has real power, she can change your species, eye color, give you gems, what sounds like Nightblood, cloth etc.

It would be a relatively small group of metalborn, certainly less than 1000 as I said above. And how do Spren know guns are weapons? For all we know the Spren would be curious about the outsiders and offer them a ride to the perpendicularity.

None of those things are are what you suggested they ask for, and most of them aren't useful. I think she was offering the actual Nightblood. I assume she had it before Nale did.

Edited December 21, 2022 by SwordNimiForPresident

Frustration · December 21, 2022

21 minutes ago, SwordNimiForPresident said:

I guess this is an agree to disagree? Roshar is basically feudal, even in the "democratic" governments the only people voting are the rich (merchants in Theylen) and influential (bureaucrats in Azir). This makes almost everyone else little better than slaves. Offering them something better will likely lead to revolution, as it did in pretty much every human society on Earth.

Humans don't have a natural desire for democracy. Just offering that, when their current situation is actually quite decent won't get you anywhere.

21 minutes ago, SwordNimiForPresident said:

Offer people clean water, reliable food and the comfort of electricity, and they will be appreciative.

They have reliable clean water, it comes for free every couple of days. Food is also consistent, especially with the spreading of Listener crop growing methods, and a wider availability of soulcasters. And how are you getting electricity to prove their claims? And how is that any better than what they have?

21 minutes ago, SwordNimiForPresident said:

Do Highstorms even reach the tops of the Horneater peaks? Even if they did, the mountains are volcanoes with calderas, which would provide natural shelter. The only people venturing into the storms should be armed with Honorblades. I could see the storms being a problem if Scadrial were trying to invade Roshar with an army, but that isn't at all what I suggested.

Highstorms get high enough to get taller than all of Urithiru. And Horneater peaks aren't Calderas, they are literal snow coverwd peaks, with pockets of warmth near perpendicularities.

21 minutes ago, SwordNimiForPresident said:

It would be a relatively small group of metalborn, certainly less than 1000 as I said above. And how do Spren know guns are weapons? For all we know the Spren would be curious about the outsiders and offer them a ride to the perpendicularity.

Even a thousand would be a feat, Harmony struggles to get one out.

And spren interact with worldhoppers all the time, at least some of them have seen guns. And why would they offer a ride? They charge for everything, and unless they want to part with their guns, they don't have anything to sell.

Quote

None of those things are are what you suggested they ask for, and most of them aren't useful. I think she was offering the actual Nightblood. I assume she had it before Nale did.

She also offera the ability to fight forever without getting tired, so she can bestow invested abilities.

Edited December 21, 2022 by Ookla the Frustrated.

Tglassy · December 21, 2022

26 minutes ago, Ookla the Frustrated. said:

Twinborn are not "arbitrarily limited" they are limited by the population, misting are 1 in a thousand according to the books, and twinborn are even more rare. We calculated it somewhere earlier, but there is not enough twinborn to make any appreciable difference.

Am I the only one who read RoW? Kaladin had almost all of his powers taken away, fought a guy who could literally teleport, and still won. Wax would have perished in his first interaction with Lezian, but Kaladin would have preformed even better against the Set's forces. And he's not even the best fighter Roshar has. Taln on his own could easily take every twinborn who ever existed. When it comes to supersoldiers Roshar far outpaces Scadrial.

If Taln could manage to think long enough to be a threat, maybe.

26 minutes ago, Ookla the Frustrated. said:

You do not understand compounding. Compounding has hard limits, with the amount of power received being equal to the amount of metal consumed. It is far from infinate. And that's not to mention they have to be natural compounders of which maybe one has ever existed for those metals.

First off, doesn't matter how many have ever existed. Secondly, there is no hard limit. You eat Pewter. You burn Pewter for strength, putting that Strength in a Metalmind. You burn that metalmind getting 10x the strength, putting it all in a new metalmind. You then eat that metalmind and burn it for 100x the original strength. Rense, repeat, putting all of it into a number of smaller metalminds. It is, effectively, infinite, just like Miles' healing was effectively infinite, and Pewter is a hell of a lot cheaper than Gold. At the very least he'd have enough to give him 10x to 100x the strength of an ordinary person for, like, years, before he ran out.

26 minutes ago, Ookla the Frustrated. said:

Do you know how specific your placement has to be? You can't just hit the heart, you have to hit a very specific region of the heart.

Since when does that matter? Just because it's hard doesn't mean it's impossible. Just give it to the Pewterarms. They have the precision to do it.

26 minutes ago, Ookla the Frustrated. said:

Nergoaul will take control of them.

Cool! So we're basically throwing in everythign the planets have, including beings who are known to be locked away at the bottom of the ocean. Awesome. Well what does Nergoaul do? He...enrages things and makes them want to fight. Great. He also does it to both sides. Awesome. Good strategy, there, when dealing with freaking Kolos.

And since we're adding everything in, let's put a contengent of Khandra assassins to kill all the Radiants. Just make sure to keep killing them as new spren bond new radiants. Make sure to kill them before they get past the first ideal, like Nale did for centuries.

Or how about a whole fleet of Southern Scadrian airships with Ettmetal bombs. Go ahead and let the Windrunners and Skybreakers attack them. All they have to do is set off one of those bombs and theyll whipe out all the flying radiants in the area. Then they have to start over with training.

I'm assuming Rosharans also get Fused? And Odium? And every other Unmade? In the middle of a worldwide war? Cool. All of Roshar as it currently stands decides to stop fighting, Odium and Cultivation get in bed with each other and start making spren babies, and the Fused and Radiants are all palls, now, in this new hypothetical. In that case, let's go all out. Scadrians take every fallen Rosharan and steal their Strength with an Iron Spike, and make new Koloss out of them. As the Rosharans die, they make more and more Koloss. There's only one Nergoaul, since that's apparently you're only answer to an army of Koloss which the Rosharans will have no defense for. The things don't feel pain. Radiants have their bonds stolen. The whole army gets Aluminum armor and swords.

