What Invasion and Occupation Plan Would the Unites States Military use to Fully Take Over Roshar?

[Returned he/him]

1 hour ago, TheFlatScadrian said:

But even if they did go the mole-people route, constantly seceding territory is sort of just a loss anyway.

I don't think that's the case in this scenario. Given the setup the only possible definition of victory for the Rosharans is to shatter the invaders' military capabilities until they can't support their forces. The invaders have no territory nor infrastructure at stake and are monomaniacally fixated on controlling Roshar, while the Rosharan resistance (distinct from most of the people that live there, who are going to be in a lot of trouble) has almost no need for infrastructure nor territory in the ways that usually matter for military action. I will agree that Urithiru (the tower) is gone and that the Rosharans can't secure anything above ground reliably, and with little reason to bother trying I don't think that they would. I'm skeptical that the invaders could control a continent and archipelago as large as Asia meaningfully, outside of establishing air superiority and being able to blow up any part of it should they think to do so (the phrase "never start a land war in Asia" comes to mind) but I don't think that that matters very much.

So the only thing that should matter to the Rosharans is that they preserve their ability to strike at the invaders, specifically their core assets, and burrowing deep underground does that while also negating the most acute advantages the invaders have. Holding Azimir or wherever provides almost literally nothing for either side of the conflict. Similarly, I don't think that the Oathgates are all that important, though they would be nice to have, because movement of large numbers of people doesn't seem like something that would matter, militarily, to the Rosharans unless and until they take out the invaders' ability to bombard them. Until that time I just don't think that they would ever engage the invaders in the field with anything other than Radiant strike groups (excepting the case in which Lightweavers are able to specifically deceive IR sensors with false readings, rather than just blocking them, which I'm trying to avoid assuming).

The Rosharans can tunnel deeper than the invaders can affect. I cited upthread the recent experience of the U.S. trying to destroy Iranian nuclear facilities deep underground using quite a few missiles specifically designed for that exact task, which was somewhat less than a total success. A pile of C4 detonating on the surface of a four mile stone barrier isn't going to cut it. They can create new egresses when and where they want and seal them up afterwards, so it would be very difficult for the invaders to gain access to the burrows at all (though it would quickly become one of their top priorities to do so, I imagine). Long-range travel would probably always involve hiding inside of a Highstorm (I can't think of anything better), so the risk of exposing an egress could be managed pretty well (spren as invisible scouts counts for a lot!).

1 hour ago, TheFlatScadrian said:

---Fun Speculation Time!---

[...]

---End of Fun Speculation Time---

This strikes me as a really, really good plan. While I had imagined the initial raid as a one-off, destroying as many obviously major assets as possible in that time, any surviving carriers (plus other significant assets) are probably too important to ignore. So even if the Radiants suspected, or were certain of, a trap they might not be able to leave those assets alone. Radiants are, as you noted above, a precious and essentially irreplaceable asset and losing a strike team like this one would be devastating. And the sheer size of the invaders' fleet means that they could afford to sacrifice quite a bit to kill Radiants. Plus, with how dangerous these mixed Radiant groups would be it might even be worth it to sacrifice every carrier to get rid of them (we've been discounting the Fused so far, so we might as well continue to do so).

The Radiants might come up with alternative plans for approach and attack but eventually they're going to run out of novel ideas, and/or the invaders will eventually have prepared for some attack which the Rosharans launch which will make that cost very high. Attrition is what Rosharans would need to win, but they are much more vulnerable to it themselves. I'm not sure the Rosharans would surrender but it hardly matters if their ability to resist, through insurgent tactics or otherwise, is broken. The only hope then would be massive resistance, as ~200 million people might be too many for the invaders to control, but with the invaders' monomaniacal focus there isn't any way for them to be dissuaded from the invasion.

I do wonder if I'm overcomplicating everything. If the Rosharans could marshal a bunch of spren to travel to where clusters of important invader personnel live, like those that operate the important ships, and just scream loud, high-pitched noises constantly, the invaders never get to sleep. This seriously degrades people's ability to function within one day and kills them in about a week. The spren can't be seen easily (or at all, in many cases) and options to limit their access to places are limited. I also have other fun ideas, like monofilament Shardwires, but most of them boil down to attrition anyways because of how dangerous it is to engage.

Edited December 3, 2025 by Returned

[TheFlatScadrian]

1 hour ago, Returned said:

If the Rosharans could marshal a bunch of spren to travel to where clusters of important invader personnel live, like those that operate the important ships, and just scream loud, high-pitched noises constantly, the invaders never get to sleep. This seriously degrades people's ability to function within one day and kills them in about a week. 

That'd get exponentially funnier the longer it continues and the louder it gets.

But I do wonder if the soldiers would get used to it, or if somebody would drop a piece of aluminum silverware, hear a spren go "ouch!", and everyone suddenly realizes that they just need to fumigate everything that screams with chaff. It seems a little dangerous sending spren into a world where aluminum is plentiful.

1 hour ago, Returned said:

Given the setup the only possible definition of victory for the Rosharans is to shatter the invaders' military capabilities until they can't support their forces. The invaders have no territory nor infrastructure at stake and are monomaniacally fixated on controlling Roshar, while the Rosharan resistance (distinct from most of the people that live there, who are going to be in a lot of trouble) has almost no need for infrastructure nor territory in the ways that usually matter for military action. I will agree that Urithiru (the tower) is gone and that the Rosharans can't secure anything above ground reliably, and with little reason to bother trying I don't think that they would.

Well, I'd consider all of Roshar here rather than just our Radiant friends, even if we've been focusing on them. As you said, everyone else is "going to be in a lot of trouble". So the Radiants might fend off the invaders after millions are dead, and I wouldn't call that a victory. Preserving land is still a major part of this. And frankly, most wars against the United States are like that. With very few exceptions (Pearl Harbor, basically), full-scale military attacks on U.S. soil never really happen, so all enemy attacks against U.S. infrastructure is generally in contested or U.S. allied territory, not pure solely U.S. territory or against solely U.S. production... which actually leads into my next point.

(Also, I really like the word "monomaniacally". It's a perfect description for this mindset)

1 hour ago, Returned said:

I'm skeptical that the invaders could control a continent and archipelago as large as Asia meaningfully, outside of establishing air superiority and being able to blow up any part of it should they think to do so (the phrase "never start a land war in Asia" comes to mind) but I don't think that that matters very much.

Militarily, yes. The issue is that you don't need to start a land war against every nation in Asia just to win Asia. This is total  conquest, not just "if it bleeds, nuke it".

The largest nations will never agree to an enemy that led with a full-scale attack, of course, but after a few campaigns (especially with Urithiru's destruction) the smaller ones might get more leniant. The U.S. military isn't all just point and shoot. Figureheads, PSYOPS (Winning hearts and minds), outfitting, educating, all of that is just as crucial to counterinsurgency as pushing the clicky-bang button on everything that looks at you funny. 

This is basically what the U.S. did to South America and China did to Asia in the Cold War. No one can really deny that Vietnam and Korea weren't just Chinese proxies, and that Panama wasn't just an American puppet (until the Noriega fiasco). That tends to start wars against people who care about stuff, but if some U.S. ambassador writes an essay that lets them be the Azish Prime I doubt they're just going to shoot the place up first. 

(Or they could just sign a bill of eminent domain. The Azish might just surrender at that)

There would of course be military conquest across the different regions, against places that resist, and major countries that dislike the military being there, but smaller nations (Emul, Liafor, Yezzier, etc) might just fall in line for a piece of that sweet American pie.  

The biggest issue with all of this is the language barrier, of course, but the U.S. probably has a better chance learning Alethi languages than a bunch of Radiants living in a hole. 

1 hour ago, Returned said:

This strikes me as a really, really good plan. While I had imagined the initial raid as a one-off, destroying as many obviously major assets as possible in that time, any surviving carriers (plus other significant assets) are probably too important to ignore. So even if the Radiants suspected, or were certain of, a trap they might not be able to leave those assets alone. Radiants are, as you noted above, a precious and essentially irreplaceable asset and losing a strike team like this one would be devastating. And the sheer size of the invaders' fleet means that they could afford to sacrifice quite a bit to kill Radiants. Plus, with how dangerous these mixed Radiant groups would be it might even be worth it to sacrifice every carrier to get rid of them (we've been discounting the Fused so far, so we might as well continue to do so).

