The tranquiline halls and Odium’s undead army in light of the lost metal

[Valigus]

Ok so the theory that the tranquiline halls are somehow real has been going around for a bit on the forums, and I like most people mostly dismissed it as extremely unlikely to be the case, however in light of autonomy’s actions within the lost metal it strikes me that maybe the theory should not be dismissed and I will outline a few reasons for this as well as I think the most logical version of theory goes.

1. Odium’s actions on roshar have been entirely non-conducive to his stated good which are

a. Killing shards- it seems like once the fused were made odium had clearly given up on easily or quickly splintering honor or cultivation, clearly this was still on the table but his later stated plans seem to indicate that his main plan had switched from just running around and splintering shards quickly to his cosmere army plan.

b. Winning the war- it also further strikes me that in light of how autonomy has just given her people all this advanced technology that Odium’s actions have not been helpful in terms of winning the war at all. If quick victory was what he truly wanted all he would need to do is introduce his forces to guns, even if the resources were somewhat problematic on roshar soulcasting renders that a non-issue.

c. Training an army- from here it also seems like Odium’s plan to train an army is also incredibly stupid, because it seems as if without the desolation’s roshar would have nearly 7000 years of advanced civilization, they would be so far ahead of other civilizations it wouldn’t even be fair. 
 

now I think it’s fair to say that maybe he expected a quick war, but I think after the first desolation it should’ve become clear that killing 9/10 people on the planet every desolation wouldn’t get you an army, and yet he seemed pretty confident in this plan and taravangian seemingly approved.

furthermore Odium’s plan just doesn’t seem to make sense because of those level of casualties, trained soldiers do not contribute to your army if they are dead.

I will also grant that now it seems like Odium’s goal has become to just win outright, but I think that may be because it’s gone on longer than he would have liked and he needs it to end. 
 

but ultimately there are very few ways in which Odium’s plan can somehow manage to bypass these issues unless his goal was not to own the war but to draw it out as long as possible and the army he trained was made of the dead form the 7000 years of war and only now has he decided it’s time to end it after a far too lengthy gap(because odium was gonna win, if taln hadn’t done his thing).

 

2. granted all of this does not point to the tranquiline halls and Odium’s undead army so let me explain why I think that is a logical explanation for these discrepancies.

my main point here rests on one question- what does the thrill do for odium? 
the thrill 1. Enhances the combat abilities of the afflicted, and 2. Opens them up to Odium’s influence. 
but based on what we’ve seen the first seems to hep odium only minimally and the second doesn’t seem to allow him to control them only to influence them and so doesn’t seem to have proved that helpful.

however the things that are important here are 1. Where does the thrill manifest and 2. How do shards get the ability to go influence people. 
the answer to 1 is obvious alethkar and vedenar highly militant vorin nations, the ones with the myth of the tranquiline halls in the first place and the ones with the best most elite militaries. The answer to 2 is also fairly straightforward, by investing people.

this leads to the conclusion that what the thrills actual purpose is, it’s to invest an army or the best warriors on roshar as they die and send them to Odium’s undead army.

while this is still pretty crackpot, autonomies actions combined with the assumption that odium is not a total idiot and generally has a reason for the things he does/makes lead me to think that it may actually be quite plausible even likely.

[lacrossedeamon]

So basically Odium is already or planning in the future to create Fused like cognitive shadows of humans that die while under the effects of the Thrill and store them in the “Tranquiline Halls”.

I do find it interesting but I that it was already generally accepted as canon that the Tranquiline Halls are real in so much as they are heavily romanticized and mythicized cultural memories of Ashyn.

[Valigus]

15 minutes ago, lacrossedeamon said:

So basically Odium is already or planning in the future to create Fused like cognitive shadows of humans that die while under the effects of the Thrill and store them in the “Tranquiline Halls”.

I do find it interesting but I that it was already generally accepted as canon that the Tranquiline Halls are real in so much as they are heavily romanticized and mythicized cultural memories of Ashyn.

