Immortal Platypus Posted December 20, 2024 Posted December 20, 2024 9 hours ago, Argenti said: As far I can tell, the only reason it's weak is because Retribution wants it to be. It's not weak or spread out, it's just weakened because he doesn't want to kill everyone. Not quickly at least. I don't think so. The quote from the passage talks about how "Odium had been forced to let it weaken." This is from an uninformed POV, but still. I don't think it would be quite as easy to up the power while keeping the whole thing going as most of you apparently do. But I do think that he could stop the Everstorm over certain areas, and increase its power over others
therunner he/him Posted December 20, 2024 Posted December 20, 2024 (edited) 4 hours ago, Ookla the Arbiter said: I don't think so. The quote from the passage talks about how "Odium had been forced to let it weaken." This is from an uninformed POV, but still. I don't think it would be quite as easy to up the power while keeping the whole thing going as most of you apparently do. But I do think that he could stop the Everstorm over certain areas, and increase its power over others Power-wise keeping Everstorm fully intense over the entire continent is easily within scope of a Shard, much less di-Shard. Shards can create entire planets, single storm, even as large as Everstorm and powerful as Highstorm is orders of magnitude less power. The simple reason to let it weaken is that he does not want to kill his population, only have them in subservient position. He would be forced not by lack of power, but by his own goals. Also, few notes on Scadrial and Rosharan tactics and military Fused are familiar with artillery strikes (using Focused Ones) and bombardment (using Heavenly Ones and Skybreakers). This is demonstrated in Shattered Planes battle and in breaking of the naval blockade. Aluminum is not used on Roshar to kill Radiants by the Fused, only to counter Shardblades Scadrial as of end of TLM lacks AA guns, currently all the have is artillery pointed up, with range circa 620 meters straight up. Elendel military has total 10 000 people, that is it, and they are by far largest city. This suggests several things: Rosharan side will be surprised primarily by things like rifles and machine guns, artillery won't be new to them from tactical and strategic stand point. Aluminum likely does not block healing to such an extent that wound inflicted by aluminum weapon would be deadly. Fused explicitly use Raysium spears to get around healing, despite the fact that aluminum is much easier to obtain. What likely happens is that while aluminum is in wound, it won't heal, but Light within Fused/Radiant will keep them alive. Shallan after all lived even with arrow lodged in her head, which also couldn't heal. Scadrial is unprepared for aerial combat and its implications. One, they simply don't have suitable AA guns, artillery will be next to useless against any fighter planes, much less Radiants or Fused. Two, Basin's AA guns have far too short a range, 620 meters is very low. Three and most damning, Basin put their 'AA'-guns only on the perimeter of Elendel. As if planes couldn't simply fly above them and descend within the city. Basically, despite having six years (BoM to TLM) to plan for air incursions, their planning is stuck in 2D siege thinking. Scadrial has severe personnel disadvantage. As of end of WAT and TLM, Basin likely has less than 15 000 army personnel in total. That comes to ~4 soldiers per 1 Fused, which is a curbstomp. Single army of Odium had 40 000 Regals, and there were multiple theaters. From that we can conclude that while Roshar will be surprised by some things Scadrial can field (machine guns, rifles), Scadrial will also be caught off-guard by things Roshar can bring to bear (aerial combat and bombardment), plus is severely lacking in manpower. Edited December 20, 2024 by therunner 2
Argenti he/him Posted December 20, 2024 Posted December 20, 2024 11 hours ago, Ookla the Arbiter said: I don't think so. The quote from the passage talks about how "Odium had been forced to let it weaken." This is from an uninformed POV, but still. I don't think it would be quite as easy to up the power while keeping the whole thing going as most of you apparently do. But I do think that he could stop the Everstorm over certain areas, and increase its power over others "Forced to let it weaken" or else it would destroy the world. It's well within his power to keep the everstorm at it's top strength, he's two shards, I see no real reason why the single most powerful force in the entire cosmere couldn't have a storm at it's top strength.
alder24 Posted December 20, 2024 Posted December 20, 2024 23 hours ago, StanLemon said: Possibly. It's been implied that Dalinar’s displays of superhuman strength were because of Tension It looks like a Bondsmith thing only. Spoiler TheDanfromSpace Could Dalinar lift stones of equivalent weight to the statue [in Thaylen City]? Assuming enough Stormlight. Or was that extra strength part of his Surges? Brandon Sanderson You are correct--Dalinar could not lift stones of equivalent weight in other circumstances. General Reddit 2020 (March 5, 2020) 22 hours ago, therunner said: Half a jar of Dor is about 10000 BEUs. Stormlight is sufficiently investiture dense that sunlight on Canticle is directly compared to that, and based on Nightblood consumption rate, Radiants do easily move in the range of hundreds to low thousands of BEUs. So yeah, few bags of spheres do likely have comparable Investiture to half a jar of Dor. I'm still not very convinced by this. Until we have numbers from Brandon, this is just pure speculation. 22 hours ago, therunner said: Combine that with the fact that roseite without link to Investiture is extremely brittle, whereas Shardplate is nearly unbreakable even without Stormlight, and I would say that Roseite golem does provide a good baseline for resiliency of Plate. I meant that yes, it's a good baseline, but they will run out of Stormlight much faster than a golem would out of Dor. 22 hours ago, therunner said: Not true, Set did it only with the help of Avatar, and they are only considering trellium-ettmetal bombs, not full on nukes. By nukes I meant Trellium-Harmonium bombs - they do the same thing minus radiation. However they've already developed everything, bombs were proven to work, even if Avatar helped, the hard work was done. They can recreate them without any help from Telsin/Autonomy now. 22 hours ago, therunner said: We don't know how will the things change, see how Roshar changed in only 10 days. So I won't speculate on how Basin will develop technologically, especially since they are already developing much slower than Sazed expected. So I will only compare Roshar at the end of WAT and Scadrial at the end of TLM. That's fine, but I think if the war between Scadrial and Roshar were to last long enough, planes would appear quite fast. 22 hours ago, therunner said: Production wise, they won't outnumber Rosharan air units anytime soon. US produced 15000 planes in WW1 over 4 years, and that is with population 100 million. Basin has one fifth of the population, and would not be protected (since until they actually start producing planes, Rosharans can do whatever they want). At most they would produce few hundred per year. USA wasn't really into planes back then. Germany with 65 mil people produced 48k while being blockaded, France with 40 mil produced 67k. The Basin can produce thousands of planes per year. 22 hours ago, therunner said: There were few, but vast majority of planes used in WW1 were bi-planes that didn't have aluminum construction. And they don't use pure aluminum, but aluminum alloy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7075_aluminium_alloy) as aluminum is too soft on its own. Since the alloys use for planes are at most 90% aluminum (less than duralumin), they likely won't be as resistive to Invested arts. Aluminum bullets aren't pure aluminum either, yet they are fully immune to Steelpushing. Any aluminum alloy behaves like pure aluminum: Spoiler Longshot_97 This question concerns Mistborn Era 2. Aluminum at this time is supremely rare and quite expensive, and Wax is seen lamenting his profound lack of aluminum guns and bullets fairly often. However, couldn't he fashion a "Poor Man's Aluminum" of sorts by coating his guns (and potentially bullets) in a thin veneer of iron, then Feruchemically charging it? You've noted that metalminds can still be pushed, but much less than un-Invested metal. This could help him, in the absence of aluminum. So, is there a reason he has not done that? Brandon Sanderson The layer you would get by just that little coat would be so small that it'd have very little effect. Now, there's a pretty good argument for putting it into bullets. The problem there is: are the alloys that make good bullets going to work very well? Now, granted, aluminum doesn’t make for great bullets either. But any aluminum alloy kind of gets the property of aluminum. Where any iron alloy does not necessarily get the property of being able to allomantically or feruchemically interact with it in the right way. Can you get there? It's an excellent question that I perhaps should explore. I like this idea. But it's harder than you make it out to be. It is a good idea, though; it's a pretty good idea. r/books AMA 2022 (July 7, 2022) 22 hours ago, therunner said: Ok, thanks for correction, To that i will only say that Roshar can produce anti light - light bombs much more easily, since they're can produce their own Investiture for them. So easily that anti-light was used only twice in WaT by Odium or Radiant forces? And only by Vyre? Don't get me wrong, I also think that anti-light should be easily produced, but the book seems to suggest otherwise. And they need Raysium for that, now there is no Odium, there's Retribution. We don't know where Raysium came from, but most likely it won't be produced anymore. 22 hours ago, therunner said: Set had to abandon their plans for using them to deliver bomb, I doubt they will be as functional as you expect. Ettmetal-trellium bombs require gigantic electric currents, you won't be able to fit appropriate generator on a small rocket. Ettmetal-trellium bombs are rather difficult to miniaturize. The fact that the Set actually considered using rockets till the very last moment seems to suggest that they've already solved the problem with the electric current. 