Those Fused. This is what they get for being so self-righteous all the time (even if they kinda sorta maybe have a point). I would love to talk about them more in-depth, because I fear them more than I fear the Radiants, but I'll finish here first.

I find the desperation of the Radiants in this scenario really compelling. Imagine every last one of your other options is gone. Attacking first and hard is about the only thing you can do, and only on one day every week, and, like you said, they'll run out of ideas eventually. The same reason resistance groups in WWII worked so well is the same reason they sometimes failed so hard: passion. You get going based on revenge and desperation, and revenge and desperation in war turns into martyrdom more often than not, especially when there are no other options.

The U.S., conversely, is not desperate in this scenario. They're pragmatic. A ship they'd lose in a few years anyway gaining a huge win in a foreign world with [whatever they're here for] would be a massive YES from every desk in every branch. 

1 hour ago, Returned said:

The Rosharans can tunnel deeper than the invaders can affect. I cited upthread the recent experience of the U.S. trying to destroy Iranian nuclear facilities deep underground using quite a few missiles specifically designed for that exact task, which was somewhat less than a total success. A pile of C4 detonating on the surface of a four mile stone barrier isn't going to cut it. They can create new egresses when and where they want and seal them up afterwards, so it would be very difficult for the invaders to gain access to the burrows at all (though it would quickly become one of their top priorities to do so, I imagine). Long-range travel would probably always involve hiding inside of a Highstorm (I can't think of anything better), so the risk of exposing an egress could be managed pretty well (spren as invisible scouts counts for a lot!).

I meant more the idea that the Radiants leave a massive hole in the ground after they emerge from their tunnels, so the Americans put a rover in the hole and drive it in to blow the thing up from the inside, but you're right that a Stoneward could just glue everything back in place until next time. 

So what you do take advantage of is the Weeping. Thwack Urithiru and Dalinar and most of the Radiants right before the last Highstorm before the Weeping, and then press the Radiants just enough to sap their Stormlight to nigh-unusable levels, before using your advantage. instant win. 

1 hour ago, Returned said:

This strikes me as a really, really good plan.

When is blowing stuff up never a good plan? 

I actually did some research here, just to make sure this is even possible logistically and explosively viable. Apparently ANFO is one of the most traded commercial explosives of all time and is really, really cheap and easy to make. Ammonium nitrate is produced in the millions of tons every year (96% of the mixture), and the other ingredient is fuel oil (10%), another cheap (relatively) and common ingredient. It also happens to be more explosive than TNT, and only a little less than C4. So it could blow up with the force of a small nuclear bomb with enough quantity.

 Annnd I just now I learned that there is such thing as aluminized ANFO, which has aluminum flakes in it, and is apparently more explosive and more hot, and I suppose more anti-Investiture (About 10% to 30% more powerful, according to research), and is apparently better at shattering stone (ANFO is mining explosive, typically). That's somehow even worse for literally everybody that's magic and/or underground! Just put a chunk of that $900,000,000 budget into aluminized ANFO production and you've got yourself a Cosmere-grade anti-material explosive that'll kill just about anything.

Edited December 3, 2025 by TheFlatScadrian

[Returned he/him]

1 hour ago, TheFlatScadrian said:

But I do wonder if the soldiers would get used to it, or if somebody would drop a piece of aluminum silverware, hear a spren go "ouch!", and everyone suddenly realizes that they just need to fumigate everything that screams with chaff. It seems a little dangerous sending spren into a world where aluminum is plentiful.

Does aluminum do anything to spren? I'm not aware of any effect outside of encasing a manifested spren in a perfect aluminum shell, which isn't at issue here. All I could find was this WoB:

Spoiler

Ace Heat

Would it be possible to use an aluminum spike to permanently kill a spren?

Brandon Sanderson

No, that's not gonna work. Silver, on the other hand, there's some possibility.

YouTube Spoiler Stream 4 (June 16, 2022)

But the soldiers have one week to get used to it (tough, given that the spren could also change the noises they make), ten days at the most (how Rosharan!). And their capacities degrade a lot over that timeframe, very quickly. If they can't adapt successfully, they're toast. Have you ever seen the game show Awake, on Netflix? I liked it and was disappointed it stopped production. If it's focused on key officers or technical specialists the invaders could find their ability to use their equipment or coordinate and execute strategies could even be crippled, which is an interesting wrinkle.

1 hour ago, TheFlatScadrian said:

Militarily, yes. The issue is that you don't need to start a land war against every nation in Asia just to win Asia. This is total  conquest, not just "if it bleeds, nuke it".

My point, which I did not make very clearly, is that this is a lot of land to cover and secure. The concentration of forces, intelligence, and military capacity is pretty important for the invaders since it's key to their ability to overwhelm the Radiants. It will take time for those movements to occur, more time as more forces are dedicated to each area, and that will create a lot of situations in which most dramatic advantages the invaders have are lessened (if they can be maintained at all). If I were a modern soldier I really would not want to engage in urban warfare against the Radiants, nor would I want to be alone with my unit/battalion/whatever with inadequate cover from a Highstorm and/or little to no contact with the main forces who provide support and resources.

1 hour ago, TheFlatScadrian said:

So the Radiants might fend off the invaders after millions are dead, and I wouldn't call that a victory

Are you, then, defining out any possibility of a Rosharan victory? We've already got the invaders coating everything they can with enough aluminum to matter (a thin layer isn't going to do much) despite not plausibly understanding its relation to Investiture, unreasonably precise and comprehensive intelligence in the hands of the invaders before ever going to Roshar (and nearly perfect knowledge of anything of any size or composition above ground or in the water, across the entire continent, in real time), zero invader morale problems, no particular invader goals, nothing that will ever stop or dissuade them from attacking, and an initial, surprise, global barrage that almost certainly kills hundreds of thousands (if not millions) immediately. If the invaders lose one million of their personnel (50%!) it doesn't count for anything, but if the Radiants utterly destroy the invaders they still lose because of the death toll from the first attack? And all of this in a setting where the world has undergone dozens of invasions so destructive that they were called Desolations and which killed as much as 90% of the world population each time?

We need to make some assumptions to approach the question at all but at some point we're just asserting that the invaders can't lose and the Rosharans can't win, which makes details like invasion and occupation plans superfluous. Maybe I'm trying to answer the wrong question. What even is a Rosharan victory in this conflict, in your estimation?

Edited December 3, 2025 by Returned

[TheFlatScadrian]

16 hours ago, Returned said:

Are you, then, defining out any possibility of a Rosharan victory? We've already got the invaders coating everything they can with enough aluminum to matter (a thin layer isn't going to do much) despite not plausibly understanding its relation to Investiture, unreasonably precise and comprehensive intelligence in the hands of the invaders before ever going to Roshar (and nearly perfect knowledge of anything of any size or composition above ground or in the water, across the entire continent, in real time), zero invader morale problems, no particular invader goals, nothing that will ever stop or dissuade them from attacking, and an initial, surprise, global barrage that almost certainly kills hundreds of thousands (if not millions) immediately. If the invaders lose one million of their personnel (50%!) it doesn't count for anything, but if the Radiants utterly destroy the invaders they still lose because of the death toll from the first attack? And all of this in a setting where the world has undergone dozens of invasions so destructive that they were called Desolations and which killed as much as 90% of the world population each time?

May I just say our conversation has been wonderful. I’ve really enjoyed it.

I must admit my way of analyzing odds is a teensy bit idiosyncratic, so I'm going to explain it real quick to make sure we're on the same page:

I use extremes not to say that those things are viable, or really even probable, in context. I think that with a broader understanding of the biggest possibilities in a subject, we can better understand the whole. This is why I use absolutes and tend to speak in maximally bad, maximally good terms rather than in a more singular, balanced way. I say “Deaths might reach X but not matter because Y”, not to say that I think that’ll happen to those extremes, but to prove a point as comprehensively as possible.