I’m not sure they are fused like, I think they are likely to be very very weak cognitive shadows with one life, think more returned less fused. At least that’s what I’m imagining I don’t think odium would be willing to invest himself more than that.

the best and obvious comparison is Valhalla whose warriors are undead and somewhat powered up but on second death it’s final.

Edited February 6, 2023 by Valigus

[lacrossedeamon]

1 minute ago, Valigus said:

I’m not sure they are fused like, I think they are likely to be very very weak cognitive shadows with one life, think more returned less fused. At least that’s what I’m imagining I don’t think odium would be willing to take nicest himself more than that.

Returned are stapled back to their original bodies. How will these supposed cognitive shadows interact with the physical realm?

[Valigus]

3 minutes ago, lacrossedeamon said:

Returned are stapled back to their original bodies. How will these supposed cognitive shadows interact with the physical realm?

Unsure on that one I mean returned as an example of much weaker cognitive shadows though it is possible odium plans to staple them to singer bodies or some kind of like robots though that’s a little far fetched. 

generally I have no specifics I’m just noticing that given Odium’s resources, goals plans and actions there seems to be a large gap in our picture of what’s going on that this mostly fills.

it’s also possible even likely that other unmade are in on this as many are connected to death but who they are recruiting and why would be far less clear and I’m not quite sure how that would fit into Odium’s plan compared with the army part

[alder24]

It might be true, yet because Fused in OB were surprised that Odium can "fuse with humans" I doubt this is the case. They would know the presence of hundreds of thousands of CS on Braize, and wouldn't act surprised when Odium is investing humans during Thaylen battle.

6 minutes ago, lacrossedeamon said:

How will these supposed cognitive shadows interact with the physical realm?

Like Shades e.g.?

[Valigus]

2 minutes ago, alder24 said:

It might be true, yet because Fused in OB were surprised that Odium can "fuse with humans" I doubt this is the case. They would know the presence of hundreds of thousands of CS on Braize, and wouldn't act surprised when Odium is investing humans during Thaylen battle.

Like Shades e.g.?

Fair but I think it’s pretty clear that odium doesn’t shares a ton with the fused, and seems to prefer humans. I also suspect that these spirits would be dormant, in fact one thought I had was the everstorm may be made of them but that’s seems weird.

that’s valid but if it’s true then the thrill has essentially severed no purpose in all this time since it’s only real benefit to odium is opening people up to his influence which doesn’t help if he doesn’t then use them like at thaylen field.

yeah shades may be a good comparison though I do imagine odium has some plan to give them physical form.

[alder24]

15 minutes ago, Valigus said:

Fair but I think it’s pretty clear that odium doesn’t shares a ton with the fused, and seems to prefer humans. I also suspect that these spirits would be dormant, in fact one thought I had was the everstorm may be made of them but that’s seems weird.

Because Fused are insane. And your army of CS would also become insane after thousands of years, even if laying dormant. I suspect that's why Odium wants to conquer Roshar, to have manpower of living, sane warriors. Not that CS aren't useful.

[Valigus]

20 minutes ago, alder24 said:

Because Fused are insane. And your army of CS would also become insane after thousands of years, even if laying dormant. I suspect that's why Odium wants to conquer Roshar, to have manpower of living, sane warriors. Not that CS aren't useful.

He could and in fact it would are sense to wipe their memories seeing as most likely died fighting odium and it would be difficult to get them to serve him. 

fair but my problems with that are outlined in the first post, his actions are simply not conducive to winning the war. Especially given that we know harmony was able to just introduce guns, and unless this was his goal it seems to me he would have simply done that before.

in the end it just seems to me that without doing something like that to win the war, or harvesting the dead then rayse was far less cunning and far more irrational then we have suspected this far which I find unlikely given taravangian seems to have broadly signed off on the plan.

basically my argument is that it rayse was somewhat rational and cunning his plans, stated goals and actions fail to make sense unless this is (a part of) his plan. As well as if this is his plan we have a perfect mechanism for achieving this in the form of the thrill, which does the right thing, to the right people, at the right time and in the right places at least within the events we know the thrill was involved in.