22 hours ago, therunner said: None of these have any deep understanding of Hemalrugy, they are slightly beyond where TLR was. They cannot create new Hemalurgic construct, and they can only spike out powers. They have no idea how to transfer those knowledge to a completely different species, much less that species possessed by Cognitive Shadows. Different species have different bindpoints. Oracles won't help, knowing your future is useless in targeting spike, Atium will help, but then you have to choose, produce more Atium or develop bombs? Because you need Trellium for both, and that is limited. Anything that gives you a peer into the Spiritual Realm helps you with Hemalurgy - burning electrum does just that. It would help. I'm not suggesting creating new Hemalurgic constructs, just spiking out Fused Connection to Odium. That's something that they already know is possible, the Hemalurgic table specify that duralumin can steal Connection and those people mentioned by me (plus Marsh) know enough to experiment more and figure it out fast enough to be useful during the war. Spoiler PhantoMonstrosity Atium is the best metal to use for Hemalurgy. Does *burning* atium help you figure out where to put the spikes? Brandon Sanderson Anything that gets you a glimpse of the Spiritual Realm could help with placing spikes. PhantoMonstrosity Would flaring iron and steel also help? Brandon Sanderson No, not without additional help. #NookTalks Twitter Q&A with Barnes & Noble (Feb. 16, 2016) 22 hours ago, therunner said: I must have missed the part where either Dalinar or Melishi spiked someone mid-combat. Marsh did. He spiked Penrod while they were fighting. Inquisitors were almost able to spike Eland. Of course it won't be easy, but it's still possible to do. I'm not suggesting that suddenly on day 1 every Fused gets spiked. 22 hours ago, therunner said: Similarly, key component is the fact that Scadrial is unable to get stuff into Cognitive realm, there is only one perpendicularity, and it is not easily accessible. Yet I don't see you discuss that key issue. I did say that Scadrial won't be able to conquer Roshar in my very first post. On 12/17/2024 at 12:31 AM, alder24 said: This all makes me think that Scadrians might have a much better chance at launching an invasion on Roshar than Rosharan would have at invading Scadrial. Still it doesn't mean Scadrians would have won invading Roshar, but I think in defence Scadrial would probably win after a brutal conflict against Retribution's forces as they are right now (that's scenario 1 I think). 22 hours ago, therunner said: I ignore the time dilation, because taking it into account is impossible. We cannot tell what will happen on Scadrial in the meantime, and speculating on their relativ development is dangerous. I.e. in TSM, which is about 2-3 centuries into the future, Scadrial and Roshar are near peers, despite Roshar having ~80 years less time to develop. Is it because Roshar is much faster in scientific endeavors? Or because Scadrial got slowed down? Or because Roshar started as far more militarily capable? We cannot answer any such question with any certainty, so I won't engage with them. I think we have to take time dilation into account, otherwise this topic is almost no different than the last one. That's the biggest change that happened on Roshar, which will dramatically influence the war. We can either assume that the war would last just a few Scadrian years and thus only minor technological development happens, or this will be a war spanning through decades and Scadrial would progress just as Earth progressed since the beginning of WW 1 (since Scadrial is an analog to Earth). Rosharan progress is unfortunately much harder to predict, especially that we don't even know how everything that happened affected technology. However, due to time dilation only months or years would pass on Roshar and we already know how Roshar progressed in this timeframe from books. 22 hours ago, therunner said: Eh. No they are not. You need to pull trigger (i.e. have thought) to shoot a gun, which still takes time to propagate. Hushed ones release body immediately, plus likely have improved reflexes due to being Invested (Radiants do, even on second and third Oaths). So no, shooter won't "outdraw" Hushed one. And one bullet won't be enough, they are still Fused and heal. Shooter would have to hit gemheart, which would be quite lucky shot on teleporting target. I doubt Fused have faster reflexes on such a close distance than a bullet speed. One bullet hitting a gemstone (which of course isn't guaranteed, but the fact they appear as light when teleporting would help a lot in aiming, Kaladin was able to track it with no problems) is a kill shot. And every healing drains them out of Warlight which they need to teleport, they won't always risk doing this if their enemy is expecting them. 22 hours ago, therunner said: Aluminum bullets won't break tension, they don't interrupt powers. And it is important to note, that Scadrial does not actually use pure Aluminum bullets, but some alloy. We have yet to see how that interacts with Investiture, since e.g. duralumin is regular metal as far as resisting Investiture goes, and that is ~96% aluminum. I didn't mean that they would break Tension, but bullets would rip through their belts, damaging them, which would cause tensile force to snap them in half as they are now much weaker. And they can't be healed because aluminum is stuck in the wound. 22 hours ago, therunner said: I'd say so. All three of those are much more Invested than any Awakened clothes, and are metallic. So they are starting as more resilient and have much more Investiture to boot. Also, Investiture does shield living things against damage even on relatively low levels (as seen in TSM), so heavily Invested item might be similar (being Invested does count as 'alive' as seen again in TSM). Plus, half-shards are much more resistive, and they likely use Tension, since they use Radiant spren in making, so would be comparable to Focused Ones. I don't agree. Any other Fused is easily cut by a normal sword, including the Deepest Ones. I don't think the Focused Ones would be even more resilient because of their investiture outside of what we've seen. 22 hours ago, therunner said: It was...against stationary targets. Accurate artillery requires knowledge of terrain, and literally calculated firing solution. You won't be able to do that against moving target. WW 1 was mostly stationary (on the west), but that doesn't mean that motion didn't happen. Assaults happened, cavalry charges happened, tanks happened. Artillery was easily targeting moving targets - calculations are the very core of using artillery. 22 hours ago, therunner said: Air superiority isn't everything, if there are other facts that prevent it from being effective. On Scadrial, those factors are not there. Scadrial has a lot of high urban environment, which would be a factor. 22 hours ago, therunner said: As for ground units, Roshar has more of those by order of magnitude. Which are useless against modern guns. Go ahead and charge with a pike square against a machine gun nest. Sure, Fused or Skybreakers would be trying to destroy it, Scadrians would try counter that and protect their position, they can imply movable machine guns - at the end of the day you'll end up with dozens of killed Scadrians and a dead pike square. Numbers mean nothing if they use spears and swords. 22 hours ago, therunner said: No they cannot, they are still limited by present metal, that limitation will always be there. I specifically said in an urban environment. Metals are everywhere there. On a battlefield there would be also a lot of metal form cartridges, bullets, shrapnels, wires and all that stuff. 22 hours ago, therunner said: G-forces will apply to Coinshots and Lurchers as well, and those are not Invested to heal any damage caused, nor more resilient. Yeah, but they don't really maneuver with such acceleration to be worried about g-forces. Radiants do. 22 hours ago, therunner said: Three. And they need weeks to regenerate only when killed by Shardblade, otherwise they can just create new body. One was killed by Nightblood. In WaT when reporting that Fused are moving against the Shattered Plains they said "there is one Thunderclast, possibly both." There are only two left. As for regeneration, you're right, the book said something like that - but it also said it's about hurting its body. Also on the other hand the Thunderclast banished by Renarin in OB did not come back immediately so there is something that prevents them from being reborn right after their first death. WaT ch 81: Quote "Get your Blade into its spine where neck meets head—made of stone or not—and its eyes will go out, same as a human. It’s a spren; Blades can hurt its body, send it back to Shadesmar, force it to recuperate.” He met Neziham’s iron gaze. “That healing can take weeks. We bring this one down, it’s out of the war forever.” 22 hours ago, therunner said: So Scadrial literally cannot put them down, because they lack Invested weapons do that. Artillery won't say they are obsolete, when they spawn right next to it. Except they can't spawn next to artillery because they need a suitable ground for it - uncovered natural rock. Scadrial isn't Roshar, there is soil on the ground, not rocks. Thunderclast can't spawn in soil. They can't even spawn in cobblestone. They would not find many places in which they can spawn on Scadrial, definitely not right next to an artillery battery. WaT ch 82: Quote Storms, they were lucky thunderclasts had trouble forming out of covered or worked stone. Otherwise it could have emerged straight under the palace, rather than approaching from outside the city. 22 hours ago, therunner said: How do you aim at something that appears right behind you and immediately grapples you, like Lezien did to Kaladin? Guns won't help you at all, Hushed Ones by their nature turn any engagement into hand-to-hand one, and there they have massive advantage. You're aiming at the light all the time? Kaladin did that often and that discouraged Lezien from appearing near him. Once a Husk One grabs a Leecher, they will suddenly all stop doing this risky maneuver. 22 hours ago, therunner said: Yes on Kandra. No on Seekers, Lightweaving is quite, and so far detectable only by white sand. It's quiet on Roshar, but Metallic Arts deal with less power than Surgebinding. If Seeking detects Feruchemy, I think it's possible it would detect Lightweaving. 22 hours ago, therunner said: You would use Fused to break weapon placements, then send in Regals. How many functional Fused are there? 