what happened between aharietiam and the recreance?

[king of nowhere]

Something I just connected, I can't believe I never considered this before.

The last desolation, aharietiam, was 4500 years before present. the fused were stuck on braize since then, thanks to taln.

2000 years ago there was the last desolation, when ba ado mishram granted forms of power to most singers. it ended with ba ado mishram captured, and the singers lobotomized and turned into slaves. the radiants forsook their oaths afterwards, mostly in protest.

but this means that for 2500 years, between aharietiam and the recreance, humans and singers cohexisted.

i doubt they were at war all the time. if they were, they'd have had occasional conflict intermixed with more or less prolonged periods of truce. besides, without fused to act as superpowered people, and without even regals - ulim said ba ado mishram started granting forms of powers later at some point - i find it hard to believe that the singers could stand up to radiants in war. much less for 2500 years.

so, the humans and singers must have lived together, with occasional conflict but not locked in perpetual war (probably no more warfare than has exhisted between human nations), for over two millennia.

 

this argument should shut up all those people, mostly among fused, who claim war with humans is inevitable, the humans will try to enslave them, so they may as well strike first and try hard to win. it's patently false. there's 2500 years of history showing the opposite. furthermore, the humans had radiants at the time, several thousands of them, and access to the oathgates, while the singers lost all supernatural help. if the humans had wanted, they could have enslaved the singers. they didn't. they only did so after the false desolation, and it was mostly an accident.

that said, all the people using that argument were either ignorant, newly awakened parshendi, or directly connected to odium, and thus unreliable. but now we can safely dismiss it as baseless propaganda.

 

historical traces of this must have been erased by the hierocracy; very few written scripts survive that long anyway, it's not implausible that all were tampered with by the hierocracy, therefore nobody knew about it until recently.

however, somebody like jasnah is knowledgeable enough to connect the dots, and ask the heralds about that time period. and it could be used as an argument at some negotiations sometime in the future.

[Gilphon]

I would imagine that this is the period of history that the Herdazians and Horneaters originate from. Or, well, the Herdazians anyway.

[coolsnow7]

It is far more likely that the humans literally enslaved the Singers. For one thing, otherwise there’s a much better question to ask: why did the Singers fight once Ba-Ado-Mishram offered them forms of power? In any case, leaping to the conclusion that Singers and humans coexisted happily is wild.

[king of nowhere]

6 hours ago, coolsnow7 said:

It is far more likely that the humans literally enslaved the Singers. For one thing, otherwise there’s a much better question to ask: why did the Singers fight once Ba-Ado-Mishram offered them forms of power?

not a question, really. there's plenty of wars that started without anyone enslaving the other first. there's plenty of nations that, given the power, tried to conquer. in fact, the exceptions are... well, exceptions.

and i sincerely doubt the radiants of old would have tolerated the enslavement of a whole race for two millennia. if they did, they wouldn't have been pissed enough for the recreance to happen.

[alder24]

12 hours ago, king of nowhere said:

Something I just connected, I can't believe I never considered this before.

The last desolation, aharietiam, was 4500 years before present. the fused were stuck on braize since then, thanks to taln.

2000 years ago there was the last desolation, when ba ado mishram granted forms of power to most singers. it ended with ba ado mishram captured, and the singers lobotomized and turned into slaves. the radiants forsook their oaths afterwards, mostly in protest.

but this means that for 2500 years, between aharietiam and the recreance, humans and singers cohexisted.

i doubt they were at war all the time. if they were, they'd have had occasional conflict intermixed with more or less prolonged periods of truce. besides, without fused to act as superpowered people, and without even regals - ulim said ba ado mishram started granting forms of powers later at some point - i find it hard to believe that the singers could stand up to radiants in war. much less for 2500 years.

so, the humans and singers must have lived together, with occasional conflict but not locked in perpetual war (probably no more warfare than has exhisted between human nations), for over two millennia.

 

this argument should shut up all those people, mostly among fused, who claim war with humans is inevitable, the humans will try to enslave them, so they may as well strike first and try hard to win. it's patently false. there's 2500 years of history showing the opposite. furthermore, the humans had radiants at the time, several thousands of them, and access to the oathgates, while the singers lost all supernatural help. if the humans had wanted, they could have enslaved the singers. they didn't. they only did so after the false desolation, and it was mostly an accident.

that said, all the people using that argument were either ignorant, newly awakened parshendi, or directly connected to odium, and thus unreliable. but now we can safely dismiss it as baseless propaganda.