As vague and hand-wavey as I've been, or over-the-top, I can’t emphasize enough that the military is only as capable as it is in real life, with the same exact problems, and the same ability to learn or underestimate, control or retreat, suppress or support.

It has been conducting surveillance for months before the first strike, enough from plane and by stealth, to know things and know to counter them to an extent that they can truly make a plan for initial, and follow up, attacks.

That was sort of what I was trying to imply, without wanting to spell it all out, which is on me.

And yeah, Aluminum discovery by the Americans is as big a maybe as Radar discovery by the Rosharans.

Also, when I was supposing millions dead, I meant during a no-holds-barred, all-out offensive on the part of desperate Radiants fending off an indomitable foe. A Radiant might cleave a city block in two to kill a battalion, and win, but not without an excessive civilian death toll, or being killed a moment later. As for bombardments, well, striking major military installations causes more civilian deaths than combatant deaths, even in the most one sided of moral wars. Especially if those installations are the centerpiece of major cities. They’re not gonna purposefully hit the Azish capital building, but they are blowing up a massive stone portal just outside it, and that’s gonna get some people unfortunate enough to be nearby. 

(The end of WWII in both Germany and the Pacific comes to mind)

And I don’t think anybody’s gonna call a Desolation a win… I guess I’d assume that previous capabilities to survive, if reduced, are still marginally viable for the majority of countries and populations (meaning production, trade, and governance are still possible and expandable even with severe reductions or damages), and the U.S. has no presence. That’d be a “win” in a realistic sense. In the same way nobody really “won” WWI in Europe, pushing back invaders at identical or far worse costs might not be worth calling a “win”.

Maybe that's too harsh. You know, it's true I went a bit overboard there, and the Radiants fending of a massive fighting force is a legitimate victory, if a really, really hard one. 

The long term ramifications would be interesting though, in regards to the Desolations and Roshar's advancement as a planet.

And at the end of the day, screaming spren were the real killer all along.

16 hours ago, Returned said:

My point, which I did not make very clearly, is that this is a lot of land to cover and secure. The concentration of forces, intelligence, and military capacity is pretty important for the invaders since it's key to their ability to overwhelm the Radiants. It will take time for those movements to occur, more time as more forces are dedicated to each area, and that will create a lot of situations in which most dramatic advantages the invaders have are lessened (if they can be maintained at all). If I were a modern soldier I really would not want to engage in urban warfare against the Radiants, nor would I want to be alone with my unit/battalion/whatever with inadequate cover from a Highstorm and/or little to no contact with the main forces who provide support and resources.

This is true, and you're right that it's the biggest problem with any invasion, especially on Roshar. I think that, maybe, the United States could avoid provoking the Radiants or Fused initially, maybe, taking smaller regions that don't really matter to the wider Radiant war effort (The Makabaki states, Kharbranth, Liafor, Shinovar) And establishing permanent infrastructure there before launching their larger forays into Alethkar, greater Azir, or Jah Keved.

It would still be a challenge, but that might give them an advantage. Also, how conceivable is it that they might eventually get tactical satellites launched? I doubt it'd be for years, but it might eventually be possible.

16 hours ago, Returned said:

If it's focused on key officers or technical specialists the invaders could find their ability to use their equipment or coordinate and execute strategies could even be crippled, which is an interesting wrinkle.

That’s fascinating, and I have no idea how to counteract that. Maybe noise-cancelling earbuds? There just aren’t enough Radiant-allied spren by this point to be that damaging to such a large force, I think, and it’s not like you can summon them as blades to fight while they’re there.

I have not seen Awake, but I’ll look into it!

Edited December 4, 2025 by TheFlatScadrian

[Returned he/him]

20 hours ago, TheFlatScadrian said:

May I just say our conversation has been wonderful. I’ve really enjoyed it.

I've had fun too!

20 hours ago, TheFlatScadrian said:

It has been conducting surveillance for months before the first strike, enough from plane and by stealth, to know things and know to counter them to an extent that they can truly make a plan for initial, and follow up, attacks.

This seems tricky to me. We've been operating under the assumption that the invaders just have some baseline intelligence before transiting the spawn point (otherwise it's a lot harder for their invasion to be viable), without worrying too much about how they obtained it. If we're talking about the invaders being on Roshar and conducting more surveillance I start to question their ability to be hidden. The Stormfather sees nearly everything, and given the Singer invasion (impending or in-progress) I have to think that something large and mysterious is going to draw attention and comment. An aircraft carrier seems impossible to hide to me, and something like an airstrip more hide-able but still difficult. Each reconnaissance flight increases the chances of some Rosharan observing the aircraft, though if the invaders already know enough of the geography they could probably mitigate this a lot.

But, as my view of the invasion is that it depends heavily on the surprise of the first attack, any observation of the invaders starts to jeopardize that. Seeing an aircraft carrier would greatly disturb any Rosharan, being almost unimaginably large for a vessel but not having most of the things they expect a ship to have (like sails or oars). Seeing something move as quickly as an airplane through the air would be mind-blowing. I have to think that those would prompt changes that would lessen the initial strike's impact and/or accelerate the Rosharans' ability to deal with some of the formerly unimaginable abilities the invaders have.

The intelligence the invaders gain is important too, but much harder for me to parse out in my imagination. I don't know that they would be able to track key, individual Rosharans or learn much about the mechanics of how Surgebinding works or about what spren are. But they probably could learn about the Oathgates and other things that would be useful to them.

20 hours ago, TheFlatScadrian said:

That’s fascinating, and I have no idea how to counteract that. Maybe noise-cancelling earbuds? There just aren’t enough Radiant-allied spren by this point to be that damaging to such a large force, I think, and it’s not like you can summon them as blades to fight while they’re there.

After posting this bit I thought more about it and I don't think that the Rosharans would be able to use Radiant spren for this, at least not very easily. They can only move so far away from their Radiants which would require the Radiants to be pretty close to the fleet for the duration of the operation. I'm not confident that they could do that well. The secretspren we see in Kholinar could do it, but they're not likely to work with the Radiants. Outside of those I don't know if there are actually spren available to do it at all!

[TheFlatScadrian]

5 hours ago, Returned said:

But, as my view of the invasion is that it depends heavily on the surprise of the first attack, any observation of the invaders starts to jeopardize that. Seeing an aircraft carrier would greatly disturb any Rosharan, being almost unimaginably large for a vessel but not having most of the things they expect a ship to have (like sails or oars). Seeing something move as quickly as an airplane through the air would be mind-blowing. I have to think that those would prompt changes that would lessen the initial strike's impact and/or accelerate the Rosharans' ability to deal with some of the formerly unimaginable abilities the invaders have.

A large portion of U.S. surveillance  aircraft can fly for very extended periods of time at very high altitudes. I do say in the initial post that aircraft can be sent through as well, in flight, so you could just bee-bop in with an SR-72 and learn a lot about major military installations and the weather there. It’d take a minute, but LIDAR and RADAR scanning, photography, and high-altitude surveillance could pretty well give you a picture of military prowess. 

I mean, if I saw a bunch of flying people show up on radar around a giant mountain military base with giant glowing portals that seem to correspond with every major city and battleground, I think I’d blow up that place first.

I don’t think they, say, even know what Spren are or that Shadesmar exists. But flying dudes and slidey dudes and glowey dudes that carry enormous flaming swords would probably catch their attention. And they fly so high that not even a Windrunner or Slybreaker could even know they were there; much less catch up to them or even reach their altitude (Kaladin already notices a difference in the air in Urithiru, doubling, tripling, quadrupling that height would be less than ideal).

And from what we’ve seen, I don’t know if the Stormfather would notice or even be able to notice a comparatively tiny E-3 Sentry, or a U-2 Dragon, or an even smaller RQ-4, which has almost no Investiture footprint (because it’s an unawakened, classically-computed drone) flying by at double to quadruple his height (the edge of space, 65,000 feet is possible and standard for the RQ-4, while the U-2 operates closer to 70,000.)

But ground involvement is probably a little too much to ask. Actually, definitely too much. A Shin-looking man that speaks no native languages and keeps wandering around government buildings writing stuff down with a little black writing “fabrial” might be pretty noticeable.