2000? Sure they can be used like that, but they can't be used everywhere where a machine gun is. Plus there would be multiple positions overlapping each other - they would be shot from behind when trying to deal with one nest. You can also employ other tactics to make Fused life harder like aluminum bullets. Sure Fused will work, but it's not an ultimate solution that will win the war. It will be a bloody struggle and rope pushing back and forth. 22 hours ago, therunner said: Stormform should be especially useful, with all the metal from guns. They would be killed by guns before getting close enough to make their lightning effective. 22 hours ago, therunner said: And you would equip them with e.g. half-shards, or some armor. Their carapace is already quite strong, even Warform has carapace comparable to steel plate, Stormform carapace is stronger, and Direform stronger than even that. Steel plate IRL is strong enough to stop even modern small arms. So Regal armor won't stop machine gun fire, or rifles, but hand-guns likely yes. Caparace or steel plates are useless against rifles and machine guns. Hand guns are a last resort weapon. 22 hours ago, therunner said: You don't need them everywhere, just send them to breakdown weapons placements, and places where Scadrians are dug in. Or use Deepest Ones. There would be way more trenches, machine gun nests or artillery batteries than 2000 Fused can reasonably counter. Not to mention that they don't have infinite Warlight and due to time dilation their supply of investiture would be extremely low on Scadrial. Yes, I agree Fused are effective against entrenched positions, but there is too little of them to make those positions ineffective. It would be a bloodbath for sure. And Fused will have to also deal with Metalborn, so that's another factor that distracts them, which would leave their regular troop on the mercy of thousands of bullets shot per minute. Can Deepest Ones move in soil? They can't move through wood. Aluminum also blocks them and they can always use it to stop Deepest Ones. Just building a wooden platform beneath their feet would nullify the Deepest Ones attacks. 22 hours ago, therunner said: Roshar has Blackthorn, likely the best 'living' strategist and tactician in Cosmere after Mink. Again, that's just one person. This is not enough. You need competent command and officer structure. Even generals and officers with a ton of experience from previous wars were struggling to adapt to the ever changing nature of WW 1 and 2 and you want me to believe that someone from the sword and spear era will adapt well to guns they've never seen before? 22 hours ago, therunner said: Scadrian would also have to adapt to fighting Invested warriors, something that is completely unknown to them. See how poorly Azish did, and they had some knowledge and practical experience. Single Windrunner of 3rd Oath would be revelation on par with new Mistborn appearing, and we saw how Mistborn tore through regular Mistings. That's true, however they are familiar with Metalborn powers and much of Surgebinding is not that far off (and they play by the same rules - they need investiture). Both sides can use that to predict and develop new strategies against enemy invested units. 22 hours ago, therunner said: That is before the fight in Azir started, one where Fused did adapt rather fast, and that was commanded by Abidi (who was quite insane). They first tried strong push, that nearly succeeded. After it was repelled by Shardbearers, they switched tactics to slowly getting control of the dome, by building their own building. When that was not proceeding fast enough, they sent for more Fused, and for a Thunderclast. So they had two tactics, use Fused to break from inside out, or if that fails, have Thunderclast to break the dome. And they succeeded. So they pivoted tactics several times. They'd changed tactics, but the core formation - war pairs - did not change at all. Tactics are different from formation. 22 hours ago, therunner said: I am sorry, but that is rather large misconception about WW1. You don't have to be military genius to realize after one engagement that running at machine gun without fire is idiotic, and general in WW1 did know that. The begining of WW 1, not the entire war. In the very first days of WW 1. 8 hours ago, therunner said: Fused are familiar with artillery strikes (using Focused Ones) and bombardment (using Heavenly Ones and Skybreakers). This is demonstrated in Shattered Planes battle and in breaking of the naval blockade. That's a catapult not artillery. Rocks they throw don't have a range of several kilometers and they don't explode, not to mention the density of fire. This is incomparable. 8 hours ago, therunner said: Aluminum is not used on Roshar to kill Radiants by the Fused, only to counter Shardblades Because aluminum swords are useless... They don't use it because they have no means of delivering that aluminum to the body of their enemy and leaving it behind. Maybe some arrows and bolts, but making them on a massive scale would be hard with technology present on Roshar and the rarity of aluminum. 8 hours ago, therunner said: Scadrial as of end of TLM lacks AA guns, currently all the have is artillery pointed up, with range circa 620 meters straight up. That's kind of an AA gun. Not the best one, but it's a start. Sure, Fused and Skybreakers can fly higher, but if they want to go lower, they would be exposed to those guns. Plus machine guns can be used as well. 8 hours ago, therunner said: Elendel military has total 10 000 people, that is it, and they are by far largest city. They have conscription plans and trained constables. With trains, mass conscription would be executed quickly and guns allow for a very fast training compared to what you need to train with swords, spears and medieval tactics and formations that Roshar has. Scadrial can muster a large force of soldiers very fast, way quicker than Roshar (especially if you consider time dilation which basically prevents Roshar from replacing their losses). 8 hours ago, therunner said: What likely happens is that while aluminum is in wound, it won't heal, but Light within Fused/Radiant will keep them alive. Shallan after all lived even with arrow lodged in her head, which also couldn't heal. Yes, that's what is happening. This is draining them out of light quite fast. Spoiler Kurkistan What would happen if you shot a thug with an aluminum bullet or stabbed him with an aluminum knife? Brandon Sanderson Ah, that's a good question. The wound would not be able to heal around the aluminum, but once the aluminum came out and was gone from the system, they would be okay. Kurkistan Wait, is that a Bloodmaker, not a Thug? Brandon Sanderson Oh, you're talking about Thugs? It would work similarly, but it really wouldn't have a huge effect on them. Kurkistan Alright, because Peter was implying that there was some weird aluminum interaction with Thugs. Brandon Sanderson What was he thinking of...? There is some weird interaction but... Kurkistan In the wedding scene, Wax thinks they would have aluminum bullets to deal with Thugs, and I was like, "Oh, that's a typo." And Peter was like, "Oh no it's not..." Brandon Sanderson No, no. That would just be-- it's like I said: healing it until the bullet is gone, it's just the same as Bloodmakers. Footnote: Referring to AoL sample chapter commentary. Words of Radiance Philadelphia signing (March 21, 2014) 8 hours ago, therunner said: Three and most damning, Basin put their 'AA'-guns only on the perimeter of Elendel. As if planes couldn't simply fly above them and descend within the city. Basically, despite having six years (BoM to TLM) to plan for air incursions, their planning is stuck in 2D siege thinking. Those were only the guns Daal spotted and were mostly a propaganda piece. 8 hours ago, therunner said: From that we can conclude that while Roshar will be surprised by some things Scadrial can field (machine guns, rifles), Scadrial will also be caught off-guard by things Roshar can bring to bear (aerial combat and bombardment), plus is severely lacking in manpower. True, that's why I believe it would be a bloody war for both sides. 1
Isilel Posted December 20, 2024 Posted December 20, 2024 On 12/18/2024 at 9:08 AM, therunner said: It is more difficult to leech actively used Investiture, so we can't say if leeching grenade could shut them down like that. I don't remember seeing anything that suggests a meaningful difference in the difficulty of Leeching of actively used Investiture versus unused. And allomantic grenades are just modified primer cubes, which are a mature technology and not rare at all. In any case, the improved design exists and can be easily mass produced. Various metallic arts could improve range and accuracy of said grenades. Without their Investure the Fused would be gun fodder. Sure, they can be reborn - but only by cannibalising others and each death might tip them into insanity. Regarding the Husked, Seekers should have no problem tracking them and shooting them once they become corporeal. Lightweaving Fused may or may not be detectable by Seekers, but pre-emptive Leeching of anyone approaching a sensitive location could alleviate the problem. Aluminium bullets prevent healing around themselves, so the resultant bleeding could easily kill someone, even if they have some healing investiture. Which is why they were dangerous to Wayne. Dor-powered and maintained roseite versus Radiant Armor has already been addressed. Ditto conventional weapons being fully capable of destroying gemhearts - Moash did it to Leshwi at the end of WoR, in fact. Etc. @alder24: OTOH, I don't think that figuring out how to spike out Connection to Odium would be quite as straightforward as you suggest. TLR had no shortage of atium and an expanded mind, and was experimenting for a millennium, yet he never discovered anything more about Hemalurgy than what Ruin had imparted to him in the Well. 2
Qianweilian He/him Posted December 20, 2024 Posted December 20, 2024 27 minutes ago, Isilel said: Moash did it to Leshwi at the end of WoR, in fact. I don't remember Leshwi showing up in Words of Radiance I think Seekers can detect lightweaving, due to in TLM pg 182, Wax says that the seeker can see his Feruchemy, which he notes is due to skill, not strength like Vin piercing copperclouds. If Seekers can learn to detect Feruchemy, then I suspect they can also detect other Investiture. Quote He’d seen Wax’s Feruchemy with his bronze, something only the very rarest of practitioners could do. How skilled was this man?