Edited February 6, 2023 by Valigus

[alder24]

23 minutes ago, Valigus said:

fair but my problems with that are outlined in the first post, his actions are simply not conducive to winning the war. Especially given that we know harmony was able to just introduce guns, and unless this was his goal it seems to me he would have simply done that before.

To play devil's advocate, who is he going to introduce this technology to? Developing new advanced tech, even supported by all knowing shards, takes a lot of time. Set had years to develop a working missile with warhead with help of Autonomy, and yet they failed. Odium has nothing on Braize, only CS. He can't communicate with people on Roshar outside of Desolation, and in many cases even outside of Everstorm. Not all Fused have time to return when fighting is already happening. They don't have time for science, they have to allocate all resources for fighting. Heralds are doing the same things. Taln even said that there is no time to teach them metallurgy and steel, so they are going to give them copper and bronze. The fighting is brutal, and it's getting worse and worse. Desolations are coming faster and faster and there is simply no time for new technology, when so many people are dying and there is no manpower at all.

I think Odium was trapped by Honor and then by the Oathpact and was hoping to wear them down, but Taln lasting for 4500 years destroyed all his plans. If not for Taln, he would eventually get Roshar.

And to add more, throwing waves after waves of men was the "brilliant" tactic of WWI, all done under false assumption that the next assault will deplete the enemy out of resources. 

[Valigus]

28 minutes ago, alder24 said:

To play devil's advocate, who is he going to introduce this technology to? Developing new advanced tech, even supported by all knowing shards, takes a lot of time. Set had years to develop a working missile with warhead with help of Autonomy, and yet they failed. Odium has nothing on Braize, only CS. He can't communicate with people on Roshar outside of Desolation, and in many cases even outside of Everstorm. Not all Fused have time to return when fighting is already happening. They don't have time for science, they have to allocate all resources for fighting. Heralds are doing the same things. Taln even said that there is no time to teach them metallurgy and steel, so they are going to give them copper and bronze. The fighting is brutal, and it's getting worse and worse. Desolations are coming faster and faster and there is simply no time for new technology, when so many people are dying and there is no manpower at all.

I think Odium was trapped by Honor and then by the Oathpact and was hoping to wear them down, but Taln lasting for 4500 years destroyed all his plans. If not for Taln, he would eventually get Roshar.

And to add more, throwing waves after waves of men was the "brilliant" tactic of WWI, all done under false assumption that the next assault will deplete the enemy out of resources. 

So while I may agree there the one thing that counters that is basically soul casting, all odium would have to do is explain guns to fused soul asters allow them to briefly tinker for a time and then they should be able to make large quantities of funs with enough investiture.

 Even if this couldn’t be made in super high quantities it should be possible in large enough quantities to turn the war.

I’m not disagreeing that odium was trapped or that human wave tactics are eventually going to win him the war, im saying that his claim that roshar is a training ground as well as him not introducing advanced weapons seems to indicate to me that we must be missing something unless he is almost completely irrational. it doesn’t make sense to say “look at this place to train an army” get everyone there for training and then nuke them and repeat for 4000 years, that doesn’t train anyone except for the few immortals who are going mad anyway.

[alder24]

9 minutes ago, Valigus said:

So while I may agree there the one thing that counters that is basically soul casting, all odium would have to do is explain guns to fused soul asters allow them to briefly tinker for a time and then they should be able to make large quantities of funs with enough investiture.

 Even if this couldn’t be made in super high quantities it should be possible in large enough quantities to turn the war.

I doubt soulcasting guns would be an easy task. They are extremely complicated, full of moving parts and different alloys and materials. Not to mention gunpowder. And most Fused are insane, they won't help. Moreover guns on their own won't change anything. You need to train soldiers, develop new strategies, tactics and battle formations, change discipline and mentality. There is a lot of work to be done, then just "here are guns". And there is no time to do it when fight is already happenig when Fused Return.