Or in that case, we'll just grab a bit of leftover Trellium and Harmonium and nuke Urutheru altogether. And then they grab their anti light bombs, which they're surely making, and nuke all of Scadrial. War's over. The only one left is the Pewter Compounder who is basically invincible.

26 minutes ago, Ookla the Frustrated. said:

No they can't. Shardplate is stronger than anything Scadrial has other than a pewter compounder, and can easily tank anything Scadrial could throw at them.

Yes they can. A regular Pewterarm is insanely strong, and fast, and agile, and dextrous. Shardplate makes you strong, but I won't believe it makes you any stronger than Pewter does. The Mistborn shown in the books regularly take out Koloss with a single hit, using Pewter. The only advantage the Shardplate gives is that it's armor, and therefore gives protection. Heck, Kaladin managed to crack it with a kick. Yeah, it was a kick as if he'd fallen from a great height, but still a kick. A Pewter flared kick would do the same thing. And if you can just say "no they can't" I can just say "Yes they can".

26 minutes ago, Ookla the Frustrated. said:

You have a lizard, not a dinosaur.

My lizard eats your chihuahua.

SwordNimiForPresident · December 21, 2022

32 minutes ago, Ookla the Frustrated. said:

Humans don't have a natural desire for democracy. Just offering that, when their current situation is actually quite decent won't get you anywhere.

They have reliable clean water, it comes for free every couple of days. Food is also consistent, especially with the spreading of Listener crop growing methods, and a wider availability of soulcasters. And how are you getting electricity to prove their claims? And how is that any better than what they have?

Highstorms get high enough to get taller than all of Urithiru. And Horneater peaks aren't Calderas, they are literal snow coverwd peaks, with pockets of warmth near perpendicularities.

Even a thousand would be a feat, Harmony struggles to get one out.

And spren interact with worldhoppers all the time, at least some of them have seen guns. And why would they offer a ride? They charge for everything, and unless they want to part with their guns, they don't have anything to sell.

She also offera the ability to fight forever without getting tired, so she can bestow invested abilities.

We clearly have different ideas of what decent means.

Reliable clean water comes out of a faucet when I turn it on, not out of a puddle when it rains. Consistent food means industrial processing and preserving, not hoping that the super rich people with magic jewelry will turn your garbage into blocks of tasteless gruel. Electricity is crucial to both of those things. For all the reasons I just said.

If they aren't calderas, where are the "oceans" Rock talks about. I assumed they were dormant volcanoes with hot springs in the calderas, but I could be wrong.

You're using the literal first person sent as your example. Maybe you're right though and we will only ever see a few people use the CR to travel to/from Scadrial for the rest of the Cosmere story. But I doubt it.

They have all kinds of weird off world stuff to sell/trade.. the pro Roshar crowd seems to think that the Spren are going to see foreigners and immediately go on the war path. I think it much more likely that they would be curious.

Or, she was going to make it so they can't sleep anymore as their boon, and cause them to hallucinate that they are being attacked constantly as their curse.. which would still abide by the letter of that offer.

edit: is it just me, or has Scadrial vs Roshar become the new Shaladin?

Edited December 21, 2022 by SwordNimiForPresident

Tglassy · December 21, 2022

8 minutes ago, SwordNimiForPresident said:

the pro Roshar crowd seems to think that the Spren are going to see foreigners and immediately go on the war path. I think it much more likely that they would be curious.

Yeah, the pro Roshar crowd seems to think that the entirety of Roshar is one big cozy nation that never fights, instead a hot mess of different cultures who all at best mistrust each other and at worst absolutly revile each other. Scadrial has, like, three factions: Elendel, the rest of the Basin, and Southern Scadrial. Pretty sure they could find friends among the Spren, and among many of the nations of Roshar. Heck, we're WATCHING one world invade Roshar, and they brought an entire ORDER of Knights Radiant to their side, and many Spren are considering joing them!

8 minutes ago, SwordNimiForPresident said:

edit: is it just me, or has Scadrial vs Roshar become the new Shaladin?

I don't know what this means, but I can infer from context that it was a headed discussion?

SwordNimiForPresident · December 21, 2022

8 minutes ago, Tglassy said:

I don't know what this means, but I can infer from context that it was a headed discussion?

I envy you. What it must have been like to grow up in a post triangle world..

Imagine if confirmation bias had a baby with head canon. Then that baby grew up and wrote bad romance fan fic. That's Shaladin in a nutshell.

Frustration · December 21, 2022

47 minutes ago, Tglassy said:

If Taln could manage to think long enough to be a threat, maybe.

How fortunate that he gets to that point for the back five, and that Dalinar is currently working on solving that problem, ten years before this has to even come up.

47 minutes ago, Tglassy said:

First off, doesn't matter how many have ever existed.

Yes it does, if there aren't any alive, you don't have them.

47 minutes ago, Tglassy said:

Secondly, there is no hard limit. You eat Pewter. You burn Pewter for strength, putting that Strength in a Metalmind. You burn that metalmind getting 10x the strength, putting it all in a new metalmind. You then eat that metalmind and burn it for 100x the original strength. Rense, repeat, putting all of it into a number of smaller metalminds. It is, effectively, infinite, just like Miles' healing was effectively infinite, and Pewter is a hell of a lot cheaper than Gold. At the very least he'd have enough to give him 10x to 100x the strength of an ordinary person for, like, years, before he ran out.

That's not how that works.

Just think about that, how is the allomancy getting stronger?

47 minutes ago, Tglassy said:

Since when does that matter?

Um, always?

47 minutes ago, Tglassy said:

Just because it's hard doesn't mean it's impossible. Just give it to the Pewterarms. They have the precision to do it.

No they don't, do you know how hard that is, not just at all but in combat? It would be next to impossible.