Immortal Platypus Posted December 20, 2024 Posted December 20, 2024 13 hours ago, therunner said: Power-wise keeping Everstorm fully intense over the entire continent is easily within scope of a Shard, much less di-Shard. Shards can create entire planets, single storm, even as large as Everstorm and powerful as Highstorm is orders of magnitude less power. The simple reason to let it weaken is that he does not want to kill his population, only have them in subservient position. He would be forced not by lack of power, but by his own goals. 5 hours ago, Argenti said: "Forced to let it weaken" or else it would destroy the world. It's well within his power to keep the everstorm at it's top strength, he's two shards, I see no real reason why the single most powerful force in the entire cosmere couldn't have a storm at it's top strength. I also think that keeping it at full power might have weakened him to attack from other Shards.
Isilel Posted December 20, 2024 Posted December 20, 2024 (edited) 14 hours ago, Qianweilian said: I don't remember Leshwi showing up in Words of Radiance She led the party of the Fused that attacked Graves' group of which Moash was part, didn't she? P.S. Sorry, I have been corrected - it happened in OB. Oh, and I had some more ideas about possible Scadrian tactics, particularly artillery: burn bendalloy via Slider or an allomantic grenade when re-loading - continuous fire. Possibly use Brass Feruchemy to prevent over-heating. Also good for quick re-positioning, of course. Fragment enemy forces using cadmium grenades, destroy them piece-meal. Edited December 21, 2024 by Isilel 1
Qianweilian He/him Posted December 20, 2024 Posted December 20, 2024 1 minute ago, Isilel said: She led the party of the Fused that attacked Graves' group of which Moash was part, didn't she? Oh, I forgot that part. I read WoR like 5 years ago.
WordOfBrandon Posted December 20, 2024 Posted December 20, 2024 (edited) Sorry if this is somewhat off the last few messages I wanted to throw in after reading all these threads. Kelsier at the end of The Lost Metal is not confident about Scadrial's chances in open warfare, so clearly guns don't mean much in the face of invested arts (Not until we get invested bullets). It seems like the arguments for Scadrial keep coming down to guns, leeching, atium, and steel pushing a bunch of coins around. Guns While guns are effective most of your opponents aren't going to be sitting out in the open for you to pick off, they will be heavenly ones dropping things from the sky, deepest ones coming from the ground, light weavers sneaking through your city, soul casters changing air into poison or smoke. Also radiants can always transform their high spren into shields to create cover. Sigzil does this in Sunlitman. Lightweaving is hard to detect in most examples and brandon has a wob talking about the limits of the average seeker. Also its really not a practical solution to leach every person you come across. Leeching If you can get in range to leach an opponent, then they can also use division on you, they can also stab you with a shard blade. Also is there a concrete reason why people think a metalborn can instantly leech someone with stormlight, towerlight, voidlight? Roshar is supposed to be the high investitture planet compared to scadrial. Atium Guys they have no atium thus the whole problem with Marsh aging rapidly at the end of the Lost Metal. I know they got some more, but It doesn't mean that its much. They scraped it off of an explosion in Wax's lab just to get some. Steelpushing To me this argument is similar to guns and is defintely one of the scadrians most powerful weapons, but the one time we saw this effectively used against a serious opponent was Kelsier's last stand against an inquisitor. In particular an inquistor that didn't seem to have F-Gold. Invested creatures with light have crazy healing and pain resistance. Shallan got shot in the eye in Wind and Truth and a sentence later was calmly analyzing the battle field. If anything I think the purpose of the time dilation was to give Scadrial time to advance given that Rosharan invested arts have such crazy potential. Edited December 20, 2024 by WordOfBrandon 2
FleetFoot14 Posted December 20, 2024 Posted December 20, 2024 4 hours ago, alder24 said: USA wasn't really into planes back then. Germany with 65 mil people produced 48k while being blockaded, France with 40 mil produced 67k. The Basin can produce thousands of planes per year. Being able to produce planes is one thing, but being able to train pilots, mechanics, etc is something else. 4 hours ago, alder24 said: They have conscription plans and trained constables. With trains, mass conscription would be executed quickly and guns allow for a very fast training compared to what you need to train with swords, spears and medieval tactics and formations that Roshar has. Scadrial can muster a large force of soldiers very fast, way quicker than Roshar (especially if you consider time dilation which basically prevents Roshar from replacing their losses). Police officers are very different that military. Police are meant to keep the peace on the streets. They have some skills that are transferrable to a full scale battlefield, but they're not the same as a true solider. 4 hours ago, alder24 said: True, that's why I believe it would be a bloody war for both sides. Full agreement here. From a story writing perspective, a complete wipeout of one side wouldn't be great. But also neither side would have a great shot at invading the other's planet. I'd imagine if Roshar came under attack, they would somehow unify in order to protect the planet, and something similar would happen for Scadrial (Elendel, Roughs, Malwish unity). Spoiler So far, based on the preview chapters we've seen, it seems to point more to indirect conflicts, but it's a pretty big time jump and we don't know what happened before. All in all, I'm looking forward to RAFO 1
alder24 Posted December 20, 2024 Posted December 20, 2024 4 hours ago, Isilel said: Moash did it to Leshwi at the end of WoR, in fact. In was in OB ch 43. But yes, it happened. 4 hours ago, Isilel said: @alder24: OTOH, I don't think that figuring out how to spike out Connection to Odium would be quite as straightforward as you suggest. TLR had no shortage of atium and an expanded mind, and was experimenting for a millennium, yet he never discovered anything more about Hemalurgy than what Ruin had imparted to him in the Well. I'm not really claiming it will be easy, I'm just exploring this possibility. If spiking Connection to Odium out of Fused is enough to permanently kill them (for which I don't see any opposing opinions, so I think we all agree on this), then Scadrians potentially have a very cheap way to threaten Fused existence. Obviously it won't be easy, it will be hard, the whole process of figuring this out will take some time and having the opportunity to spike a Fused won't happen often, but it's a possibility worth exploring. We don't know what Rashek knew about Hemalurgy, he was unable to create another Hemalurgic construct, but this is way harder to do than what I propose. Creating a new construct is a two step process - you need to steal proper attributes and you need to plant them in a proper way. Here we just need one thing - steal Connection. We know what we're stealing (everyone who has some basic knowledge of Hemalurgy will know that duralumin is used to steal Connection, that's not a secret), we know what we want to achieve (intent), we only need to figure out where to place a spike to steal it. I bet it's through the heart as almost all things are stolen this way. A human heart has 4 binding points, it takes just 4 tries to figure out where to place it. Of course, as it was said before, Singers aren't humans. But that's not a problem, just experiment on prisoners of war, dissect their bodies and gain the knowledge of where exactly you need to place your spike to steal Connection. Even better, examine Fused dead bodies - you will gain knowledge on what's their internal organ placement, which you can then combine with what you've learned from experiments on Singers. At every step of this process use an Oracle who will gain an intuitive feeling of where to place the spike, maybe even boosted by a Nicroburst. It will take some time to run through all of those experiments and figure this out, but I don't think stealing Connection would be that complicated once the Basin decides to use Hemalurgy. They can even use the Set's scientists for that, I bet they would be eager to return to their experiments on legal terms and they have experience they can share. Using this in combat will be troublesome, that's obvious. I'm not suggesting that this will be some wonder weapon that will turn the tides of war, it will be just another tool to use against Roshar. Oracles, Steelruners, Thugs, Sliders or some other Metalborns could be used to do this. They won't be successful every time of course, but they might slowly start permanently killing Fused. Maybe they could even develop a spike gun, but that's another discussion. 1 hour ago, Isilel said: Oh, and I had some more ideas about possible Scadrian tactics, particularly artillery: burn bendalloy via Slider or an allomantic grenade when re-loading - continuous fire. Possibly use Brass Feruchemy to prevent over-heating. Also good for quick re-positioning, of course. This is a great idea. Artillery shooting on full auto would be scary as hell. Expensive, but very brutal. 1 hour ago, FleetFoot14 said: Being able to produce planes is one thing, but being able to train pilots, mechanics, etc is something else. The whole aviation industry was 10 years old when WW 1 started, nobody had any experience in doing any of this stuff, but they gained it through practice and organized and effective air force. The Basin would be in the very same position and if things worked out on Earth, they will work out on Scadrial too. 1 hour ago, FleetFoot14 said: Police officers are very different that military. Police are meant to keep the peace on the streets. They have some skills that are transferrable to a full scale battlefield, but they're not the same as a true solider. Of course. They would still need training, but would already know half of what's needed to be a soldier. They can be used, not even for combat but also for some other task, as trainers, officers, military police, for logistics and lots of other stuff. They can also assist the army, rather than join it. There is a lot of things trained police officers could do during a war and they would certainly be a valuable tool for Scadrial. Also, this isn't my idea, this is Varlance's idea. TLM ch 38: Quote “We have conscription plans in place,” Adawathwyn said smoothly. “And we have a very capably trained constabulary.” Reddi seemed horrified by that statement. Steris had something to add, but she hesitated. Was this the part where she spoke? She could rarely figure that out. “My people,” Reddi said, “are not soldiers.” “Pardon, constable,” Lord Cett said, leaning across the table. “But no one is a soldier until they’re trained to be.” “We’re needed,” Reddi explained. “Law—” “We’ll be under martial law,” the governor explained. “Policing crime in the city will get a lot easier with curfews. You can put excess constables into the military force.” 