5 hours ago, Returned said:

5 hours ago, Returned said:

The intelligence the invaders gain is important too, but much harder for me to parse out in my imagination. I don't know that they would be able to track key, individual Rosharans or learn much about the mechanics of how Surgebinding works or about what spren are. But they probably could learn about the Oathgates and other things that would be useful to them.

 

You’re right that finding key figures might be difficult, but for similar reasons as above it might not be as hard as you think. It’s often true that royalty are easy to spot in context, and once the initial landings occur they could figure it out from there. 

And, because it’s just cool: The legacy cameras on US planes — not the current, classified ones, the legacy ones — can render 2.5 foot wide objects at 65,000 feet. That’s quadruple the altitude of Urithiru. On Earth, that altitude will kill you in moments. On Roshar, the atmosphere is denser, but the planet is also smaller, so not only is 65,000 feet likely even less pressurized than Earth, but it also means the Rosharan’s are less capable of handling it than humans on Earth.

Now, I do remember something about Radiants not needing to breathe, but the combination of freezing cold, low pressure, higher radiation and all-around nearness of space would likely soak up Stormlight quickly, and that’s assuming the Rosharan even notice the planes are there in the first place.

Edited December 5, 2025 by TheFlatScadrian

[TheFlatScadrian]

~~~
Now, I think we've pretty well established that the Radiants are toast. The U.S. strategy, starting with a massive strike on military installations (that may or may not be learned of a head of time) would wipe out a huge chunk of the Radiant population, and subsequent raiding to draw out Radiants and fending them off with subterfuge, sabotage, and trickery (as well as the old favorite, rigging several thousand tons of aluminum-based mining explosive inside an expendable but irresistible target), slowly whittling away their numbers until the spren leave entirely and the Radiants are once again extinct, would probably work.

What's really scary are the four next issues:

- The Fused 

The Fused can respawn indefinitely using local singers, have millennia of tactical knowledge, a deep resentment for humanity, little-to-no regard for their own safety or civilian safety, and actually enjoy challenges. Their biggest weakness would be Aluminum (which we've established is a weak maybe, especially within the first few months), as well as their lack of innovation, and their tendency to underestimate things. Possibly interning the Parshmen, as terrible as that is, is the only way to catch a rebirth once they've all died once or twice, but that'd be a logistical nightmare and bad for morale (barring, you know, total genocide).

- The Heralds

Same, but largely less problematic because there aren't that many of them and they're all crazy anyway.

- Shinovar

They have the Honorblades. Imagine ten Assassins in White running around, never needing to replenish Stormlight or eat, sleep, or even breathe. Horrifying. And that's not including Szeth with Nightblood. They still fall to radar-tracking and similar things, but who knows how long they last before then?

- The Lopen

He's far too powerful to make anything even remotely fair, so I'm going to make an executive decision and say he's not allowed to fight in this one.

What do you think?

Edited December 5, 2025 by TheFlatScadrian

[Returned he/him]

19 hours ago, TheFlatScadrian said:

A large portion of U.S. surveillance  aircraft can fly for very extended periods of time at very high altitudes.

But not indefinitely. The rules of the spawn point haven't said anything about going back to Earth. If the invaders can casually  go back at their leisure then I think this thought experiment becomes pointless-- they have a nearly continent-sized redoubt that the Rosharans can't access, affect, or observe in any way, and if they will never stop attacking then this is the same as just declaring that the Rosharans cannot win.

But if they can't go back then each aircraft the moves through the portal is either on a suicide mission or brings enough infrastructure and support with them to be  noticeable by the Stormfather. That's what I meant about his ability to observe. We already know that he can see individual people beneath the storm (no idea if he can see above, but let's grant that he can't spot the high-altitude fliers), so he will see any airstrip, vehicle, encampment, or ship. Drones become difficult for similar reasons but with the added wrinkle that they require some amount of manual guidance (impossible at range, without the infrastructure to send and receive signals from them globally).

In either case we are talking about an extended intelligence-gathering mission to learn things like who the important people are and where they typically go, or what physically impossible abilities people have, at least in a rounded enough way to enable the devastating first strike to be targeted with the specificity you describe. And I am not convinced that they can build all that from scratch before a refueling plane (at least) needs to touch down somewhere. Any notice they draw runs the risk of undermining the invaders' initial, surprise attack, which (again) is their key operation.

18 hours ago, TheFlatScadrian said:

Now, I think we've pretty well established that the Radiants are toast.

What? No! I definitely don't sign on to that statement. If anything I believe it less than I did at the start of the thread.

Also (this more covers points below but is still relevant in the Radiant section), I think that you are radically overestimating what aluminum will do for the invaders. It's not the hard counter for Investiture that you seem to be suggesting and I really don't understand why you are so confident that the invaders will learn about its most valuable (to them) uses, nor its relationship to dealing with Rosharans, at all. The circumstances in which they would be exposed to that kind of information seem unlikely, rare, and difficult to interpret at all correctly. As before I'm going to say that access to aluminum is not a meaningful edge for the invaders, though it would frustrate some Rosharan efforts even so.

18 hours ago, TheFlatScadrian said:

The Fused 

Very problematic for the invaders in some ways different from the Radiants but mostly the same considerations should apply. The edges the Fused enjoy include "immortal" super-veterans, more consistently accessible Voidlight, more types of power (such as Regals in addition to the Fused), and some more capable spren (the secretspren can use the screaming strategy I described above), but I don't know that these are really enough to give them a very different scenario than the Radiants face. It's also true that some of the Fused are... less impressive than their Radiant counterparts. The Fused that are really good at throwing big stones are not very exciting nor versatile, and are probably not going to be much use here.

They've been honed over millennia to excel in a specific type of conflict and even the differences between the modern Rosharans and what the Fused are used to facing was really problematic for them. The invaders are even more different than that. They do have the Unmade, which are probably unbeatable to the invaders but it's not 100% clear what they could in turn do to the invaders. Not knowing their realmatic properties makes it really hard to estimate but anything that relies on directly affecting individual invaders seems shaky and that's most of what we've seen the Unmade do.

It's also hard to account for them because in the books they are directly backed and supported by Odium, which violates the rules of the scenario. For example, the Everstorm goes where Odium wants whenever he wants, so he could just park it over one fleet at a time until it's ruined and they'll be helpless to do anything about it or operate through it. Though that does remind me that the Everstorm exists, and even if we are not accounting for the Fused when considering the Radiants' chances the Everstorm certainly still counts. Given the violence of both storms, and their opposite directions, it may not be possible for the invaders to maintain their ocean fleets at all: eventually they're going to be caught unsheltered, possibly in one of the violent collisions of both storms. The Stormfather also has at least some ability to toss out Highstorms when and where he feels like it, so maybe that's a tactic the Radiants could also use.

18 hours ago, TheFlatScadrian said:

The Heralds

Inadequate, I think. There are too few, their powers not different from the Radiants, and without a lot of infrastructure and support they are just ten supersoldiers with swords. The advantages they might have seem to me like they would all be based in their vast knowledge of the world and the nature of reality in the Cosmere. We can't really estimate that knowledge or what it's worth in this conflict, but given that the Heralds alone were not sufficient to stop the Desolations I think it's fair to say they cannot destroy the invaders on their own, either. Though working together with the Radiants the might have some incredible advantages (Ishar could really mess things up for the invaders in shocking ways, potentially).

18 hours ago, TheFlatScadrian said:

Shinovar

In my estimation, even worse than all of the other groups. The Honorblades don't confer unlimited Stormlight (I think that was only while Honor was intact, and maybe only for the Heralds who were bound to him)-- we see Szeth constantly needing Stormlight to fuel his activities. Outside of that they have even less to protect them: no real industry, a pretty unfocused social organization, and barely even Highstorms to work with.

I would not count on Nightblood to be worth much against the invaders. Most of what he does is realmatic in nature, so it might not work on the invaders and their equipment at all.

 