47 minutes ago, Tglassy said:

Cool! So we're basically throwing in everythign the planets have, including beings who are known to be locked away at the bottom of the ocean.

You're the one who brought the south Scadrians and the Koloss in.

47 minutes ago, Tglassy said:

Well what does Nergoaul do? He...enrages things and makes them want to fight. Great. He also does it to both sides. Awesome. Good strategy, there, when dealing with freaking Kolos.

Mind controlls them and turns them against Scadrial, just like he did with Amarams forces at the end of OB.

47 minutes ago, Tglassy said:

And since we're adding everything in, let's put a contengent of Khandra assassins to kill all the Radiants.

*Kandra.

And how? They can't impersonate Radiants, there is basically no way to kill them in Urithiru, and any Elsecaller, Lightweaver, or Willshaper that looks at them in the CR will see them for what they are.

47 minutes ago, Tglassy said:

Or how about a whole fleet of Southern Scadrian airships with Ettmetal bombs.

How are you getting those to Roshar? They are far too large to get through the perpendicularity, and even if you somehow managed the Highstorm/everstorm would tear them to pieces and the water would set off the bombs.

47 minutes ago, Tglassy said:

I'm assuming Rosharans also get Fused? And Odium? And every other Unmade? In the middle of a worldwide war? Cool.

Oh that war ended ten years ago. And if Scadrial is united so is Roshar.

47 minutes ago, Tglassy said:

Scadrians take every fallen Rosharan and steal their Strength with an Iron Spike, and make new Koloss out of them. As the Rosharans die, they make more and more Koloss.

You can't spike dead people.

47 minutes ago, Tglassy said:

There's only one Nergoaul, since that's apparently you're only answer to an army of Koloss which the Rosharans will have no defense for.

There are four bondsmiths who can all do the same thing. Not that it would matter as Nergaoul could control all of them.

47 minutes ago, Tglassy said:

The only one left is the Pewter Compounder who is basically invincible

That is literally not true at all. They are just as vulnerable as anyone else.

47 minutes ago, Tglassy said:

Yes they can. A regular Pewterarm is insanely strong, and fast, and agile, and dextrous. Shardplate makes you strong, but I won't believe it makes you any stronger than Pewter does. The Mistborn shown in the books regularly take out Koloss with a single hit, using Pewter. The only advantage the Shardplate gives is that it's armor, and therefore gives protection. Heck, Kaladin managed to crack it with a kick. Yeah, it was a kick as if he'd fallen from a great height, but still a kick. A Pewter flared kick would do the same thing. And if you can just say "no they can't" I can just say "Yes they can".

I haven’t worked out the numbers on that exactly. I have an instinct that says thatburning pewter, healing goes a bit faster but I have to look in the books and see what we’ve done in the past and then kind of canonize it.

Calamity Philadelphia signing (Feb. 20, 2016)

While Shardplate allows you to easily hold shardhammers in one hand which three people would struggle to pick up(WoK 415)

44 minutes ago, SwordNimiForPresident said:

Reliable clean water comes out of a faucet when I turn it on, not out of a puddle when it rains.

They have indoor plumbing, cisterns built behind houses basically give everyone their own water tower. So unlike Scadrian water theirs isn't dependent on the city having power. Ans that was ten years ago, water attraction fabrials have probably become common, so their plumbing is even better.

44 minutes ago, SwordNimiForPresident said:

Consistent food means industrial processing and preserving, not hoping that the super rich people with magic jewelry will turn your garbage into blocks of tasteless gruel.

And the fact that Cultivation's tone in conjunction with stormlight allows a single farmer to easily quadruple their current output never entered your consideration? And Chouta is soulcast food that tastes good.

44 minutes ago, SwordNimiForPresident said:

Electricity is crucial to both of those things. For all the reasons I just said.

Stormlight is better than electricity in every way. Not only can it do everything electricity can and more it's also free.

44 minutes ago, SwordNimiForPresident said:

If they aren't calderas, where are the "oceans" Rock talks about. I assumed they were dormant volcanoes with hot springs in the calderas, but I could be wrong.

The oceans are perpendicularities.

44 minutes ago, SwordNimiForPresident said:

They have all kinds of weird off world stuff to sell/trade.. the pro Roshar crowd seems to think that the Spren are going to see foreigners and immediately go on the war path. I think it much more likely that they would be curious.

The spren see off worlders all the time. Roshar is a hub of interplanetary trade, what do they have to be curious about?

44 minutes ago, SwordNimiForPresident said:

Or, she was going to make it so they can't sleep anymore as their boon, and cause them to hallucinate that they are being attacked constantly as their curse.. which would still abide by the letter of that offer.

The Nightwatcher doesn't play a word game, she gives you what you want, with a curse of whatever she decides.

44 minutes ago, SwordNimiForPresident said:

edit: is it just me, or has Scadrial vs Roshar become the new Shaladin?

While Shaladin might have the longest thread in the book discussions the post RoW thread is number 2. And if you add all the Mistborn vs. Radiant, and other similar threads together it blows Shaladin out of the water.

33 minutes ago, Tglassy said:

Yeah, the pro Roshar crowd seems to think that the entirety of Roshar is one big cozy nation that never fights, instead a hot mess of different cultures who all at best mistrust each other and at worst absolutly revile each other. Scadrial has, like, three factions: Elendel, the rest of the Basin, and Southern Scadrial. Pretty sure they could find friends among the Spren, and among many of the nations of Roshar. Heck, we're WATCHING one world invade Roshar, and they brought an entire ORDER of Knights Radiant to their side, and many Spren are considering joing them!

Roshar's battle ended ten years before this, and Scadrial got invaded and the Malwish uses it to extort the Basin. Both sides are about equally divided.

14 minutes ago, SwordNimiForPresident said:

Imagine if confirmation bias had a baby with head canon. Then that baby grew up and wrote bad romance fan fic. That's Shaladin in a nutshell.

Given the number of false claims I've seen from the "pro scadrian" side I find this funny.