1 hour ago, FleetFoot14 said: Full agreement here. From a story writing perspective, a complete wipeout of one side wouldn't be great. But also neither side would have a great shot at invading the other's planet. I'd imagine if Roshar came under attack, they would somehow unify in order to protect the planet, and something similar would happen for Scadrial (Elendel, Roughs, Malwish unity). Even if Roshar won't unite, I doubt Scadrial would be able to win the war against Retribution's side of Roshar. That's way too big an area to control and Rosharans won't have to worry about dealing with supply lines through time dilation bubble, so they would have basically unlimited investiture and almost instant rebirth for Fused/Regals. They would win on defence with no problems (not to mention that Scadrial isn't capable of any offensive war right now and to be fair neither is Roshar, a fact which we all ignore for the sake of this topic). On the other hand time dilation will once again favor Scadrians, as the fight on Roshar would be in a huge time slowing bubble, so large that they would be almost motionless. That means Scadrian would be great at supplying and reinforcing their troops, so good that from Rosharan perspective new soldiers and supply would basically appear out of nowhere every few days, while in fact Scadrians spent months on their home planet preparing all of this. Plus it will take just a few months of fighting for new powerful weapons and technology to appear on a battlefield, while in reality years would have passed on Scadrial giving them lots of time to learn and progress. Still, while this is a huge advantage, I doubt it's enough to win the war on Roshar. 1
Immortal Platypus Posted December 20, 2024 Posted December 20, 2024 2 hours ago, WordOfBrandon said: Leeching If you can get in range to leach an opponent, then they can also use division on you, they can also stab you with a shard blade. Also is there a concrete reason why people think a metalborn can instantly leech someone with stormlight, towerlight, voidlight? Roshar is supposed to be the high investitture planet compared to scadrial. actually, I think we have concrete evidence of the opposite. I think there's a WOB that says that a Leecher would not instantaneously drain Light, but they could do it over time. I could be wrong about that. The reason we haven't mentioned Blades is that while you are being Leeched you cannot summon a Blade. A similar problem occurs with Division. And a lot of the conversation around leeching has been Allomantic grenades, so Division/Blades wouldn't work well anyway. 2
CtrlAltDepressed Posted December 20, 2024 Posted December 20, 2024 26 minutes ago, alder24 said: Maybe they could even develop a spike gun, but that's another discussion. Guns are already spike guns
Qianweilian He/him Posted December 21, 2024 Posted December 21, 2024 29 minutes ago, Ookla the Arbiter said: while you are being Leeched you cannot summon a Blade Actually, that makes me think that a Leecher might be able to stop someone from using surges whatsoever if they latched on. Might be a way to stop Stormlight healing. 11 minutes ago, CtrlAltDepressed said: Guns are already spike guns I mean, we know that misplaced spikes cause immense pain, and if you just poked an animal with a bullet and loaded it into a gun, it might be very effective war crime filled weapons 1
Immortal Platypus Posted December 21, 2024 Posted December 21, 2024 41 minutes ago, CtrlAltDepressed said: Guns are already spike guns you need Intent. 28 minutes ago, Qianweilian said: Actually, that makes me think that a Leecher might be able to stop someone from using surges whatsoever if they latched on. Might be a way to stop Stormlight healing. It definitely wouldn't stop them if they're already happening, as if you have your Blade summoned it can't stop you from wielding it. I don't know if the WOB talks about KR or Shardbearers. I doubt it would stop healing either. Quote I mean, we know that misplaced spikes cause immense pain, and if you just poked an animal with a bullet and loaded it into a gun, it might be very effective war crime filled weapons again, you need Intent. I doubt the Intent of misplacing spikes counts for that purpose, and poking an animal would almost certainly not be enough to work for spikes. Also, Rosharans have their own versions of those: AoE painrials
therunner he/him Posted December 21, 2024 Posted December 21, 2024 (edited) 17 hours ago, alder24 said: I'm still not very convinced by this. Until we have numbers from Brandon, this is just pure speculation. Fair enough. Quote I meant that yes, it's a good baseline, but they will run out of Stormlight much faster than a golem would out of Dor. I wouldn't say so. Plate will get damaged less than golem, and so will require less Investiture to heal. Quote That's fine, but I think if the war between Scadrial and Roshar were to last long enough, planes would appear quite fast. Quite fast is still possibly decade or so, remember that Scadrial is slower than expected when it comes to technology development. At very minimum, there would at least a year or two where Roshar has no comptetion in the air, and afterwards they will still have superiority in everything except eventually numbers (if the factories remain standing, it will be difficult to protect them against side with air superiority). Quote USA wasn't really into planes back then. Germany with 65 mil people produced 48k while being blockaded, France with 40 mil produced 67k. The Basin can produce thousands of planes per year. Both France and Germany had much larger industrial base at the start of war than US. Basin's economy is modeled after mix of Wild West US, and 19th century Britain, they are not industrialized enough to match either Germany or France. Hell, only Elendel is capable of building and maintaining railways, that tells you where they are when it comes to industry. Basin will be lucky to produce one thousand planes per year. Quote Aluminum bullets aren't pure aluminum either, yet they are fully immune to Steelpushing. Any aluminum alloy behaves like pure aluminum: Reveal hidden contents Longshot_97 This question concerns Mistborn Era 2. Aluminum at this time is supremely rare and quite expensive, and Wax is seen lamenting his profound lack of aluminum guns and bullets fairly often. However, couldn't he fashion a "Poor Man's Aluminum" of sorts by coating his guns (and potentially bullets) in a thin veneer of iron, then Feruchemically charging it? You've noted that metalminds can still be pushed, but much less than un-Invested metal. This could help him, in the absence of aluminum. So, is there a reason he has not done that? Brandon Sanderson The layer you would get by just that little coat would be so small that it'd have very little effect. Now, there's a pretty good argument for putting it into bullets. The problem there is: are the alloys that make good bullets going to work very well? Now, granted, aluminum doesn’t make for great bullets either. But any aluminum alloy kind of gets the property of aluminum. Where any iron alloy does not necessarily get the property of being able to allomantically or feruchemically interact with it in the right way. Can you get there? It's an excellent question that I perhaps should explore. I like this idea. But it's harder than you make it out to be. It is a good idea, though; it's a pretty good idea. r/books AMA 2022 (July 7, 2022) One word, Duralumin, so clearly no, not all aluminum alloys behave as pure aluminum. Plus, the WoB does not even say that. It says that alloys 'kind of' get the property of aluminum, i.e. they are not exactly like it. Again, Duralumin alone disproves this. Quote So easily that anti-light was used only twice in WaT by Odium or Radiant forces? And only by Vyre? Don't get me wrong, I also think that anti-light should be easily produced, but the book seems to suggest otherwise. At that point anti-light was discovered ~11 days ago at most, and everyone else was busy with other things. The war would take longer, and so they could create more, as you say, it is quite easy. Quote And they need Raysium for that, now there is no Odium, there's Retribution. We don't know where Raysium came from, but most likely it won't be produced anymore. Good point. I suspect there will otherways to force this interaction, though right now they are also limited. Quote The fact that the Set actually considered using rockets till the very last moment seems to suggest that they've already solved the problem with the electric current. The fact that the Set didn't use rockets suggests that ultimately they couldn't solve the problem. Scadrial does not have any generators small enough to fit on such rockets. Wax needed industrial grade power line to melt relatively small piece of Harmonium, for any bomb application you will need more. Plus, Telsin explicitly says they couldn't get it to work, and that advanced rocketry and ballistics are beyond them. Harmony also comments that being given knowledge and not getting it yourself will have consequences. Quote Anything that gives you a peer into the Spiritual Realm helps you with Hemalurgy - burning electrum does just that. It would help. I'm not suggesting creating new Hemalurgic constructs, just spiking out Fused Connection to Odium. That's something that they already know is possible, the Hemalurgic table specify that duralumin can steal Connection and those people mentioned by me (plus Marsh) know enough to experiment more and figure it out fast enough to be useful during the war. Reveal hidden contents PhantoMonstrosity Atium is the best metal to use for Hemalurgy. Does *burning* atium help you figure out where to put the spikes? Brandon Sanderson Anything that gets you a glimpse of the Spiritual Realm could help with placing spikes. PhantoMonstrosity Would flaring iron and steel also help? Brandon Sanderson No, not without additional help. #NookTalks Twitter Q&A with Barnes & Noble (Feb. 16, 2016) Really, figure it out fast enough? Did anyone other than Lord Ruler figure out new bindpoints? It won't be fast. Hemalurgy is thought of on these forums as far easier than the books show it to be. Quote Marsh did. He spiked Penrod while they were fighting. Inquisitors were almost able to spike Eland. Of course it won't be easy, but it's still possible to do. I'm not suggesting that suddenly on day 1 every Fused gets spiked. Marsh was piloted by Ruin, so does not count. Inquisitors tried and failed, so does not count. Again, no one ever spiked anyone