We do have a couple of wildcards but they're so unpredictable that I wouldn't rely on them. For example, if the invaders are observed to any degree, Taravangian has that information, and then hits a super-brilliant day he could probably deduce pretty much everything about the invaders and their capabilities, predict their strategies and tactics, and out-plan them by virtue of being radically smarter than anything the invaders could ever offer up.

Edited December 5, 2025 by Returned

[TheFlatScadrian]

46 minutes ago, Returned said:

But not indefinitely. The rules of the spawn point haven't said anything about going back to Earth. If the invaders can casually  go back at their leisure then I think this thought experiment becomes pointless-- they have a nearly continent-sized redoubt that the Rosharans can't access, affect, or observe in any way.

Also known as: the United States in every conflict since 1812. That's really not an unreasonable assumption; the United States has always been a redoubt just by virtue of it's distance from every major conflict. Even Pearl Harbor was deep into the Pacific and half an ocean away from central U.S. reinforcements, and that was before the near-instant communication and satellite imagery in the digital era.

The Germans and Japanese couldn't access, affect, or observe the United States at all and they still held out for years.

But lets assume that they can only send back communications, so they need a carrier and or short, securable airstrips that can be slapped down just about anywhere.

I ask --- would the Rosharans even, or be able to, care? Sure, it's odd, and maybe they'd send someone to check it out, but initially I don't think they'd figure out, or even be able to counteract, the danger posed by the surveillance planes, until it was too late. They don't know an attack is coming, and flying fabrials that don't seem to be doing anything are a much smaller issue than the Fused.

And even if every Radiant and leader survives, they're still locked deep in the mountains and under heavy watch, which is not a fun or easy place to be. And apparently, it's way to easy to get significant quantities of cheap chemical explosives, so the U.S. has that going for them.

1 hour ago, Returned said:

I think that you are radically overestimating what aluminum will do for the invaders.

I don't think any of my most prominent plans involve aluminum at all?

Your points about the other groups are valid, but it is a rough time constantly killing enemies that come back every week, which is the biggest concern. Spren might leave humans eventually, especially with heavy losses, but Fused get to perpetuate those same challenges, if less challenging, indefinitely.

[Returned he/him]

2 hours ago, TheFlatScadrian said:

The Germans and Japanese couldn't access, affect, or observe the United States at all and they still held out for years.

Conveniently leaving out a rather long stretch of more recent military conflicts which have been... less successful for the U.S. than WWII. And supply lines and logistic chains absolutely provided vulnerabilities the U.S. had to worry about, which the portal obviates.

But this point is related to the scenario: the monomaniacal focus on conquest, for no reason and with no objectives, with no other financial, economic, industrial, social, or political goals to consider or complicate the campaign leaves little room to operationally define "victory" for the Rosharans. We've got destruction of the ability to project force on Roshar and that's about it. If the invaders appear at supersonic speeds, strike, and then retreat into another dimension we're not talking about a situation that allows anything for Roshar to accomplish at all. If you want to define victory out of the scenario that's fine but then there also is no discussion to be had.

2 hours ago, TheFlatScadrian said:

I ask --- would the Rosharans even, or be able to, care? Sure, it's odd, and maybe they'd send someone to check it out, but initially I don't think they'd figure out, or even be able to counteract, the danger posed by the surveillance planes, until it was too late. They don't know an attack is coming, and flying fabrials that don't seem to be doing anything are a much smaller issue than the Fused.

It doesn't matter. They would 100% care that a totally new group, with radically different capabilities, is suddenly present from nowhere and operating on Roshar. At minimum they will surveil those new installations and vehicles, constantly learning more. They will also almost certainly think through the military implications of aircraft that fly at higher altitudes than they can reach or even observe, along with any other observations they are able to make. You don't think they would be interested in having an aircraft of their own like those? They'd be desperately interested. I don't think there is any scenario in which they do not exert a lot of effort to know about the invaders' technology and equipment in every detail they could gather. They also have some excellent engineers and chemists and will be able to extrapolate a lot from seeing that something is possible, and being able to observe those things in action can save them a lot of R&D time. With access to magic they can design and execute experiments and tests with an ease and precision that reality cannot match and advance their knowledge rapidly.

Let's not forget that war is what Alethkar does, both in the depths of Rosharan history all the way through to the contemporary Roshar of the novels. They're good at it and not stupid. Go ahead and toss in Herdaz and Azimir and Vedenar too, as they are specifically described in the books as having capable militaries. Especially when they're already on high alert due to being in an existential war with the Fused. They adapted their military doctrines quickly and effectively (if not as much as they would have preferred, I'm sure) to the radical changes the Fused brought to warfare. The idea that the Rosharans would just not care nor respond in any way, even to imagine how warfare might change with these new observations, seems beyond unreasonable to me. It's just another way of asserting that Roshar can't win (in this case because they are arbitrarily careless and stupid) which, as above, makes all discussion pointless.

2 hours ago, TheFlatScadrian said:

And even if every Radiant and leader survives, they're still locked deep in the mountains and under heavy watch, which is not a fun or easy place to be. And apparently, it's way to easy to get significant quantities of cheap chemical explosives, so the U.S. has that going for them.

This is a regression in the discussion. Being underground is not being "locked in" for the Radiants in any way. Being underground perfectly protects them from the invaders and does not limit their ability to move around very much (certainly less so than trying to operate on the surface), and "heavy watch" is meaningless in that context. They are not limited in their ability to get and use resources (it's easy for them to carve a small opening in the side of a random mountain before a Highstorm and then seal it up again afterwards). It's very easy for the Radiants to be there and they can persist indefinitely while also developing their military capabilities. It negates all of the invaders' advantages and permits the Radiants to strike when and how they like while also permitting rapid, on-demand retreats.

The quantity of explosives also seems irrelevant-- the invaders already have an abundance of the best ordinance they can make and can deliver it (arguably) anywhere on the surface of Roshar at any time, and it's already not enough to deal with the deep tunnel strategy. If anything the ease of getting cheap chemical explosives advantages Roshar, since they can fundamentally get more of them immediately and essentially for free. They just have to know such explosives are possible, and every day of observing the invaders makes that more likely.

2 hours ago, TheFlatScadrian said:

I don't think any of my most prominent plans involve aluminum at all?

You keep mentioning it as though it's relevant, though:

On 12/3/2025 at 4:09 PM, TheFlatScadrian said:

But I do wonder if the soldiers would get used to it, or if somebody would drop a piece of aluminum silverware, hear a spren go "ouch!", and everyone suddenly realizes that they just need to fumigate everything that screams with chaff. It seems a little dangerous sending spren into a world where aluminum is plentiful.

On 12/3/2025 at 7:23 PM, TheFlatScadrian said:

And yeah, Aluminum discovery by the Americans is as big a maybe as Radar discovery by the Rosharans.

22 hours ago, TheFlatScadrian said:

(as well as the old favorite, rigging several thousand tons of aluminum-based mining explosive inside an expendable but irresistible target)

22 hours ago, TheFlatScadrian said:

Their biggest weakness would be Aluminum (which we've established is a weak maybe, especially within the first few months)

Aluminum just isn't that meaningful in this conflict, unless you can point me to some way that it would matter. It's prohibitively expensive to Invest and interferes with (but does not inherently block) some direct applications of Investiture, and that's about it. That the invaders' deodorant probably has aluminum in it really doesn't do anything for them (outside of making them smell better, which is worth something).

2 hours ago, TheFlatScadrian said:

Your points about the other groups are valid, but it is a rough time constantly killing enemies that come back every week, which is the biggest concern. Spren might leave humans eventually, especially with heavy losses, but Fused get to perpetuate those same challenges, if less challenging, indefinitely.