Edited December 21, 2022 by Ookla the Frustrated.

therunner · December 21, 2022

8 hours ago, alder24 said:

I would not put them that tale. 18/19? Too late. They lack of industrial revolution(1760) or even printing press(1450). It's hard to compare medical, as in Mistborn we follow a guy who can heal himself, but judging form MeLaan description of Marasi's wound, (BoM when they fly to the temple) which was very technical, and no one asked any questions or was surprised by that description, Scadrial is also on very advanced stage. At least comparable to Roshar. That was likely the only medical description we got in BoM.

Yes they have few fancy tools and advance theories. They do not follow Earth development, as Roshar is vastly different than Earth, and with Stormlight and gems they can make these more advanced tools. But still the glaring lack of early machinery like printing press, manufacturing, early industry or mass production, makes me think that they are a bit earlier, 15-17th century at best.

In some ways they are late 18th century early 19th, like the medical science, germ theory etc.

They are currently undergoing their equivalent of industiral revolution ("fabrial revolution")", industrial revolution was primarily motivated by move to quicker manufacturing, which is a much less of a factor on Roshar thanks to presence of Soulcasting.
And it only got going in ~1820, not 1760.

Lack of printing press has to do with cultural traditions of Vorinism, not to the limitations of their technology. Even in our world, some Arabic cultures did not adopt printing press until ~18th century, in Korea it took until late 19th century.

Kandra having advanced medical knowledge does not mean Basin in general does. Kandra also know about radios, movies and investiture-energy conversion and Basin folk don't. And would you ask question about medical knowledge when you have bigger things to worry about and you trust the person?

Dismissing fabrials as 'few fancy tools' is doing them disservice. You don't see Scadrial technology being dismissed as 'few fancy toys', and a lot of those they had to be guided to by Autonomy!

I'd agree to say that they are an odd mix of early 16th till early 19th (rarely reaching to early 20th) depending on the particular field of science. And of course they are a powerhouse when it comes to fabrial based magi-tech (which in practice moves them easily to early 18th century), only challenged by Selish and Nalthians on that front (as far as we know).

8 hours ago, alder24 said:

Most people on Roshar are uneducated poor/working class, like medieval peasants but better and with more rights. Far from slaves tho, but there still are slaves. East is kind of feudalish with high gender inequality. Half of Roshar can't write. And Thaylenah as elective monarchy - only naval officers and merchant councils can vote. It's merchant republic, very common in middle ages (Venice). Azir is even worst, just few viziers vote for emperor. So while on Scadrial people complain about representation, all can vote and live in democracy (not perfect), and it still much, much better than anything on Roshar where 99.9% can't do anything to influence their government, and even Reshi isles have kings. Only Shins don't have monarchy.

How many people can write in Basin? I don't think their literacy rates are all that great either. late 19th century literacy levels were around ~70-75% across the board (women had lower levels, men higher). And Roshar at least has religious traditions as an 'excuse'.
And yet in principle anyone can become emperor in Azir.
And Jasnah is planning large-scale reforms (though I doubt they would be successful), and she has 10 years to implement them.

I am not sure if the people outside of Elendel who cannot vote for Elendel representation, yet are bound by its decrees (i.e. taxation on goods, where to build railways, etc.) feel they can actually vote. That is the whole reason for the political tension in Basin, they can vote de jure but de facto the vote matters very little.

8 hours ago, alder24 said:

Scadrial would bring to Roshar revolutionary ideas of equality, democracy, and give more rights for commoners than there are on Roshar. (no guillotine this time)

Elements of democracy already exists, what does not exist is universal suffrage. Which to be fair was quite radical concept in our world too (just look at when just men gained suffrage, not to mention women).
Equality will be hard sell for religious reasons, but Radiants are already leading to erosion of that cultural tradition + you have Jasnah and her planned reforms (i.e. planning to abolish slavery for start).
And what more rights should commoner have? Right to vote I expect, but what other rights are they missing, genuinely curious.

8 hours ago, alder24 said:

No mass transit? Taxis everywhere! Huge railway industry, cheep enough to rival extensive canal networks and send trains straight to factories and warehouses. It has to be cheep, for people as well. Bilming has cheep public overground railway. New Seran has gondolas. And cars are in every city now. That's no mass transit for you?

I don't consider taxis mass transit, it is just personal car for hire, but fair enough.
Railway industry in Basin is not that huge, is poorly designed (wheel and spoke concept, leading to political tensions) and we have no evidence it is cheap nor that trains go straight to factories or warehouses.

Bilming was designed and funded by Autonomy and Set, and is considered the leading example of Outer cities, but good example. I would not consider New Seran gondolas for the same reason as taxis.

Cars are not mass transit, and those are also definitely not cheap.

And you could not do a lot of this on Roshar. Traintracks would have to be harded against superhurricane, and against crem buildup. Cars would require gasoline, which Roshar does not have.

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Scadrial can mass produced canned food. This is a lot to offer.

Scadrial could produce canned food for 300 years, Roshar can soulcast it on demand.

8 hours ago, alder24 said:

He could, if he knew that is possible. Simmilar to how Scadrial has to know about Honorblades, Dalinar has to know about Hemalurgy and how to fight it to control them. He won't have that knowledge. No one on Roshar ever heard of Hemalurgy (outside of Mraize and Hoid).

All he has to do is try and Connect to the odd people in Highstorm, and voila, there is nothing to fight. See Vin/Elend taking over Kandra or Koloss, and Bondsmithing is tailor made tool for this.
And if Roshar has no knowledge of Hemalurgy, I expect Scadrial to have little understanding of Surgebinding and Bondsmithing especially.

8 hours ago, alder24 said:

But still, I agree that Scadrial is in much worse position for invasion of Roshar than Roshar for invasion of Scadrial. They can't do it at all, not to mention succeed. They would fail in CR harassed from dozens of Oathgates by Rosharian troops, targeting supply chains and logistics. Highstorms are also a big obstacle. Scadrial can't invade Roshar.