in combat, unless Shard was guiding them. Quote I think we have to take time dilation into account, otherwise this topic is almost no different than the last one. That's the biggest change that happened on Roshar, which will dramatically influence the war. It is radically different in that now spren, Fused and Radiants can leave Roshar, and there is no Bondsmith. If not considering united planets, primary forces of Roshar are also now singers and Fused, not humans and Radiants. Quote We can either assume that the war would last just a few Scadrian years and thus only minor technological development happens, or this will be a war spanning through decades and Scadrial would progress just as Earth progressed since the beginning of WW 1 (since Scadrial is an analog to Earth). Rosharan progress is unfortunately much harder to predict, especially that we don't even know how everything that happened affected technology. However, due to time dilation only months or years would pass on Roshar and we already know how Roshar progressed in this timeframe from books. As you say, we don't know how they will progress, that makes it next to impossible to have any discussion. Scadrial arguments will rely on IRL tech progression, which however we already know is not how Scadrial is progressing. And they will assume Scadrial can make use of given knowledge, without actually understanding underlying principles. Roshar arguments will rely on fabrial advancements, and possibly espionage. Plus the only realistic fight in that scenario is Scadrial trying to invade Roshar, which is basically impossible for them to even start (with their lack of access to Shadesmar), much less win. Quote I doubt Fused have faster reflexes on such a close distance than a bullet speed. It isn't about having faster reflexes than a bullet speed, just than your opponent. Quote One bullet hitting a gemstone (which of course isn't guaranteed, but the fact they appear as light when teleporting would help a lot in aiming, Kaladin was able to track it with no problems) is a kill shot. Light will help you track where generally Husked One will appear, not where gemheart will be. Plus gemhearts are small and inside a body. Hitting them on purpose is basically impossible, because you can't see them, and they are target smaller than a closed fist. If the shooter does not hit it (which they won't with any likelyhood), they are dead because Husked One will stab them. I'd say Husked One will win such fight 95/100 if not more. Quote I didn't mean that they would break Tension, but bullets would rip through their belts, damaging them, which would cause tensile force to snap them in half as they are now much weaker. And they can't be healed because aluminum is stuck in the wound. Shardblade won't penetrate those belts, bullets won't rip through them. We had this discussion, bullets don't have nearly enough energy to penetrate, especially if they are aluminum ones, as those will be 3x lighter, and so will have 24x less momentum and 195x less kinetic energy. If we will be conservative, Sigzil had to penetrate about 6 cm of carapace and skull to do what he did, aluminum bullet would penetrate at most 2.5 mm . Plus aluminum will be far softer than the belt, and aluminum does not disrupt powers directly (if it did, it would pop speed bubbles). It would barely scratch them. To put it bluntly, bullets won't do anything to Focused Ones, you will need to use artillery on them, which won't be able to target them with any accuracy. Quote I don't agree. Any other Fused is easily cut by a normal sword, including the Deepest Ones. I don't think the Focused Ones would be even more resilient because of their investiture outside of what we've seen. Fair. Quote WW 1 was mostly stationary (on the west), but that doesn't mean that motion didn't happen. Assaults happened, cavalry charges happened, tanks happened. Artillery was easily targeting moving targets - calculations are the very core of using artillery. Yeah motion happened, but my point was that 'chargin machine gun' was not really that common a tactic, hence assuming Roshar will just blindly be doing that is unfair. Also, WW1 artillery does not target moving things easily. Those calculations are not that straightforward. You can use it to target moving large groups, because there being 3 meters off won't matter. Against individuals, WW1 artillery is not fast enough in retargetting. Process of firing artillery is that You get coordinates of the target. Calculate firing solution Adjust artillery Fire Even if steps 2 and 3 take only 5 seconds each (they won't), that means moving target is now up to 50 meters elsewhere, and you have to re do it all of it. So no, artillery won't be able to hit individual Fused. It will be able to hit either stationary targets, slow moving targets, or large targets (such as Thunderclasts). Quote Scadrial has a lot of high urban environment, which would be a factor. Yeah, and it would help Roshar not Scadrial. Urban environemnt means short line of sight, so any conflict takes place over 'short' range, as far as gun ranges go. Clearing building would favor Fused and Regals immensely compared to open field. Quote Which are useless against modern guns. Go ahead and charge with a pike square against a machine gun nest. Sure, Fused or Skybreakers would be trying to destroy it, Scadrians would try counter that and protect their position, they can imply movable machine guns - at the end of the day you'll end up with dozens of killed Scadrians and a dead pike square. Numbers mean nothing if they use spears and swords. As you say, Fused and Skybreakers would be trying to destory it, and frankly I don't see how they coudl not succed. What will machine gun do against stones dropped on their location? Or Husked One appearing in the middle of them? Or Focused One hurtling boulders at them? Once you destroy the machine gun, you can do charge, under some cover (such as shardshield, or half shards, or even moving barricades). Quote I specifically said in an urban environment. Metals are everywhere there. On a battlefield there would be also a lot of metal form cartridges, bullets, shrapnels, wires and all that stuff. Yeah, but they don't really maneuver with such acceleration to be worried about g-forces. Radiants do. Even if metals are 'everywhere' they are still not literally everywhere, so Surgebinders still have advantage. And if Coinshots and Lurchers never even have to consider g-forces, that just means they accelerate much slower, which means they are less maneuverable. So again, Surgebinders will still have advantage even closer to ground. Quote One was killed by Nightblood. In WaT when reporting that Fused are moving against the Shattered Plains they said "there is one Thunderclast, possibly both." There are only two left. Ah, true, forgot about that. Quote As for regeneration, you're right, the book said something like that - but it also said it's about hurting its body. Huring its body is intended to hinder it, so they can get Shardbearer in position to kill it. Quote Also on the other hand the Thunderclast banished by Renarin in OB did not come back immediately so there is something that prevents them from being reborn right after their first death. That one fled from Renarin, he didn't kill it. Safe to say Scadrial won't be able to do that. Quote Except they can't spawn next to artillery because they need a suitable ground for it - uncovered natural rock. Scadrial isn't Roshar, there is soil on the ground, not rocks. Thunderclast can't spawn in soil. They can't even spawn in cobblestone. They would not find many places in which they can spawn on Scadrial, definitely not right next to an artillery battery. The quote does not say they can spawn only on uncovered natural rock, only that it is more difficult on worked stone or covered stone. We don't know what that means exactly, but it is clearly not impossible. Quote Once a Husk One grabs a Leecher, they will suddenly all stop doing this risky maneuver. Once Husked One grabs Leecher, they will stab them and kill them. What exactly is Leecher supposed to do, bleed on them threateningly? Quote It's quiet on Roshar, but Metallic Arts deal with less power than Surgebinding. If Seeking detects Feruchemy, I think it's possible it would detect Lightweaving. I'd say it is unlikely. Why keep repeating Lightweaving is silent, and Ghostbloods have to use white sand to detect it, if not because it is silenet generally? Quote How many functional Fused are there? 2000? Sure they can be used like that, but they can't be used everywhere where a machine gun is. You wouldn't use them everywhere, just where needed. Plus one Fused can destroy more than one maching gun, especially Heavenly Ones, Husked Ones and Focused Ones. Quote Plus there would be multiple positions overlapping each other - they would be shot from behind when trying to deal with one nest. Are you really suggesting that Scadrial will start shooting with machine gun on their own positions? If they did that, than Husked Ones just have to appear, and then other machine gun stations will do their work for them. Quote You can also employ other tactics to make Fused life harder like aluminum bullets. Sure Fused will work, but it's not an ultimate solution that will win the war. Aluminum bullets are not the end-all of Invested warfare, Wayne is not suddenly completly useless because there are aluminum bullets. Quote It will be a bloody struggle and rope pushing back and forth. And that favors Roshar, because they have immortal Fused, more soldeirs and faster growth cycle. Roshar can sustain loses much more easily than Scadrial can. Quote They would be killed by guns before getting close enough to make their lightning effective. Not in urban warfare. Quote Caparace or steel plates are useless against rifles and machine guns. Hand guns are a last resort weapon. Not really no, tanks are made of steel plates. WW1 tanks had armor about 0.6 to 1cm thick, and that stopped machine guns. Steel plate is about 3mm thick, so even just Warform singer needs regular steel plate on top of their carapace to start being comparable to light tank in defensive properties. And Direform is even better protected. And even if for some reason they couldn't wear armor, they could build simple covered siege weapons and use those. Edit: I realized that if Scadrial uses aluminum bullets, then the penetration ability will be roughly 1/3 of steel ammo. As such, even 4mm of steel should be enough to stop the bullet completly. I.e. Warform likely requires relatively thin plane to render them virtually bulletproof against machine guns (for some time at least), and Direforms are likely impervious. If Scadrial wouldn't be using aluminum ammo, then Roshar can use attractor fabrials to mess with aim. Quote Yes, I agree Fused are effective against entrenched positions, but there is too little of them to make those positions ineffective. It would be a