It doesn't strike me as any different than just fighting a large army, since the Fused need to consume one Singer each time they are killed. Their lack of infrastructure, knowledge, industry, and sanity are big drawbacks but they don't have more benefits than the Radiants that I can see beyond personally gaining experience with the invaders even when killed. Your whole argument depends on the invaders having overwhelming and insurmountable destructive potential (i.e., the Radiants need to learn that they can't stand against infantry with rapid-fire high-caliber rounds delivered by radar-tracking-capable turrets), and being personally felled by those a few times would not seem to impart any additional, useful knowledge than seeing it happen to someone else. 

Edited December 5, 2025 by Returned

[TheFlatScadrian]

4 hours ago, Returned said:

Conveniently leaving out a rather long stretch of more recent military conflicts which have been... less successful for the U.S. than WWII. And supply lines and logistic chains absolutely provided vulnerabilities the U.S. had to worry about, which the portal obviates.

To be fair, there have been no military-failure-caused losses in the past 150 years in the United States. Most wars lost by the U.S. are due to politicians either pulling out too soon or letting them go on for too long, because no clear objectives where made.

But enough with my rambling about history that doesn't need to apply and I shouldn't have initially bring up in the first place. Let's talk about fun stuff.

4 hours ago, Returned said:

Let's not forget that war is what Alethkar does, both in the depths of Rosharan history all the way through to the contemporary Roshar of the novels. They're good at it and not stupid. Go ahead and toss in Herdaz and Azimir too, as they are specifically described in the books as having capable militaries. Especially when they're already on high alert due to being in an existential war with the Fused. They adapted their military doctrines quickly and effectively (if not as much as they would have preferred, I'm sure) to the radical changes the Fused brought to warfare. The idea that the Rosharans would just not care nor respond in any way, even to imagine how warfare might change with these new observations, seems beyond unreasonable to me. It's just another way of asserting that Roshar can't win (in this case because they are arbitrarily careless and stupid) which, as above, makes all discussion pointless.

You are right. I do tend to get carried away in my dismissal of the Rosharans, and they are much more capable then I tend to give them credit. I also tend to think about them more from a psychological aspect then I do the United States, largely hypocritically, as by my own admission I have said the same problem still apply to U.S. morale (the soldiers aren't unthinking machines). It's my undying love of really cool and explosive military equipment making me biased, but I digress.

Let's not forget that they are in the middle of a massive war with a seemingly (to them) more dangerous faction that is actively attacking and enslaving their people than a few humans with some advanced, never-before-seen technology building stuff in the Frostlands. Their priorities, barring their interests, are elsewhere.

However. I do absolutely think that they are going to investigate (Especially with Navani absolutely losing her mind that these strange humans can fly with supersonic fabrials). However, what makes more sense in this scenario is a diplomatic envoy, especially with an ongoing war. They need more allies, and if they have the chance to ally with these guys, here's one that might seem like a god-send.

So they learn the language through Dalinar, learn as much as they can while the U.S. obfuscates the truth and postpones lending them tech while they fly surveillance until BOOM --- Urithiru, the Oathgates, and several military installation don't exist anymore, although the Radiants are living in a really cool utilitarian Rosharan version of the Mines of Moria. Even with Truthwatchers, I'd say they're not going to just attack the United States outright (possibly if they misinterpret the visions of bombings as them messing up relations instead of the U.S. just lying, although that's a dubious outcome with the Cryptics around).

So the war continues from there. Fused are an issue but more of a repeat insurgency nuisance than a completely focused military threat, the Radiants trade blows with the United States over coastlines and major cities, and Shinovar continues to not care. Aluminum is never discovered by Americans, but neither is radio, radar, or infrared by the Rosharans, even if both sides do use it to some minimal effect unintentionally (For example, ELC rounds used by C-RAM systems are aluminum tipped and would do more total damage against shardplate without the U.S. ever noticing or capitalizing on it; Intent allowing Lightweavers to manipulate Infrared under certain constraints despite the Lightweaver being unaware of doing so).

And sure, lets say that the only things that can return home to the United States are communication and anything that is no longer battle-worthy or never was in the first place. The wounded, hospital and cargo ships, salvage from crashed planes, empty containers, etc. This means that an aircraft carrier can't just camp behind the teleportation, but cargo ships can still come and go to resupply it, exposing risks in the chains of supply. That's a more fun scenario.

We could also assume that if a high-value asset (that is not a direct munition, like a bomb, shell, or bullet, which are all still under standard production constraints) is lost, it can't be replaced. Anything more as or more expensive then, like, a Humvee. That could be a fun counter, but I want to hear your thoughts on it!

(And Aluminized ANFO is just scary for any Cosmere types, so I had to mention it. I doubt the U.S. would ever use it though because it's more expensive. Aluminum is just one of those things that appears a lot in really convenient, but random, places in the modern day (such as in chaff; who knows what'd happen if a pilot sent some out and a Windrunner breathed it in?) and if it ever got used it would be devastating to Roshar. I will say this, without hesitation; I doubt, after our conversations, that it ever would be found out. Not without extensive research and pure chance over months or more likely years, and the war could certainly be won or lost by then. So you're right that I mention it a lot, but after everything I've changed my mind about it)

Now then. What do you think about the possibility of the United States ever figuring out how to access Shadesmar? If one of their soldiers bonded to a spren, and they kept an Oathgate under control, they might just end up taking it on simultaneously, if mostly as a counter to the Radiants. I could see them controlling parts of it, especially as the Spren are fairly under supplied in most places.

Edited December 6, 2025 by TheFlatScadrian

[therunner he/him]

14 hours ago, TheFlatScadrian said:

To be fair, there have been no military-failure-caused losses in the past 150 years in the United States. Most wars lost by the U.S. are due to politicians either pulling out too soon or letting them go on for too long, because no clear objectives where made.

They also had no millitary reasonable military victory in last 20 years. (and no clear victory since WW2)

Trying to conquer Roshar would be as if Afghanistan was Asia sized, had regular hurricanes and people there had access to magic that can destory planets if not careful.

That alone basically tells you that no, US could not.

14 hours ago, TheFlatScadrian said:

However. I do absolutely think that they are going to investigate (Especially with Navani absolutely losing her mind that these strange humans can fly with supersonic fabrials). However, what makes more sense in this scenario is a diplomatic envoy, especially with an ongoing war. They need more allies, and if they have the chance to ally with these guys, here's one that might seem like a god-send.

So they learn the language through Dalinar, learn as much as they can while the U.S. obfuscates the truth and postpones lending them tech while they fly surveillance until BOOM --- Urithiru, the Oathgates, and several military installation don't exist anymore, although the Radiants are living in a really cool utilitarian Rosharan version of the Mines of Moria. Even with Truthwatchers, I'd say they're not going to just attack the United States outright (possibly if they misinterpret the visions of bombings as them messing up relations instead of the U.S. just lying, although that's a dubious outcome with the Cryptics around).

So you are just casually giving US the first strike advantage? Really?

They literally just start dealing with invaders, and have quite warlike history, they would be super suspicious.

Also no they don't learn language through Dalinar, Dalinar learns language, or grants that knowledge to Rosharan diplomants. Why would Dalinar help them like this, he is not a moron.

Urithiru would survive getting hit with a nuke, it is like trying to nuke a mountain.

Conversely we could say that while US is trying to set this up, Rosharan side is getting information from Dalinar and Stormfather that these visitors are positioning things nearby important settlements. Lightweavers and Jasnah can also observe them from Shadesmar (people are nicely visible there).

14 hours ago, TheFlatScadrian said:

So the war continues from there. Fused are an issue but more of a repeat insurgency nuisance than a completely focused military threat, the Radiants trade blows with the United States over coastlines and major cities, and Shinovar continues to not care. Aluminum is never discovered by Americans, but neither is radio, radar, or infrared by the Rosharans, even if both sides do use it to some minimal effect unintentionally (For example, ELC rounds used by C-RAM systems are aluminum tipped and would do more total damage against shardplate without the U.S. ever noticing or capitalizing on it; Intent allowing Lightweavers to manipulate Infrared under certain constraints despite the Lightweaver being unaware of doing so).