On that we agree.

7 hours ago, Kuldak said:

I know the whole point of these discussions is speculation and theorizing, but I feel that having both "Roshar's military vs Scadrial's military" and "What do you think Roshar will look like in 10 years" discussions at the same time is muddying the waters a bit. I also feel that if you absolutely must have a decade of speculative advancement, only giving it to one side in this theoretical war is quite one sided, and makes it hard to debate the merits of one side vs the other when one side is effectively restricted to canon, and the other is often wild speculation.

We can easily restrict both to RoW timeline to eliminate speculation, that is the most straightforward solution.

Result is Scadrial losing: machine guns, grenade launchers, advanced artillery, AA-guns, rockets, H-T bombs, access to medallions (if we don't consider united planets), radios, cars, electric lights, telegraphs. Also army in Elendel was only started being taken seriously in response to existence of Malwish, so 10 years prior to TLM they don't even have those 10 000 trained soldiers they have now.

And some have already engaged in speculation of progress on Scadrial, such as miniaturizing H-T bombs to fit on rockets, figuring out easy way to scale them and set them up, dissemination of Hemalurgy, mass production of Aluminum and aluminum made weaponry and ammunition, etc.

6 hours ago, Tglassy said:

Imma come out and say that if Twinborn are abitrarily limited in this dicussion, so are 4th ideal Radiants. We've only seen 2 with Plate, and know there are only two in the entire planet as of RoW, wheras we've seen 4 Twinborn (Wax, Wayne, Miles and the kid Wax killed when he was a kid) and had confirmation that, while rare, they DO exist. And it's been said that most Radiants never got past the third ideal. So if Wax is a rarity, so is Kaladin. That means you've got 3rd ideal at best, with a few 4th here and there. That does NOT make Roshar a powerhouse. In fact, I would say that there are probably more Mistings/Ferrings than Radiants total. There are only 50 Edgedancers and 3 Truthwatchers in the entire Rosharan Military. Not a one of them past the 3rd ideal. There are more Windrunners. So the bulk of the military is Windrunners and Stonewardens, with a smattering of others.

That would compare to Mistings/Ferrings, with probably the same number of Twinborn as there are 4th ideal Radiants. I'd say that cancels each other out.

Twinborn are limited because they must be born, and the incidence we are seeing is something like 1 in a 500 000(which roughly works out, since Mistings are ~1 in 100, Ferrings 1 in 1000, and the genes typically interfere with one another). So you will typically have something like 20-50 Twinborn in the entire basin, if we are being very generous. And that is across all ages, and across all 256 Twinborn combinations.

Conversely Radiants are made not born, and since rediscovery of Radiancy some 6 years in past there are already 2 of them (and there would be 3 if not for Moash). This is while a lot of spren refuse to bond, creating artificial bottleneck. Historically we know that even 4th Oaths numbered in hundreds (across all orders) and that was when population of both human and spren was much lower.

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Or let's take a double Pewter Compounder. We're theorycrafting 4th lvl Radiants who can Soulcast around peope's heads, so let's theory craft one of these bad boys. What do you do to someone with, literally, infinite strenth? Someone burning Pewter is harder to injure, cause their muscles are stronger. If he burns pewter, stores the extra strength in a pewtermind, then burns THAT pewtermind, you get around the whole increased weight thing, but still gain literally infinite strength. That means muscles that are infinitely strong, along side the other effects of Pewter. Give him modern weapons and a suit of armor made of the same alloy of Alluminum they make the guns out of, and you've got someone no one on Roshar can defeat, including a Knight Radiant of whatever ideal you want to give them. And their power isn't limited to a planet. It's just metal. And a fairly cheap one.

Ok, there is at most 0-1 pewter compounders, since they have to be born.
And that is not how Pewter Compounding works, you compound the feruchemical attribute, not Allomantic one. All they would get from Pewter compounding is increased amount of muscle (like we see from Sazed in WoA ch 13), and that would quickly lead to them being immobile Sazed was already reaching limits and he is just Feruchemist.

So even at his best you would get someone who is ~15x stronger than usual (5x from tapping Pewter, and 3x of that from Flaring) while still staying mostly mobile. Shardplate provides greater strength than that.

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Or how about a Steel Compounder? Infinite enhanced speed. The Flash. There's nothing on Roshar that can answer to that. If the speed is truly infinite, as Compounders have shown to be, then you send ONE of those to Roshar and it can kill the entire army and every Radiant around.

Yep, steel compounders are a big problem. In the last thread giving people spikes to turn them into them was one of the few ways to challenge Radiant in plate.
Again though, there is only 1 if even that. They are still susceptible to Surges (e.g. Reverse Lashing or Adhesion), they cannot fly (so anyone in air is mostly safe), and their powers could be in principle blocked by suppresor fabrial (thought that would require experimentation to set up properly).

Also, their speed is not infinite, they are limited to lower Mach speeds unless they want to die (friction and whatnot). But you could resolve that with a bunch of spikes, unless you are worried about Bondsmith.

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And if you're going to add in Hemalurgy, then you don't stop at giving spikes to your people. Yes, you give spikes to your people. But you also spike the Radiants. Steal their connection to Spren. Stormlight can heal spiritual wounds, but only if you can use Stormlight. Sure, the Spren can just break the bond, but in the moment, the Radiant loses all power. That might take some experimenting, but it's possible. Pretty sure Brandon said so.

If every Scadrian soldier knows proper Bind points for Spren and also can do it on the fly on battlefield (the only examples of on the fly spiking were guided by Ruin directly), then I guess Roshar at minimum knows how to use Bondsmithing to take over people with Spikes.

