A way for Tarabution to have his powerful army!!!

[JasnahShouldBeVegan]

So the problem that Taravangian has with not having his armies ready to invade the Cosmere is probably a plot hole. 

We know that he was able to train up Gav into a pretty awesome warrior in the spirit realm and age him extremely quickly. We also know that he was able to send Karbranth to the spirit realm entirely.

So why not send the majority of Roshar that he won during the 10 days to the spirit realm and train them up very quickly? What rule is stopping him?
 

Is it just simply because he was king of Karbranth when he was human that allowed him to send Karbranth to the spirit realm and not the rest of Roshar?

[Qianweilian He/him]

Gavinor mentions that fighting Dalinar is harder than in the visions, so it's possible that it's not fully effective. Also, Navani was able to manipulate the vision Taravangian had given her, even though there was only about five people he was focusing on in the Spiritual Realm, so it's possible that it wouldn't be sustainable, and it's possible that other shards could interfere and maybe even sabotage his troops due to the Spiritual Realm being where the shards reside.

[JasnahShouldBeVegan]

Even if they are slightly worse fighters than they would have been if they trained in the physical realm it doesn’t mean that it is not still of value to give them time to train in the spiritual realm.

The fact that it may not be sustainable to train them in the spirit is not clear to me, shards are supposed to be near omnipotent?

The thing about other shards messing with the spirit realm Roshar training camp is a good point. But you could say that other shards could just mess with his preparation anywhere in any way? Maybe I’m not understanding the powers and limitations on shards?

[Sophrosyne He/any]

7 hours ago, JasnahShouldBeVegan said:

The fact that it may not be sustainable to train them in the spirit is not clear to me, shards are supposed to be near omnipotent?

Are they? I mean I know they're powerful but I'd imagine two omni-potent beings clashing for any length of time would destroy planets not mountains.

 

If we say that T-Odium was able to give Gav 20 years of training in a day. Then it follows he could give 2 people 10 years in half a day. over 5 years that's thousands of people and they have time to train with each other for real experience and train up others. Your plan works fine as far as I'm concerned.

[Ewery1]

1 hour ago, Sophrosyne said:

Are they? I mean I know they're powerful but I'd imagine two omni-potent beings clashing for any length of time would destroy planets not mountains.

 

If we say that T-Odium was able to give Gav 20 years of training in a day. Then it follows he could give 2 people 10 years in half a day. over 5 years that's thousands of people and they have time to train with each other for real experience and train up others. Your plan works fine as far as I'm concerned.

Agreed. Also, in WaT we clearly established that Shards have limited attention. They are not omnipotent and omniscient, they are able to see whatever they want but they have to look. They can only really be in one place at a time.

[feruchemicalrockband]

Time seems to have slowed down in the Spiritual Realm around Roshar after Retribution's ascension, even compared to Roshar's time relative to the rest of the Cosmere. We see this in how Retribution doesn't seem to realize how much time passes after he ascends (months go by before he takes direct action again after absorbing as much of Honor's power as possible), and how the Heralds are in a Spiritual memory of Ashyn that passes time slower than the Physical/Cognitive. The sped up time might not be an option until Part 2.

 

1 hour ago, Sophrosyne said:

Then it follows he could give 2 people 10 years in half a day. over 5 years that's thousands of people and they have time to train with each other for real experience and train up others. Your plan works fine as far as I'm concerned.

I don't think we can make this assumption. We don't have a real metric to determine how a Shard can split it's attention, especially in the Spiritual Realm. In fact, in one interlude Taravangian clearly states he won't spend much energy on Shallan, Renarin, Rlain and Navani because he's too busy with other things (Gav and Dalinar).

[Sophrosyne He/any]

6 minutes ago, feruchemicalrockband said:

I don't think we can make this assumption. We don't have a real metric to determine how a Shard can split it's attention, especially in the Spiritual Realm. In fact, in one interlude Taravangian clearly states he won't spend much energy on Shallan, Renarin, Rlain and Navani because he's too busy with other things (Gav and Dalinar).

But he won't have to split his attention. In this theoretical, every 12 hours he sends a different person into their own personal training arc. after 5 years he has plenty of Gavs  to work with.

[RedBlue]

I think the main problem here is that you can’t build a powerful planetary army just by putting a bunch of conscripts through an accelerated boot camp.

Retribution needs to create and organise a command structure. He’ll need several layers of people with officer training and real experience of military leadership at various levels, and he needs them capable of working as a cohesive whole even though these people come from very different cultural backgrounds. They all need a practical understanding of what their job is, who they take orders from, and who they are supposed to be leading.

He also needs to sort out logistics. His armies need to be fed, equipped, transported, and able to communicate. There will need to be real infrastructure and industry in place to support large-scale military campaigns, and that will need to be built up in the Physical Realm.

Basic training is not the limiting factor. It’s everything else. 

[JasnahShouldBeVegan]

On 12/19/2024 at 4:25 AM, RedBlue said:

I think the main problem here is that you can’t build a powerful planetary army just by putting a bunch of conscripts through an accelerated boot camp.

Retribution needs to create and organise a command structure. He’ll need several layers of people with officer training and real experience of military leadership at various levels, and he needs them capable of working as a cohesive whole even though these people come from very different cultural backgrounds. They all need a practical understanding of what their job is, who they take orders from, and who they are supposed to be leading.