Fused would be massive issue, e.g. certain Lady of Pains deciding to unleash another plague?
Or continually teleporting Lezian? Once that one got on any aircraft carrier, or into a base, that base is basically dead.

Plus Everstorm would likely target US units as well, and that would be a huge problem for any of them.

14 hours ago, TheFlatScadrian said:

And sure, lets say that the only things that can return home to the United States are communication and anything that is no longer battle-worthy or never was in the first place. The wounded, hospital and cargo ships, salvage from crashed planes, empty containers, etc. This means that an aircraft carrier can't just camp behind the teleportation, but cargo ships can still come and go to resupply it, exposing risks in the chains of supply. That's a more fun scenario.

That still gives unreasonable advantage to US, you are giving them unasailable home base they can use to resupply at leisure.

But if the entry point is known (and it should be, thanks to Stormfather), then Jasnah can just camp in Shadesmar and soulcast resources as they are coming in, and so can Lightweavers.
E.g. in Iraq war, US used roughly ~250 000 bullets per one kill, and in the first three weeks used up ~30k munitions on bombings, and Iraq is tiny compared to Roshar (roughly 1/100 of the size).
So they would have to be sending in a lot of equipment.

Until they learn aluminum blocks Investiture, any equipment that gets sent in can get crippled. Or if its ammunition, it can get exploded.

14 hours ago, TheFlatScadrian said:

Now then. What do you think about the possibility of the United States ever figuring out how to access Shadesmar? If one of their soldiers bonded to a spren, and they kept an Oathgate under control, they might just end up taking it on simultaneously, if mostly as a counter to the Radiants. I could see them controlling parts of it, especially as the Spren are fairly under supplied in most places.

No.

Or more precisely, US does not have access to Investiture, so they cannot really sail on it in any way. Nor could they use Oathgates, Radiants could lock them via Sibling.

Conversely, if you suggest trade, Jasnah can use the portal to travel to us, and just start creating gold from air to bribe politicians. Or just stay on this side and bride soldiers to just go away.


 

Edited December 6, 2025 by therunner

[TheFlatScadrian]

3 hours ago, therunner said:

They also had no millitary reasonable military victory in last 20 years. (and no clear victory since WW2)

Trying to conquer Roshar would be as if Afghanistan was Asia sized, had regular hurricanes and people there had access to magic that can destory planets if not careful.

That alone basically tells you that no, US could not.

See: The Gulf War (also known as Operation: Desert Storm or The Liberation of Kuwait)

See also: Korea (after Inchon); Iraq II (Initial invasion). 

Since we're bringing military history into this, we should clarify. Vietnam and Afghanistan were never invasive wars; they were entirely counter-insurgencies fought largely on allied borders, so their successes or failure don't really apply here.

But Iraq I and Iraq II do, and what we can learn from them is that the biggest issue always comes later:

Insurgency.

See, the number one reason the United States pulls out of foreign conflicts is a failure to end insurgency. The Second Iraq War was the only invasive war the United States had fought since the Gulf War, and it started with an unstoppable roll straight through the entire country. It's highly likely that the initial American invasion would see a sweeping victory across the board for large swaths of the Rosharan continent, as is the usual. Because settlements are so few and far between, controlling large portions of countries, at least initially, can be a lot easier, even if it allows insurgents to slip by unnoticed.

This is largely due to the fact the the Radiants are few in numbers and already stretched thin, and a large majority of Rosharan countries would be stuck with primitive weaponry, and at best, dead shardplate, which we can all agree a decent infantry force could annihilate in a matter of days. 

Now, insurgency would happen post-invasion. But a large problem for the Rosharans is, again, that they don't even have conventional explosives. They haven't even discovered gunpowder yet, so most average Rosharan resistance groups are going to be stuck with medieval gear. Not even the greatest Rosharan tactician can overcome that obstacle when the enemy can just unilaterally deny you to even get close in the first place.

The largest problem would be the Radiant insurgency, which is likely to occur. But, as @Returned and I previously discussed, there are several reasons that this may not be as all-encompassing as you think. (It involved Aircraft Carriers, several thousand tons of ANFO, and the psychology of a target you can't ignore; it was quite interesting, you should check it out!)

4 hours ago, therunner said:

So you are just casually giving US the first strike advantage? Really?

They literally just start dealing with invaders, and have quite warlike history, they would be super suspicious.

Also no they don't learn language through Dalinar, Dalinar learns language, or grants that knowledge to Rosharan diplomants. Why would Dalinar help them like this, he is not a moron.

Urithiru would survive getting hit with a nuke, it is like trying to nuke a mountain.

Conversely we could say that while US is trying to set this up, Rosharan side is getting information from Dalinar and Stormfather that these visitors are positioning things nearby important settlements. Lightweavers and Jasnah can also observe them from Shadesmar (people are nicely visible there).

...Yes. Yes I am. 

Now, not to be rude, but you are coming into this a tad late. We have discussed a lot of this so far already, and it's highly likely that Roshar would not be able to counteract an initial strike. Rosharans cannot defend, feasibly, against the superiority of the United States's aerial capabilities.

And the Radiants are smart, but for that very reason they're not going to just outright attack an entirely new force that isn't attacking them and they know nothing about, especially if that force is more capable than them technologically, even if not magically.

So, in the initial post, it was sort of just assumed that he United States had access to common Rosharan knowledge, but over the course of a conversation I had with Returned we refined it to be that they'd been surveying the Rosharans for weeks without them knowing to find their military strongholds.

The question then became one of "how do the Rosharans not notice"? But in reality, Roshar is enormous. And if a single small aircraft carrier arrived to deploy a few surveillance craft at 65,000 feet, then the Stormfather would never see the planes and only barely notice a large metal thing he had never seen before in a natural harbor somewhere. The Radiants might get around to figuring out what it was eventually, but by then it'd be too late. Unless the Stormfather points it out (And who knows what he'd do; he never mentioned several things that could've been monumentally tactically important already in the canon), it's unlikely the Radiants would ever notice.

("They" as in the Radiants would learn the language of the invaders. Dalinar would learn English, not teach the Americans Alethi. Sorry, the grammar there was rather bad!)

Urithiru could be nuked. Easily. Atomic weapons generate a central temperature of nearly 100 million degrees Celsius, nearly 6 times the core temperature of the sun. Small nuclear bombs have moved up to 11 million metric tons in one blast. (Look into Project Plowshare; it was this really crazy time when the U.S. thought they could do civilian excavations with micro nukes)

But we don't have nukes here, so let's get more precise.

Even without nukes, it could be damaged beyond all reasonable usability. Urithiru is, indeed, as big as a mountain. It's also weaker than one. By a lot. It's mostly empty space inside (seeing as each floor is about 15 feet tall) and the entire center of the place is a massive hollow main hall. A GBU-57 MOP, the U.S.'s largest non-nuclear bunker-buster, can penetrate 200 feet deep in solid bedrock. It's easy to imagine how much better it'd do in a place that is only 15% the strength of that solid stone. A few of those could be easily sent through the roof (They're accurate to within a foot). They then explode with 13,600 kilograms of force, a destructive potential equivalent to two tonnes of TNT, or ~8.6 Gigajoules, which is sent rippling through a large, brittle structure that isn't even solid stone because of all the strata lines. 

And that's ignoring the GBU-43B, the MOAB, which explodes in the air and has a yield of about 11 tonnes of TNT, or ~46 Gigajoules. If the burst happens right above the central tower, that's a blast wave that travels downwards through the entire tower as the blast is said (read articles by BBC, NYT) to obliterate everything within a mile radius. And that's not accounting for the fact that oxygen is denser on Roshar and that Urithiru is at a high altitude, putting it at the perfect place to have both the highest kinetic pressure wave, the biggest inflammatory effects, and the maximum destructive radii of the bomb to be at peak capacity. And if the bunker busters hit first, it opens a hole big enough to send the MOAB inside the tower.

Seeing as Urithiru is only a kilometer tall, that might pose an issue.

(And no, Windrunners and Skybreakers couldn't tear down the planes and missiles. Because they have to touch them, and those things are moving at mach 2+ and an altitude of 65,000 ft. You can't even see them, and much less reach them.)

4 hours ago, therunner said:

That still gives unreasonable advantage to US, you are giving them unasailable home base they can use to resupply at leisure.