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I've been ignoring the Allomancy/Ferruchemy of the Scadrian army, cause in my mind they are fairly equal to Radiants, but people keep bringing up the Radiants, and forget that Scadrial has access to an alloy of Aluminum that can be used in making weapons. If they can do that, they can make armor that can't be affected by Radiants. Pewterarm shocktroops, without that armor, can take on any Radiant of less than the 4th ideal, and give them a Coinshot/Lurcher backup and they become insane. Give them Alluminum Armor and they can even take on a 4rth Ideal Radiant. Windrunner Lashing woudln't work, they'd block the Blade, and they'd have a similar increase in strength and speed. Vin, using Pewter, could lift a Koloss Sword with one hand with ease. Tineye Scouts can find information much easier. Bendalloy spies or assassins to get into their inner circles and steal info. Soothers and Rioters to demoralize enemies. Oh. And I forgot about Kolos. Scadrians have Kolos. Just send THEM after the Rosharans.
Seekers to find hidden Lightweavers. Copper Clouds to disrupt Spren. Guns, electricity, and the simple motor. If you include Southern Scadrial, you, at minimum, have medallions that grant Iron, Brass and Copper Feruchemy. Maybe more. Give all your Coinshots Feruchemical Iron and turn them ALL in to Wax. Why wouldn't you? They can't compound, but you don't need to. Spike all your Pewterarms with Gold healing.

Kolos will be taken over by Bondsmith, point for Roshar.
Mistings/Ferrings are at best equal to 2nd Oath Radiant and most not even that. 3rd Oath Windrunner beats Mistborn in combat (there are WoBs).
Scadrial cannot yet mass produce aluminum nor aluminum alloys.

Pewterarm in aluminum armor is still weak to boulder to the face, or being poisoned, drowned, set on fire, trapped underground etc. And they are far weaker than Radiant in plate, Pewter 3x strength at most, Plate is circa 20x .
Coinshot and Lurchers are rendered limited by 1) Reverse Lashings 2) Attractor/repulsor fabrials.
We don't know seekers could find Lightweavers who are tryinig to hide.
Copperclouds affect Spren, but don't necessarily hinder them, so disruption is over-statement.

You will give them powers of Wax not his skill, or shall we say that all Windrunners are Kaladin since they share powers?
There is not enough gold ferrings to spike all pewterarms, but still you could do it at least for some. Still would leave them inferior in healing to Radiants with lot of Stormlight.

Soother and Rioters are rendered in-effective by aluminum helments, which Roshar could produce easily thanks to Soulcasting. And Roshar does now know Aluminum blocks Investiture (thanks to events of Dawnshard).

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And then give them all guns. All of them. And you can't say "until they run out of bullets" when I can just say "Until you run out of Stormlight."

Bullets have to be manufactured and transported to battle, Stormlight does not (if on Roshar).
And Scadrial has population at least 10-20x times smaller, numbers are still relevant factor.

6 hours ago, SwordNimiForPresident said:

They don't need large numbers in my hypothetical scenario, they would just need enough to hold the caldera around Cultivation's perpendicularity. It being under water wouldn't likely be a major barrier to various twinborn enhanced with spikes and armed with medallions (one of which can provide breath). You would probably need less than 1000 people.

So Scadrial can send in only individual people, not heavy machinery which is their primary advantage?
And again, Twinborn are incredibly rare and each would have different powers not necessarily suitable for mission, definitely not 1000, you would be glad to get 2-3.

If you want 1000 mistings/ferrings each with 5 powers through Spikes, you need to kill 4000 people, which is ~1/5 of all Metalborn in the Basin. Most likely you would not be able to get enough appropriate spikes.

Also, soul now have limits to powers it can hold. Since you cannot spike more in, medallion would most likely not work either (see Kelsier and his issues).

So you are still limited to 5 powers at most, which would it be?

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The fact that it is unlikely that Scadrian's would know about the Honorblades being in Shinovar doesn't change the fact that taking them would be the most viable strategy, which is what I was postulating. I'm also not clear on where Bondsmith are gaining their mind control powers from? I don't recall seeing this in the books.

Duralumin compounder coudl take over hemalurgic constructs (https://wob.coppermind.net/events/356-worldcon-76/#e10524) and spikes in general open even regular people to control and manipulation.
And Bondsmiths are the masters of Connection manipulation in Cosmere. Add in that Dalinar is bonded to (and represents) remnant of Shard, he has all he needs to take them over.

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I guess this is an agree to disagree? Roshar is basically feudal, even in the "democratic" governments the only people voting are the rich (merchants in Theylen) and influential (bureaucrats in Azir). This makes almost everyone else little better than slaves. Offering them something better will likely lead to revolution, as it did in pretty much every human society on Earth.

Eh, most people are far better off than slaves, what are you talking about?
And democratic revolutions are basically a thing only in the last 200 years, not something that was happening in 'every human society'.

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I didn't ignore anything. If anything, you ignored the fact that I was outlining a potential plan of attack, not writing SA5 and Era3.

Your plan of attack ignored a lot about Roshar, Scadrial and the Invested powers involved.

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It would be a relatively small group of metalborn, certainly less than 1000 as I said above. And how do Spren know guns are weapons? For all we know the Spren would be curious about the outsiders and offer them a ride to the perpendicularity.

There is a lot of trade going on in Shadesmar, and guns are not Scadrian only invention.
They could trade with them sure, depending on what they would offer. The only rare goods Scadrial has is their tech right now, and they would probably not want to part with that.

5 hours ago, Tglassy said:

Yeah, the pro Roshar crowd seems to think that the entirety of Roshar is one big cozy nation that never fights, instead a hot mess of different cultures who all at best mistrust each other and at worst absolutly revile each other. Scadrial has, like, three factions: Elendel, the rest of the Basin, and Southern Scadrial. Pretty sure they could find friends among the Spren, and among many of the nations of Roshar. Heck, we're WATCHING one world invade Roshar, and they brought an entire ORDER of Knights Radiant to their side, and many Spren are considering joing them!