He also needs to sort out logistics. His armies need to be fed, equipped, transported, and able to communicate. There will need to be real infrastructure and industry in place to support large-scale military campaigns, and that will need to be built up in the Physical Realm.

Basic training is not the limiting factor. It’s everything else. 

I think Basic training is a limiting factor, but I agree that there are other (maybe more important) limiting factors in getting his army in shape.

In my opinion it is still possible to improve other aspects of training via the spiritual realm boot camp. Remember, Taravangian did manage to send the entire Karbranth to the spirit realm.

All Tarabution needs to do is get some war leaders that are loyal to him (like the Blackthorn) and work with them to set up some sort of spiritual realm boot camp, he just needs to fake another tidal wave or something to cover up sending a military school and barracks to the spiritual realm. This should only take a day or so. Then Tarabution can send a whole bunch of people there covertly, maybe send lots of smaller groups to begin with, Then send the whole lot of them to get them working as an army.

Considering Big-T aged Gav to adulthood in a few hours this whole process shouldn’t take that long and he probably doesn’t need to give too much attention (the Blackthorn will get that army in tip top shape). Even if the time dilation makes it take longer 10 years should be plenty of time.

If I were in Big-T’s highly invested shoes this would be my plan… 

 

There is a larger issue here in my opinion… I really enjoyed Wind and Truth, however, the magic system is becoming more and more “soft” (the shards powers are unclear, confusing and can easily create inconsistencies). Originally I was attracted to Brandon Sanderson’s books because of the Hard magic systems, his magic rules were simple, and this was good because it made sense, the way the magic users interacted with the world made sense.

There’s nothing worse than having a story where all of a sudden the wizard that was travelling with the party does a super powerful fire magic blast out of the blue and destroys a whole army of baddies. And I think “where did that come from? Why doesn’t he just do that all the time? Why do the good guys even make armies? Why not just have that wizard guy win everything??”

[Sixth]

I'm sorry, "Tarabution"?? I could understand people saying "Todium" i guess since two different people held that shard, but come on. There is only one Retribution and we all know who it is. Stop this nonsense. 

Edited December 31, 2024 by Sixth

[JasnahShouldBeVegan]

27 minutes ago, Sixth said:

I'm sorry, "Tarabution"?? I could understand people saying "Todium" i guess since two different people had held that shard, but come on. There is only on Retribution and we all know who it is. Stop this nonsense. 

Relax dude it’s just for funzies  I’m open to Retrivangian too if that helps??

Edited December 20, 2024 by JasnahShouldBeVegan
Added additional humour

[JPGU]

I think another problem with this plan is that Taravangian doesn't even stay on Roshar after ascending, it's only months later for Roshar and years later for him outside in the Cosmere that he returns and pays some attention to the planet, one of the things that Dalinar's move achieved is that now Taravangian has to hide and move his pieces very carefully so as not to be cornered by his rivals.

[RedBlue]

10 hours ago, JasnahShouldBeVegan said:

All Tarabution needs to do is get some war leaders that are loyal to him (like the Blackthorn) and work with them to set up some sort of spiritual realm boot camp, he just needs to fake another tidal wave or something to cover up sending a military school and barracks to the spiritual realm. This should only take a day or so. Then Tarabution can send a whole bunch of people there covertly, maybe send lots of smaller groups to begin with, Then send the whole lot of them to get them working as an army.

That would require Taravangian to ship all his officers, rank and file soldiers, and all the logistics/maintenance support workers an army depends on into a tailor-made Spiritual Realm vision. That’s a lot more complicated than transplanting a city that already knows how to run itself. He would then need to prevent all those people from following Connections and wandering off into Spiritual Realm shenanigans, which many of them would immediately try to do upon realising that it’s an option.

He would also need to hide this from anyone else (like other Shards) who might interfere and are paying much more attention to him now. He can’t use the tidal wave trick again without destroying his own land, which would hurt his own infrastructure and tip off any observers. Besides, Taravangian is probably contractually unable to pull that sort of trick in areas that cut a bargain with him.

That’s a lot of effort and risk for a project that doesn’t help to lay the foundation of industry and infrastructure that the army needs to be built on. Roshar has been devastated by the war that put Retribution in power. In some key countries, entire systems of government are going to have to be installed from the ground up. Cities must be physically rebuilt. That’s where the real time crunch is going to come from. Even if super-fast training and organising of armies in the Spiritual Realm is feasible, it’s a pointless exercise when progress in the Physical Realm is the thing that is going to take the longest time.

[Sophrosyne He/any]

I'm having trouble seeing this as epically difficult to do. Ret. has limited focus sure but if you have trusted people in charge and only take volunteers then the whole, People can influence the SR is kind of moot, right?

 

as far as organization logistics and command structure. it's the same as above plus you have an extremely knowable god to do the really hard parts. and considering it'll likely be a defensive war or even siege supply lines shouldn't be THAT hard right?

[Velsii]

Another point is that getting to the spiritual realm is not easy. It took both bondsmiths, and some help from Wit, to get all of the assorted characters in there. I assume that directly intervening, Retribution will have a much harder time transporting thousands of people. He would either need completely willing volunteers, or no competing powers on Roshar ( I believe?) so that they can access his perpendicularity.