12 minutes ago, Valigus said:

I’m not disagreeing that odium was trapped or that human wave tactics are eventually going to win him the war, im saying that his claim that roshar is a training ground as well as him not introducing advanced weapons seems to indicate to me that we must be missing something unless he is almost completely irrational. it doesn’t make sense to say “look at this place to train an army” get everyone there for training and then nuke them and repeat for 4000 years, that doesn’t train anyone except for the few immortals who are going mad anyway.

He's not training individual people, he is developing a warrior culture. This is a big difference. And it already worked. For 4500 years there was no Desolation (except the False one) and yet Alethi and Jah Keved were still stuck in militarism mentality. People are being born and the first thing they hear is that "you will be a warrior, like your dad!". The most glorified devotion is being a fighter and a soldier. They hear stories of famous warriors and Heralds, they are encouraged to train (every Lighteye is encouraged to train with Shardblade for various reasons), and to fight, and even to face opponents greater than them, like Shardbearers. Odium already accomplished his goal, thousands of years ago. Roshar is his training ground.

[Valigus]

5 minutes ago, alder24 said:

I doubt soulcasting guns would be an easy task. They are extremely complicated, full of moving parts and different alloys and materials. Not to mention gunpowder. And most Fused are insane, they won't help. Moreover guns on their own won't change anything. You need to train soldiers, develop new strategies, tactics and battle formations, change discipline and mentality. There is a lot of work to be done, then just "here are guns". And there is no time to do it when fight is already happenig when Fused Return.

He's not training individual people, he is developing a warrior culture. This is a big difference. And it already worked. For 4500 years there was no Desolation (except the False one) and yet Alethi and Jah Keved were still stuck in militarism mentality. People are being born and the first thing they hear is that "you will be a warrior, like your dad!". The most glorified devotion is being a fighter and a soldier. They hear stories of famous warriors and Heralds, they are encouraged to train (every Lighteye is encouraged to train with Shardblade for various reasons), and to fight, and even to face opponents greater than them, like Shardbearers. Odium already accomplished his goal, thousands of years ago. Roshar is his training ground.

First for the guns, I think gunpowder would be pretty easy, and the exact mechanism may not be soulcasting actual guns, it may be soul casting individual components and then assembling them though I think soulcasting guns would be possible. Also every firearms have almost no moving parts and I think a flintlock would be very easy to figure out for a fused with a little help and then assemble with soulcasting. 
 

im also gonna disagree with you on the matter of tactics and training, guns are much easier to train people with than many historical weapons, or at least get people to enough skill that they can impact the battlefield. Additionally musket tactics are sufficiently similar to the pike blocks common on roshar with pike and shot and infantry blocks in later warfare that the tactics shouldn’t be hard to transition to. Additionally it would likely constitute such an advantage that even used very inefficiently it would be impactful and my argument is more that he would have done this earlier and by now the fused would have tactics developed. 
plus I’d they did manage like a couple wary machine gun type weapons then they Ben deployed in the worst way possible it would likely be devastating. 
essentially I’d argue guns are in and of themselves (unless they were really bad like pre flintlock) such an advantage and the similarities to their current tactics would make the changes needed for an impact to be minimal. 
Overall I just think he needs to have a  better reason to have never even tried to introduce guns.

Now the warrior culture argument I admit I can’t dispute other than to say that I am interpreting him calling roshar s training ground in a more literal sense. This is probably the best counter argument to my theory and in all likelihood it is correct, however the myth of the tranquiline halls being present in the worlds most martial cultures where the thrill also usually hangs out influencing, and the thrill being a nearly perfect delivery mechanism for this plan is a lot of coincidences.