If you take a look, both me and @Ookla the Frustrated. bring up Fused and Singers only in response to Scadrial working united.
And Scadrial has 4-5 factions: Elendel, Outer Cities, Roughs, Malwish, Maskless.
Roshar has: Coalition, Odium's forces, Shin, Independent Singers, Unaligned spren (who might join Coalition or Independent Singers following RoW revelations), unaligned countries.

That looks comparable to me.

And similarly, Malwish seem to despise Basin, Outer Cities hate Elendel, Roughs don't care and Maskless are in conflict with Malwish. Hardly a happy family either.

So we can continue to consider only Coalition vs Basin, and ignore most of other players, or we can consider united planets for simplicity.

Heretic333 · December 21, 2022

Its essentially War.. vs Harmony. Who do you think will win the most engagements over time? Assuming the investiture in Knights Radiant and Squires, and Mistborn and Mistings are equally distributed on the battlefield.

It would also be in Cultivations best interests to work together with Odium and Honor.

Cultivation and Odium... This probably the worst matchup of shards to go up against.. especialy while the shards will mainly employ the Knights Radiant on the battlefield.. which is Honor. And then the fused working together with Knights Radiant? Roshar hands down.

But Era 3 is a different story. Airplanes. Jets. Shielding. Nuclear Weapons.. Not looking good for Roshar. Unless the entire population of Roshar develops surge binding.

trav · December 21, 2022

Roshar.

They can churn out way more capable soldiers since Harmony is very stringy about handing out Lerasium..

Roshar also has the advantage of a less restricted magic system since Honor is dead. And they have a functional and capable avatar of a shard.

alder24 · December 21, 2022

8 hours ago, Ookla the Frustrated. said:

How fortunate that he gets to that point for the back five, and that Dalinar is currently working on solving that problem, ten years before this has to even come up.

Just because he's pov of back 5 books, deosn't mean he's alive - there was a WoB about it. We don't know if he gets to be ok, or that would be just flashbacks.

8 hours ago, Ookla the Frustrated. said:

Mind controlls them and turns them against Scadrial, just like he did with Amarams forces at the end of OB.

The forces that fight illusions? Very effective. And amaram forces were infused with sprens of Odium. Thrill flares aggressiveness and will to fight, not mind control anyone. And Thrill is mindless, it doens't matter for him whom you fight as long as you fight. That Koloss army would be even more dangerous to Roshar if controled by Thrill. But Thrill is on the bottom of the ocean, so he's not coming back.

3 hours ago, therunner said:

In some ways they are late 18th century early 19th, like the medical science, germ theory etc.

They are currently undergoing their equivalent of industiral revolution ("fabrial revolution")", industrial revolution was primarily motivated by move to quicker manufacturing, which is a much less of a factor on Roshar thanks to presence of Soulcasting.
And it only got going in ~1820, not 1760.

Lack of printing press has to do with cultural traditions of Vorinism, not to the limitations of their technology. Even in our world, some Arabic cultures did not adopt printing press until ~18th century, in Korea it took until late 19th century.

Kandra having advanced medical knowledge does not mean Basin in general does. Kandra also know about radios, movies and investiture-energy conversion and Basin folk don't. And would you ask question about medical knowledge when you have bigger things to worry about and you trust the person?

Dismissing fabrials as 'few fancy tools' is doing them disservice. You don't see Scadrial technology being dismissed as 'few fancy toys', and a lot of those they had to be guided to by Autonomy!

I'd agree to say that they are an odd mix of early 16th till early 19th (rarely reaching to early 20th) depending on the particular field of science. And of course they are a powerhouse when it comes to fabrial based magi-tech (which in practice moves them easily to early 18th century), only challenged by Selish and Nalthians on that front (as far as we know).

Some basics of germ theory were developed as early as 16th. Starting date of industrial revolution is debatable among historians, but it really kicked in around 1820.
For now fabrials are still mostly limited to rich and wealthy, and provide only simple tools like heating, lifting - no mass production with usage of fabrials, no motors, no machinery. That's not industrial revolution. That is a stepping point to it, but they are still behind. Even spanreeds are still limited to mostly nobels.
There is nothing stopping Roshar for developing printing press for glyphs or women's writing.

MeLaan was asked by Wax how's Marasi, she answer very technical, and no one was confused about it - they understand that. This suggest medical knowledge on Scadrial is advanced, comparable to Roshar's, on par with early 20th Earth. Again, its hard to tell, as we got a lot of technical terms from surgeon's pov in SA, and not even a doctor's visit in Mistborn.

I didn't try to be dismissive about fabrials. I wanted only to point out how limited in application and usage they are for now. They are mostly in hands of Navani and rich people.

Fabrials will be a powerhouse, and will cause industial revolution, but they are not there yet. Close, but not there.

3 hours ago, therunner said:

How many people can write in Basin? I don't think their literacy rates are all that great either. late 19th century literacy levels were around ~70-75% across the board (women had lower levels, men higher). And Roshar at least has religious traditions as an 'excuse'.
And yet in principle anyone can become emperor in Azir.
And Jasnah is planning large-scale reforms (though I doubt they would be successful), and she has 10 years to implement them.

I am not sure if the people outside of Elendel who cannot vote for Elendel representation, yet are bound by its decrees (i.e. taxation on goods, where to build railways, etc.) feel they can actually vote. That is the whole reason for the political tension in Basin, they can vote de jure but de facto the vote matters very little.

Newspapers are primary source of invormation for everyone, everywhere. Most if not all can read. Writing hard to tell, but schools are even at Roughs, university is accessible even for people from Roughs, so I would say it's still common.

I told it's not perfect in Basin. People outside of Elendel can still vote for their mayors, na those mayors can represent them in Elendel, which is not effective. But there are talks and voices calling for change, like Wax and Marasi. They even have non bloody "revolution" when worksers overthrown unpopular governor in SoS. Can anyone on Roshar do the same?