bloodbath for sure. You are missing the point, thanks to air superiority of Roshar, trenches are useless. Trenches are only to stop enemy from getting beyond them, but Roshar can simply fly their units over. At most you could use them to protect strategic assets, but then you have relatively small lenght of them. Quote And Fused will have to also deal with Metalborn, so that's another factor that distracts them, which would leave their regular troop on the mercy of thousands of bullets shot per minute. Most metalborn are not particulalry dangerous to Fused or even Regals. There are 20000 metalborn total in Basin based on numbers we have, and that is across all 32 powers. We know some powers are more common (Coinshots) and some less (Steelrunners), but average number will be ~600. Also, this is across all age groups, in reality you will have only about 1/3 of those numbers that are healthy and combat ready, so only about ~6000 metalborn will be in fight. Only gold, steel and pewter Feruchemists are directly relevant in combat, and only steel are actually dangerous but there is very few of them. In Allomancy, only few are against directly usefull in combat, Coinshots, Lurchers, Thugs, Leechers, Sliders. Thugs are comparable to Regals, so no reason for Fused to care. Leechers are only dangerous to Fused, so again, no reason for them to specifically care. Coinshots and Lurchers were already discussed. Sliders will be most dangerous (as they could likely speed up e.g. machine gun fire (though who knows what repeated disruption to the bubble would do), but also difficult for Fused to get to. All in all, metalborn are not that relevant, and most would be used to enhance regular battle field tactics, so Fused can simply focus on those. Slider won't be nearly as dangerous if there are no machine guns around. Quote Can Deepest Ones move in soil? They can't move through wood. Aluminum also blocks them and they can always use it to stop Deepest Ones. Just building a wooden platform beneath their feet would nullify the Deepest Ones attacks. We don't know, but I assume they could learn it. And yeah, Scadrial could counter them like that, but that is another thing they have to maintain, and have supply lines for. Already all Scadrians tactics will depend on guns, and so on supply lines of bullets, which they cannot defend well (air superiority strikes again). Quote Again, that's just one person. This is not enough. You need competent command and officer structure. and Roshar has competent and experienced command structure, unlike Scadrial which has zero experience with any wars. Quote Even generals and officers with a ton of experience from previous wars were struggling to adapt to the ever changing nature of WW 1 and 2 Again, that is wild misconception. Some struggled, but not all, and most didn't beyond first few battles. Quote you want me to believe that someone from the sword and spear era will adapt well to guns they've never seen before? Conversely, you want me to belieave that generals with no experience in warfare, of any kind, will somehow be able to immediately utilize all the tactics and knowledge we have in IRL after century of guns in warfare? Scadrial will stumble before they figure out all the nifty tactics you can use. On top of dealing with Invested fighters, something they never had to before? Quote That's true, however they are familiar with Metalborn powers and much of Surgebinding is not that far off (and they play by the same rules - they need investiture). Both sides can use that to predict and develop new strategies against enemy invested units. Scadrial is barely aware of Investiture (though Ghostbloods might share that knowledge), and have no way to interfere with it. And Surgebinding is wildly different from a lot of Metalborn powers, they never encountered anything like Focused Ones or Husked Ones. Or Division. Quote They'd changed tactics, but the core formation - war pairs - did not change at all. Tactics are different from formation. They had little reason to adjust core formation, it was still mostly effective when combined with Fused to break lines. Quote The begining of WW 1, not the entire war. In the very first days of WW 1. So...all of your arguments about how Rosharan forces will get slaughter by machine guns will apply to only a fraction of the conflict? What happens after then? Quote That's a catapult not artillery. Rocks they throw don't have a range of several kilometers and they don't explode, not to mention the density of fire. This is incomparable. It is called artillery in WAT. Even so, it still not completly new, so it is in fact comparable. They won't be quite as surprised by artillery, since they are already familiar with two similar tactics. And bombardment will be new to Scadrial (Basin at least). Quote Because aluminum swords are useless... They don't use it because they have no means of delivering that aluminum to the body of their enemy and leaving it behind. Maybe some arrows and bolts, but making them on a massive scale would be hard with technology present on Roshar and the rarity of aluminum. Heavenly Ones stab Radiants with Raysium spears to drain them, and they have to leave them in wounds. Why wouldn't they do that with aluminum spears, since Raysium is rare that not all have it? Quote That's kind of an AA gun. Not the best one, but it's a start. Sure, Fused and Skybreakers can fly higher, but if they want to go lower, they would be exposed to those guns. It is laughably bad AA gun, artillery aim takes seconds, Fused and Skybreakers are too fast for it. Either Fused or Skybreakers under one Lashing can reach that gun in 13 seconds, artillery takes about that time to aim. They would destroy them before they would fire first shot. Quote Plus machine guns can be used as well. Those would be more useful, but it would take time for Scadrial to adapt. First strike on Elendel would let Fused capture the walls (because there are not machine guns there), or at least some sections. Which would open corridor into the city for any subsequent attacks. Quote They have conscription plans and trained constables. ... guns allow for a very fast training compare ... Scadrial can muster a large force of soldiers very fast, way quicker than Roshar Constables are not soldiers. And you need months to train conscripts even with guns, months during which Basin has 10000 actual soldiers. German soldiers had 2-3 months between consription and deployment. And because of low population of Basin, their army size will top out at ~500 000 or so. Quote With trains, mass conscription would be executed quickly and d to Train which can be rendered immobile by Fused and Skybreakers at will, by destroying train tracks. Basin has 400 miles in diamater, Fused and Skybreakers can cover that in 2 hours tops. Quote what you need to train with swords, spears and medieval tactics and formations that Roshar has. Lucky that Roshar already has armies in the hundreds of thousands already trained and mustered. Quote Yes, that's what is happening. This is draining them out of light quite fast. The WOB does not imply it would drain them of light quite fast. While lodged bullet would be problematic, the body can still heal around it even if the bullet is aluminum. Unless the bullet is in something dangerous, that will be survivable. Plus, Heavenly Ones stab Radiants with their draining spears, and even after several seconds of being actively drained plus trying to heal the wound, they still have Light left. Quote Those were only the guns Daal spotted and were mostly a propaganda piece. Source? @Qianweilian Quote Actually, that makes me think that a Leecher might be able to stop someone from using surges whatsoever if they latched on. Might be a way to stop Stormlight healing. It wouldn't stop healing, Radiants being drained were still kept alive by Stormlight. And likely it would not stop Surges being used, since you are just shaping already present Investiture, not summoning new one. But even if it did stop Surges, Fused can simply punch or stab Leecher, they are far stronger. To clarify, I am not saying current Roshar would take Basin in like a week, but they have a lot of advantages over Scadrial. Scadrial's main advantage (guns) is also something that Roshar can relatively easily steal from them or copy with Fabrials, whereas Scadrial won't magically get Fused or Regals. Storywise, there is a reason why Brandon is holding Roshar isolated from rest of Cosmere, first by Honor's bond now by timewarp, and it is not because Roshar is weaker. Edited December 21, 2024 by therunner 1
Qianweilian He/him Posted December 21, 2024 Posted December 21, 2024 4 hours ago, therunner said: It wouldn't stop healing, Radiants being drained were still kept alive by Stormlight. And likely it would not stop Surges being used, since you are just shaping already present Investiture, not summoning new one. 12 hours ago, Qianweilian said: Actually, that makes me think that a Leecher might be able to stop someone from using surges whatsoever if they latched on. Might be a way to stop Stormlight healing. Sorry, here I meant that I might stop a radiant from breathing in more stormlight, not using what they already have. 4 hours ago, therunner said: Quote Those were only the guns Daal spotted and were mostly a propaganda piece. Source? @Qianweilian Sorry, but I didn't post the original quote. I have no idea what @alder24 means by that. 4 hours ago, therunner said: Unless the bullet is in something dangerous, that will be survivable. Considering how both sides have healers, I don't think this is all that different from regular troops. What I think has potential is a bullet that shatters in someone's body and spreads shards of aluminum all over. 4 hours ago, therunner said: Lucky that Roshar already has armies in the hundreds of thousands already trained and mustered. Fair. That's true 4 hours ago, therunner said: Scadrial will stumble before they figure out all the nifty tactics you can use. They will both stumble and have to create entirely new strategies 4 hours ago, therunner said: And you need months to train conscripts even with guns, months during which Basin has 10000 actual soldiers. German soldiers had 2-3 months between consription and deployment. Time dilation on Roshar gives more than enough time for training 4 hours ago, therunner said: First strike on Elendel would let Fused capture the walls (because there are not machine guns there), or at least some sections. Which would open corridor into the city for any subsequent attacks. Does Elendel...have walls? Also, you forget climate. Roshar has significantly more oxygen than Scadrial, and that means singers who attack Scadrial would need weeks to become effective. The Fused have voidlight, but there are only about 2000 sane fused left. Whereas, Scadrian troops on Roshar would literally be better at everything for a while as they get a lot more oxygen then they are used to.
