What had a bigger effect on the cosmere as a whole: The movement of Humans to Roshar, or the Catacendre?

[Deejaypenguin]

I was thinking about the effect that each had on the worlds themselves and worlds around it.

Spoiler

The Catacendre certainly was noticed by other shards, and would attract attention and action by them, but the mass exodus from Ashyn brought humans and Odium to Roshar,  which affected the singers and the entire Rosharan system.

 

[+Lewis Nethur He/Him]

2 hours ago, Deejaypenguin said:

I was thinking about the effect that each had on the worlds themselves and worlds around it.

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The Catacendre certainly was noticed by other shards, and would attract attention and action by them, but the mass exodus from Ashyn brought humans and Odium to Roshar,  which affected the singers and the entire Rosharan system.

 

The catacendre by a landslide.

Why? Because:

1. it represents the successfully planned and implemented fusion of two full and intact shards

2. It rocketed human progress forward (by ALOT) rather than dragging it backwards. Backwards is very literally stupidly easy.

3. It initiated a forbidden interstellar conflict which could very well ultimately end in a recombination of Adonalsium, whereas the Rosharan incident is more like a prolonged civil war which was sparked by 3rd party bullying at this point...

[Quantus he/him]

1 hour ago, hwiles said:

The catacendre by a landslide.

Why? Because:

1. it represents the successfully planned and implemented fusion of two full and intact shards

2. It rocketed human progress forward (by ALOT) rather than dragging it backwards. Backwards is very literally stupidly easy.

3. It initiated a forbidden interstellar conflict which could very well ultimately end in a recombination of Adonalsium, whereas the Rosharan incident is more like a prolonged civil war which was sparked by 3rd party bullying at this point...

I agree with your stance, and with #1, but not with #2 since Harmony specifically stated that what he did in the Catacendre Stunted Scadrian development a lot longer than it should have needed to reach their Era2 level.  And for #3, Im not exactly sure what you are getting at? It sounds like you are assuming that the Scadrians are the primary aggressors in the Era4 Conflict, but even with the new sample chapters we have no clue what the shape of the war is, or that their motivations trace specifically back to the Catacendre events (in some way distinct from the way Desolations motivated Roshar?) Sorry, could you elaborate a little on that piece?

[alder24]

22 hours ago, Deejaypenguin said:

I was thinking about the effect that each had on the worlds themselves and worlds around it.

  Hide contents

The Catacendre certainly was noticed by other shards, and would attract attention and action by them, but the mass exodus from Ashyn brought humans and Odium to Roshar,  which affected the singers and the entire Rosharan system.

 

I agree with others. However I don't think this is a fair comparison - the migration from Ashyn to Roshar is more comparable to the creation of Scadrial by Preservation and Ruin - in both cases Shards settled on a planet, bringing with them humans and sparking conflict between Shards that will last for millenia with humanity paying with blood. Catacendre vastly overshadows both of them because Sazed merging two Shards together is probably one of the most important thing that happened after the Shattering itself - it gives hope that Adonalsium can be recombined in one form or the other and it directly frightened numerous other Shards like Autonomy or Odium himself. Compare it to Odium being more annoyed by the cycle of Desolations and his imprisonment on Roshar rather than scared and despite that, he still managed to Splinter Honor, which had happened before with Ambition and Devotion/Dominion and the Splintering of Ambition, Dominion and Devotion is in my opinion slightly more impactful than what happened on Roshar (especially the Selish Splintering as it set a precedent of killing Shards).

However the Catacendre was the end of the story started by Ruin and Preservation creating Scadrial, Odium settling on Roshar with Ashynite is the beginning or Rosharan arc, which is still ongoing and until we know how it ends, we can't say how impactful it was.

[Could Be Fire]

On 6/25/2024 at 9:28 AM, hwiles said:

1. it represents the successfully planned and implemented fusion of two full and intact shards

Yeah, this is a huge deal. Literally creating a force with more power than seen since the Shattering.

I would also add that's it's not just the formation of a dual shard, but also a new vessel. It seems that that Scadrial is also the first place to transfer Shards from one of the OG 16 to a new host that we know off. So even the whole hot potato game with Perservation is a big deal. Like, what 10000 years of the same half dozen people being the most powerful in the cosmere and then suddenly a new face.

[therunner he/him]

I would also say Catecedre, but I would say the comparable event in Rosharan system is not Ashyn migration/destruction, but Binding of Odium, and that had bigger effect on Cosmere as whole (so far).

Binding literally stopped Odium's killing spree in its tracks (at that point he already destroyed 3 shards), and quite likely assured that Preservation+Ruin even lived long enough for Catecedre to happen in the first place.

If Odium was not bound, and decided try to his luck elsewhere, Scadrial would likely be his next destination, due to presence of two Shards. And his presence would destroy the fragile balance of power, and most likely lead to Splintering of both Preservation and Ruin.

[+Lewis Nethur He/Him]

On 7/2/2024 at 11:13 AM, therunner said:

I would also say Catecedre, but I would say the comparable event in Rosharan system is not Ashyn migration/destruction, but Binding of Odium, and that had bigger effect on Cosmere as whole (so far).

Binding literally stopped Odium's killing spree in its tracks (at that point he already destroyed 3 shards), and quite likely assured that Preservation+Ruin even lived long enough for Catecedre to happen in the first place.

If Odium was not bound, and decided try to his luck elsewhere, Scadrial would likely be his next destination, due to presence of two Shards. And his presence would destroy the fragile balance of power, and most likely lead to Splintering of both Preservation and Ruin.

I'm actually inclined to agree with this. The founding of the oathpact represents the first time that humanity successfully defied  and denied, the will of a full an intact Shard. Sure, it proved that no mortal or group of mortals can stand up to a Shard who is being a bully without grave and horrible consequences (this...honestly should already be self evident though...) but it also proved that they can choose to do it anyway. That's all the way up there with 'destruction of an entire major civilization' on the cosmic impact scale though. From now on, everyone who doesn't like something that a Shard does has a legitimate avenue of retaliation, and that's...very different...than how things worked when the cosmere was young.