3 hours ago, therunner said:

Elements of democracy already exists, what does not exist is universal suffrage. Which to be fair was quite radical concept in our world too (just look at when just men gained suffrage, not to mention women).
Equality will be hard sell for religious reasons, but Radiants are already leading to erosion of that cultural tradition + you have Jasnah and her planned reforms (i.e. planning to abolish slavery for start).
And what more rights should commoner have? Right to vote I expect, but what other rights are they missing, genuinely curious.

Yes, universal suffrage that's the word.
Presumption of innocence. Right for fair court case. Right for the court representation/attorneys - Those alone would solve all problems that Kaladin and Moash faced. Wouldn't be nice if Tien wasn't send to war for some puny revange?
There are working rigths being implemented by Wax. Maybe right for free education (no idea if it is in Elendel tbf, but there are schools even in Roughs). Right for freedom of believe (just look how Jasnah and Dalinar are treated, maybe they are not punished by law, but they are still having troubles with this). Constitution. Criminal code. There is a lot that can be offered.

3 hours ago, therunner said:

I don't consider taxis mass transit, it is just personal car for hire, but fair enough.
Railway industry in Basin is not that huge, is poorly designed (wheel and spoke concept, leading to political tensions) and we have no evidence it is cheap nor that trains go straight to factories or warehouses.

Bilming was designed and funded by Autonomy and Set, and is considered the leading example of Outer cities, but good example. I would not consider New Seran gondolas for the same reason as taxis.

Cars are not mass transit, and those are also definitely not cheap.

And you could not do a lot of this on Roshar. Traintracks would have to be harded against superhurricane, and against crem buildup. Cars would require gasoline, which Roshar does not have.

Cars are quite common, cheep enough that cab companies switched easily to cars, more than that even common people use it - Wax crushed few of them. Trucks are used on mass.

Train tracks were place in a multiple warehouses Set used during Era 2. Most recent one is in Blimming again. But even in AoL, the one where Miles was caught, I think there were train tracks there as well.

Gasoline can be manufacture from plants (Scadrial is doing that). Rails can be placed in a ditch, with sufficient draining, or storm barriers. Cream would be a problem for sure.

3 hours ago, therunner said:

Scadrial could produce canned food for 300 years, Roshar can soulcast it on demand.

More than 300 years, they have it during Final Empire. Roshar can soulcast it, but tell that to the people in remote village, who never seen Soulcaster. Or people stuck in Kholinar siege, where most were starving even when there was a soulcaster making food for them. There are limits of what soulcasters can do. Canned food has no limits and can last for years, while soulcasted food for days/weeks.

3 hours ago, therunner said:

All he has to do is try and Connect to the odd people in Highstorm, and voila, there is nothing to fight. See Vin/Elend taking over Kandra or Koloss, and Bondsmithing is tailor made tool for this.
And if Roshar has no knowledge of Hemalurgy, I expect Scadrial to have little understanding of Surgebinding and Bondsmithing especially.

Just connect? Intent doesn't matter here? I would say intent is important. So discovering it by accident is unlikely.
I would say Roshar has no knowledge of Hemalurgy, mainly because most Scadrial don't have that (just because they heard of it or read about it in books left by Sezed doesn't provide them knowledge how it works as Sazed suppressed it). Knowledge about Allomancy and Feruchemy is common on Scadrial, similarly Surgebinding is geting more common knowledge on Roshar.

And we're back to playing ping-pong with responses again.

SwordNimiForPresident · December 21, 2022

4 hours ago, therunner said:

So Scadrial can send in only individual people, not heavy machinery which is their primary advantage?
And again, Twinborn are incredibly rare and each would have different powers not necessarily suitable for mission, definitely not 1000, you would be glad to get 2-3.

If you want 1000 mistings/ferrings each with 5 powers through Spikes, you need to kill 4000 people, which is ~1/5 of all Metalborn in the Basin. Most likely you would not be able to get enough appropriate spikes.

Also, soul now have limits to powers it can hold. Since you cannot spike more in, medallion would most likely not work either (see Kelsier and his issues).

So you are still limited to 5 powers at most, which would it be?

Duralumin compounder coudl take over hemalurgic constructs (https://wob.coppermind.net/events/356-worldcon-76/#e10524) and spikes in general open even regular people to control and manipulation.
And Bondsmiths are the masters of Connection manipulation in Cosmere. Add in that Dalinar is bonded to (and represents) remnant of Shard, he has all he needs to take them over.

Eh, most people are far better off than slaves, what are you talking about?
And democratic revolutions are basically a thing only in the last 200 years, not something that was happening in 'every human society'.

Your plan of attack ignored a lot about Roshar, Scadrial and the Invested powers involved.

There is a lot of trade going on in Shadesmar, and guns are not Scadrian only invention.
They could trade with them sure, depending on what they would offer. The only rare goods Scadrial has is their tech right now, and they would probably not want to part with that.

Heavy machinery is an advantage if they were defending, it would be less useful in the scenario that I was talking about.

This is my mistake I guess, I didn’t realize that Wax, Wayne and Miles were the only twinborn in the world during Era2. Could you point me to where this is explained?

I also wasn’t aware that we had census data to figure out that there were only 20000 metalborn on Scadrial. I was assuming that the Scadrial had at least tens of millions of inhabitants of which at least hundreds of thousands would be metalborn.

I was assuming that they each only got three spikes so this doesn’t change anything.

Probably F-gold and A-pewter at a minimum to make them combat effective.

So Bondsmith mind control is purely fan fic.

This is a matter of opinion I suppose. The people on Roshar have basically none of what we would consider basic human rights. You might not notice it because most of our viewpoint characters are wealthy, noble or powerful.

I wasn’t ignoring anything. I have no horse in this race. My comments were merely me positing how things could go.

Why wouldn’t Scadrial trade tech? It’s not like they can just make more.

Edited December 21, 2022 by SwordNimiForPresident

Scadrial vs. Roshar post Lost metal.

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