 

historical traces of this must have been erased by the hierocracy; very few written scripts survive that long anyway, it's not implausible that all were tampered with by the hierocracy, therefore nobody knew about it until recently.

however, somebody like jasnah is knowledgeable enough to connect the dots, and ask the heralds about that time period. and it could be used as an argument at some negotiations sometime in the future.

Living together in peace is probably a massive stretch. They most likely lived in separate areas, isolating humans from Singers with hostilities happening all the time, but not to the point of a global war. Some mixing and peaceful relations probably were present (maybe that's how Horneaters or Herdazians came to be, although I suspect they were created shortly after migration form Ashyn), but I wouldn't say there was peace between those two people. 

There were also not a lot of Radiants during those times - this is because Spren didn't bond a lot of people in between Desolations, they only did this when they felt a new Desolation was coming. So while there were powerful Radiants all around Roshar, they probably didn't have a lot of members and were stretched too thin. Also, not all Radiants are fighters - famously Relador, Syl's former knight, who wasn't capable of participating in war and was killed in his first battle. Other Radiants were prioritizing different tasks. Add to this that Shardbearers can't hold ground and you have reasons for why nobody did anything to Singers during this long period of time.

The epigraphs from the OB Urithiru gem archives also suggest that some small wars between humans and Singers before the False Desolation were a common thing and might be even considered a one, long, continuous war with Odium's forces. Singers were considered allies of Odium and Radiants were searching for ways to end this war and deal with Odium's forces once and for all. I think those concerns were separate from the whole deal with BAM and starting the False Desolation and had been present since the Aharietiam.

What would those small conflicts look like? Just like the war of Reckoning where the entire Althekar with their Shardbearers was mobilized to fight Listeners enclave, who had just a Warform at their disposal and yet they proved to be a capable opponent. If you now exchange Shardbearers with Radiants and give Singers all non-Void forms, with skillful and experienced commanders and soldiers, you will still have two equally matched opponents. 

OB epigraphs ch 77, 82:

Quote

"Something must be done about the remnants of Odium's forces. The parsh, as they are now called, continue their war with zeal, even without their masters from Damnation."

"Surely this will bring - at long last - the end to war that the Heralds promised us."

 

Fortunately, we might find the answer to this question in WaT:

Spoiler

Clerk_Antique

What did the singers do in between desolations? Did they have their own kingdoms? Did anyone try to create a combined nation of humans and singers?

Brandon Sanderson

RAFO! Book five might have a few answers for you.

YouTube Spoiler Stream 3 (Dec. 16, 2021)

And interestingly, sometimes even singers fought on human side during Desolations:

Spoiler

Stormlightning

Were there Radiants on the Voidbringers' side in ancient Desolations?

Brandon Sanderson

I will RAFO this for now. Excellent question. There were humans on their side, and there were occasionally singers on the humans' side.

San Diego Comic-Con@Home 2020 (July 23, 2020)

 

[coolsnow7]

4 hours ago, king of nowhere said:

not a question, really. there's plenty of wars that started without anyone enslaving the other first. there's plenty of nations that, given the power, tried to conquer. in fact, the exceptions are... well, exceptions.

and i sincerely doubt the radiants of old would have tolerated the enslavement of a whole race for two millennia. if they did, they wouldn't have been pissed enough for the recreance to happen.

So in your mind, everyone’s living together happy and peacefully, then BAM shows up… and the Singers immediately transition to bloodthirst? You’re gonna need to do better than that. 

[king of nowhere]

4 hours ago, alder24 said:

Living together in peace is probably a massive stretch. They most likely lived in separate areas, isolating humans from Singers with hostilities happening all the time, but not to the point of a global war. Some mixing and peaceful relations probably were present (maybe that's how Horneaters or Herdazians came to be, although I suspect they were created shortly after migration form Ashyn), but I wouldn't say there was peace between those two people. 

 

 

4 hours ago, coolsnow7 said:

So in your mind, everyone’s living together happy and peacefully, then BAM shows up… and the Singers immediately transition to bloodthirst? You’re gonna need to do better than that. 

have you guys seen the history of the real world? i don't think there's ever been a year without an armed conflict somewhere. and it used to be even worse until a few generations ago.

and yet, just because the french, germans and britons fought dozens of war amid each other, with shifting alliances, we'd never say they are irrevocably at conflict and can never coexhist. fighting regular wars was just the normality before the present.

i do believe that was what roshar would have looked like too. wars all around, but not annihilation wars; more wars over shared borders, or claims to thrones. And no more wars between humans and singers than there was wars between humans and humans, or singers and singers.

it's not a "everyone lives happily and peacefully", it more a "and we don't really care about species, just about convenience"

Edited September 9, 2024 by king of nowhere