Nitpicking Posted December 22, 2024 Posted December 22, 2024 12 hours ago, Qianweilian said: Also, you forget climate. Roshar has significantly more oxygen than Scadrial, and that means singers who attack Scadrial would need weeks to become effective. The Fused have voidlight, but there are only about 2000 sane fused left. Whereas, Scadrian troops on Roshar would literally be better at everything for a while as they get a lot more oxygen then they are used to. Extra oxygen doesn't normally boost performance. That thing where athletic trainers give people oxygen on the sidelines to give them energy? Placebo. An athlete's oxygen saturation is almost always 98% or higher. More oxygen by mask doesn't change anything.
StanLemon Posted December 22, 2024 Posted December 22, 2024 37 minutes ago, Nitpicking said: Extra oxygen doesn't normally boost performance. That thing where athletic trainers give people oxygen on the sidelines to give them energy? Placebo. An athlete's oxygen saturation is almost always 98% or higher. More oxygen by mask doesn't change anything. I'm not sure that's what they meant. People used to a high oxygen environment going to a low oxygen environment typically need time to adjust, especially if they are going to do physical activities and get winded easier than people who are used to those environments. This is pretty common, Think about people who are used to sea level who get tired easily when visiting a high elevation place 2
therunner he/him Posted December 22, 2024 Posted December 22, 2024 18 hours ago, Qianweilian said: Sorry, here I meant that I might stop a radiant from breathing in more stormlight, not using what they already have. Ah, apologies for misunderstanding. Then yes, I think that makes sense. Quote Sorry, but I didn't post the original quote. I have no idea what @alder24 means by that. Sorry for confusion, I didn't mean that you should provide source for that, I was tagging you for the quote below, regarding Leechers Quote Considering how both sides have healers, I don't think this is all that different from regular troops. Scadrial does not have healers, they have only few hundred Gold Ferrings at best and those cannot heal others.. Even if considering united planets, Scadrial would only have some gold medallions (not sure if we ever even saw those), and Gold Ferring has to store for a week or so to heal single gunshot wound (Wayne comments on that in AoL). Compared to Fused, healing fabrials (Skybreakers should have at least one) and Edgedancers (if considering united planets), Roshar has far greater resources for keeping their soldiers operational. Quote What I think has potential is a bullet that shatters in someone's body and spreads shards of aluminum all over. Such bullets are bad at penetrating armor, something aluminum is already bad at. Bullets like that would likely break upon impact of armor/carapace and not get into body at all. Quote They will both stumble and have to create entirely new strategies True. I didn't mean that Roshar wouldn't have any issues, just that since they actually do have experience with warfare (decades to millennia even), that will give them advantage in devising tactics and strategies. Quote Time dilation on Roshar gives more than enough time for training I am ignoring the time dilation, as I don't think it can be taken into account properly. It would require us to make guesses as to how Scadrial will proceed decades into future, and that is not something we are really equipped to do, in my opinion. So I am sticking to just comparing existing resources, or very minor extrapolations. Quote Does Elendel...have walls? Ah, sorry it does not. The map confused me a bit Quote Also, you forget climate. Roshar has significantly more oxygen than Scadrial, and that means singers who attack Scadrial would need weeks to become effective. The Fused have voidlight, but there are only about 2000 sane fused left. 5 hours ago, StanLemon said: I'm not sure that's what they meant. People used to a high oxygen environment going to a low oxygen environment typically need time to adjust, especially if they are going to do physical activities and get winded easier than people who are used to those environments. This is pretty common, Think about people who are used to sea level who get tired easily when visiting a high elevation place I don't think oxygen levels would do much difference, reasons and evidence follows: First, oxygen level itself is not the key value, it's partial pressure is. If we assume that Roshar has oxygen content of 35% (maximum ever achieved on Earth), then due to lower gravity of Roshar (0.7 of Earth) the partial pressure of oxygen at sea level is only circa 22kPa, not far from Earths (and Scadrials) 20kPa. In other words, Rosharan on Scadrial should feel pretty normal, about as much as in ~1500-2000 meters, far below where it would have sizable impact on performance. If the above does not apply or convince, there are also Cosmere specfic reasons. People in Cosmere are Invested, which makes them tougher and more adaptable than IRL humans (https://wob.coppermind.net/events/467/#e14746), and people of Roshar are especially so due to omnipresent Investiture (they don't really have plagues and such due to that). As such, they could withstand lower oxygen levels better than we would and would adapt faster (especially Regals and Fused). Throughout Stormlight, we see people (both human and singer) travel rather large height difference with no ill effects. Urithiru is circa 4500 meters above sea level, and Regals and Fused walk there on foot (Venli and Raboniel in RoW), never mentioning any ill effects due to height and Stormform are combat ready immediately. Any travel between planets would be through Cognitive, which likely has oxygen concentration equal to corresponding planet, interpolating between. So forces would be adapting on the way, which is at least several weeks long. So any Singer forces on Scadrial would likely be mostly effective from the get go, if not fully effective. Quote Whereas, Scadrian troops on Roshar would literally be better at everything for a while as they get a lot more oxygen then they are used to. Literature actually does not support this assertion, there is no evidence of any significant improvement of performance with oxygen levels. Plus as mentioned above, partial pressure of oxygen is likely comparable between Roshar and Scadrial. 2
Qianweilian He/him Posted December 22, 2024 Posted December 22, 2024 4 hours ago, therunner said: Any travel between planets would be through Cognitive, which likely has oxygen concentration equal to corresponding planet, interpolating between. So forces would be adapting on the way, which is at least several weeks long. Okay that's fair. This is an interesting conversation, but I get the feeling we're getting nowhere.
Nitpicking Posted December 22, 2024 Posted December 22, 2024 10 hours ago, StanLemon said: I'm not sure that's what they meant. People used to a high oxygen environment going to a low oxygen environment typically need time to adjust ... That's 100% correct. The other direction is what I was referring to. Note that training in low-oxygen environments seems to offer a real advantage by promoting the production of more erythrocytes in the athlete, increasing oxygen carrying capacity. Like anything in biology, it's complex.
therunner he/him Posted December 22, 2024 Posted December 22, 2024 12 minutes ago, Qianweilian said: This is an interesting conversation, but I get the feeling we're getting nowhere. That is the usual way these go Post RoW one had around 80 pages, and eventually we did get somewhere (though there were still major disagreements) and shifted mostly to theorycrafting of what can be done with e.g. medallions and fabrials. I do enjoy discussions for their own sake, so coming up with counterarguments (or conceding if I fail to do so) is fun to me on its own. 1
Qianweilian He/him Posted December 22, 2024 Posted December 22, 2024 I think I saw that one. Didn't it get locked?
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