[alder24]

34 minutes ago, Valigus said:

First for the guns, I think gunpowder would be pretty easy, and the exact mechanism may not be soulcasting actual guns, it may be soul casting individual components and then assembling them though I think soulcasting guns would be possible. Also every firearms have almost no moving parts and I think a flintlock would be very easy to figure out for a fused with a little help and then assemble with soulcasting. 

Most modern firearms have a lot of moving parts. And if you want to make firearms from 14th c. like Hand cannon, some Arquebus, or Matchlocks then it's better to have a bow and arrows. Flintlocks have a moving parts. They were highly inaccurate (I remember reading about "a test" from Sweden in 16th-17th c, when a group of skillful shooters couldn't hit the target size of a barn from around 70m away), and were even more inaccurate on battlefield conditions due to stress, not to mention the danger that poses putting in the barrel too much gun powder. 

51 minutes ago, Valigus said:

im also gonna disagree with you on the matter of tactics and training, guns are much easier to train people with than many historical weapons, or at least get people to enough skill that they can impact the battlefield. Additionally musket tactics are sufficiently similar to the pike blocks common on roshar with pike and shot and infantry blocks in later warfare that the tactics shouldn’t be hard to transition to. Additionally it would likely constitute such an advantage that even used very inefficiently it would be impactful and my argument is more that he would have done this earlier and by now the fused would have tactics developed. 
plus I’d they did manage like a couple wary machine gun type weapons then they Ben deployed in the worst way possible it would likely be devastating. 
essentially I’d argue guns are in and of themselves (unless they were really bad like pre flintlock) such an advantage and the similarities to their current tactics would make the changes needed for an impact to be minimal. 
Overall I just think he needs to have a  better reason to have never even tried to introduce guns.

While training is much easier and shorter, and that was the main point why firearms were introduced en masse in the modern army, the impact on the battlefield is questionable at best. Early modern guns weren't so accurate, smooth barrels and bullet shapes were to blame. The firearms became deadlier in 1700'/1800', and even more after rifling become common in the mid 19th c - that's when accuracy was great. And by this point, melee was completely abandoned.

Changing tactics, like introducing square formations, is also not an easy task. In the 15th c they were composed mainly from pikes and polearms (tercio 4:1 in favor of pikes). Only somewhere in 17th c pike blocks starts to have more and more ranged units. And to properly implement these tactics you need a crap ton of discipline, as when your square has cracks, cavalry just runs you down. And on Roshar they have cavalry that attacks with a steel in hands not caracole.

Introducing gun powder to your army is a great idea, but that has to be done on a global scale, which takes decades or centuries even. It's more than just giving a few guns. Early guns weren't better than bow and arrows. It just took less time to train them. And Odium had no time to do it, as he could influence Roshar only during short periods of Desolations, and when Desolation starts and your forces are armed with bronze, I think giving them guns would just make it even worse.

Machine guns are far beyond quick soulcasting.

1 hour ago, Valigus said:

Now the warrior culture argument I admit I can’t dispute other than to say that I am interpreting him calling roshar s training ground in a more literal sense. This is probably the best counter argument to my theory and in all likelihood it is correct, however the myth of the tranquiline halls being present in the worlds most martial cultures where the thrill also usually hangs out influencing, and the thrill being a nearly perfect delivery mechanism for this plan is a lot of coincidences.

The Thrill does what it does, it makes them better and more daring, warriors. Giving the example to others on how to behave. And the Thrill is mindless.

[TheOtherDave]

5 hours ago, alder24 said:

I doubt soulcasting guns would be an easy task. They are extremely complicated, full of moving parts and different alloys and materials.

You can build a shotgun out of schedule 40 iron pipe from the plumbing section along with a few other parts that are pretty easy to find in a Home Depot. Designing a modern, semi-automatic gun is fairly complicated, but as long as you're a reasonably competent machinist, manufacturing them generally isn't hard.

I could be wrong, but I get the impression that soulcast stuff is as precise as its original "mold" is, so all you'd really have to do is get a working example to someone with access to soulcasters and sculptors who are precise enough to recreate the parts.