But if the entry point is known (and it should be, thanks to Stormfather), then Jasnah can just camp in Shadesmar and soulcast resources as they are coming in, and so can Lightweavers.
E.g. in Iraq war, US used roughly ~250 000 bullets per one kill, and in the first three weeks used up ~30k munitions on bombings, and Iraq is tiny compared to Roshar (roughly 1/100 of the size).
So they would have to be sending in a lot of equipment.

Until they learn aluminum blocks Investiture, any equipment that gets sent in can get crippled. Or if its ammunition, it can get exploded.

I think that sending Jasnah to just sit in Shadesmar and just sort through and soulcast individual crates of burger meat and 5.56 ammunition would be... less than ideal. How are they going to support that long-term? Why don't they do that in the books to the Fused? Would new resources entering Roshar even have a bead to be transformed initially in the first place?

You're right that this is a logistical nightmare, but remember that the U.S. maintained a similar nightmare for twenty+ years, and a much larger one for eleven in WWII. And the U.S. doesn't have to conquer the whole thing in one go. There's no cap to time here unless they get pushed out entirely; they could go on for decades. Besides, the population density of Roshar is about 7.5 people per square kilometer, as opposed to Iraq's 60 people per square kilometer (in 2009) which makes things easier.

5 hours ago, therunner said:

Fused would be massive issue, e.g. certain Lady of Pains deciding to unleash another plague?
Or continually teleporting Lezian? Once that one got on any aircraft carrier, or into a base, that base is basically dead.

Plus Everstorm would likely target US units as well, and that would be a huge problem for any of them

True. Except that, like Radiants, a few rounds of 5.56 or 6.8 can kill them, because a wooden spear can kill them.

The Lady of Pains failed miserably the last time she did a plague and never did them again. And even then, who knows if Rosharan viruses or bacteria could even interact with an Earther at all, and vice versa? And if they can, and we're bringing in potential biological warfare, the the U.S. could just do the old colonial favorite and launch smallpox in and wait for a few months.

And Lezian's susceptible to 20mm. Especially as most aircraft carrier-mounted radar-tracking Phalanx CIWS ELC 20mm rounds are aluminum tipped.

As for Shadesmar, you're probably right, although who knows? Many of the Radiants are brand new, and young, and if they got surrounded by dudes with guns they might just go along with it and enter Shadesmar under false pretenses, tricking the Sibling. Although, their bond would eventually be destroyed and the Sibling and Sentries would not let it last, but that doesn't mean an attack aircraft couldn't sashay out to Jasnah's place by the teleportation zone and introduce her to the Mk-82 from 40,000 feet before then.

[therunner he/him]

Edit:

Side note: Now that I think about it, any combustion engines and jets would likely not work properly due to different atmospheric conditions of Roshar. 
The parts are designed for certain temperature tolerances, and the improved burn from higher oxygen (and lower nitrogen) contents would likely cause damage to those engines. E.g. increasing amount of oxygen from 21% to 30% would increase the burn temperature by about 300-400K, so by about 10-15%, which is certainly outside tolerances, as e.g. increase of temperature by ~30K from optimal conditions halves the lifespan of the part.

Even if Rosharan atmosphere has only 25% of oxygen, that is still about 150K-200K higher temperature, that would still likely cause those parts to get irreparably damaged.

So US military would be kinda in trouble, because they can't really use their main advantages. No planes and no cars/tanks. This means no surveillance to speak of, or long range strike abilities (hard to use missiles when you have no idea where anything is).

Guns and missiles would not have their functioning affected though, as they have their own oxidizer.

But this alone removes a large part of US strength, before any contact with Rosharan forces whatsoever.

12 hours ago, TheFlatScadrian said:

See: The Gulf War (also known as Operation: Desert Storm or The Liberation of Kuwait)

See also: Korea (after Inchon); Iraq II (Initial invasion). 

Neither are in way comparable to size of Roshar.

Also,

• Iraq is not under US control and the invasion was done with NATO support (fun fact: the only time Article 5 was used)
•  Korea did not end in US victory (and was never a US invasion in the first place).
   

12 hours ago, TheFlatScadrian said:

...Yes. Yes I am. 

Now, not to be rude, but you are coming into this a tad late. We have discussed a lot of this so far already, and it's highly likely that Roshar would not be able to counteract an initial strike. Rosharans cannot defend, feasibly, against the superiority of the United States's aerial capabilities.

Assumption of First strike is also quite distortinary. 

e.g. if you assume first strike, Roshar that suddenly got access to US could handily decapitate the entire state by e.g just using Lightweaving to waltz into White House/Pentagon/Congress and killing everyone there.

And coming in late does not mean I cannot question assumptions where they are clearly designed to give one side advantage. I.e. you give US three large advantages

• knowledge of Rosharan side
• first strike
• unattackable home base

that you then retro-actively justified (somewhat). But those justifications are subject to discussion, if they don't hold up to scrutiny, that advantage should not be considered.

We can always level the playing field:

• Roshar has knowledge common in US
• neither side gets unlimited first strike (i.e. tension grow until they erupt into hostilities, where both sides are already preparing for said hostilities)
• Roshar can send agents to earth (or US cannot send any further supplies outside of what originally got in).

Quote

And the Radiants are smart, but for that very reason they're not going to just outright attack an entirely new force that isn't attacking them and they know nothing about, especially if that force is more capable than them technologically, even if not magically.

And for the reason they are smart they will be suspicous, and use their own tools to track the unknown factor, and not give them access.

Quote

So, in the initial post, it was sort of just assumed that he United States had access to common Rosharan knowledge, but over the course of a conversation I had with Returned we refined it to be that they'd been surveying the Rosharans for weeks without them knowing to find their military strongholds.

If you assume US has access to common Rosharan knowledge, you are already giving them another advantage. 

For parity purposes, either both sides have common knowledge of the other, or neither does.

And how can they surveil without Stormfather learning about it? Any presence would be notices by Stormfather/Dalinar basically immediately. Planes need bases/aircraft carries, and those would be seen.

Quote

The question then became one of "how do the Rosharans not notice"? But in reality, Roshar is enormous. And if a single small aircraft carrier arrived to deploy a few surveillance craft at 65,000 feet, then the Stormfather would never see the planes and only barely notice a large metal thing he had never seen before in a natural harbor somewhere. 

Citation needed.

Stormfather can notice and does human sized objects within the storm, of course he would notice a ship. At the very least he would notice an unknown object he has never seen, with people on it/in it which is doubly interesting if new portal just appeared in the middle of ocean.

Rosharan side effectively has access to satellite/recon plane information with sub ~1m resolution, the only downside is that the information gets refreshed every 10-14 days.
But the day after Highstorm, they know exactly where majority of the US assets are.

12 hours ago, TheFlatScadrian said:

Urithiru could be nuked. Easily. Atomic weapons generate a central temperature of nearly 100 million degrees Celsius, nearly 6 times the core temperature of the sun. Small nuclear bombs have moved up to 11 million metric tons in one blast. (Look into Project Plowshare; it was this really crazy time when the U.S. thought they could do civilian excavations with micro nukes)

No it couldn't, this was discussed on this forum previously.

Central temperature is completely pointless as measure of destructiveness, you want energy at the very minimum.

I mean, this building was ~620 meters from the center of the blast (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiroshima_Peace_Memorial  ) and the construction survived. Urithiru is much sturdier, because you know, its a mountain.

If they got bomb inside Urithiru than yeah, but that is frankly completely unrealistic assumption.

Do you have any citations on the 11 milllion metric tons, and what was the yield of the bomb and how it was placed? Because i cannot find any.

EDIT: 
If the explosion is fully underground, melt cavity (i.e. what gets completly destroyed) is roughly 4 m per cube root of yield in kilotons. I am taking the lower bound, as the that is for .e.g. granite. 
Most US arsenal at the moment tops at ~150 kT, i.e. the melt cavity would be at most ~20 meters in radious. 

Even side-by-side blast would likely make a crater in Urithiru only about ~30 meters deep or so, as most of the energy would go into surrounding atmosphere, not the structure itself.

Air-burst explosion would basically not do much at all to Urithiru.

12 hours ago, TheFlatScadrian said:

Even without nukes, it could be damaged beyond all reasonable usability. Urithiru is, indeed, as big as a mountain. It's also weaker than one. By a lot. It's mostly empty space inside (seeing as each floor is about 15 feet tall) and the entire center of the place is a massive hollow main hall. A GBU-57 MOP, the U.S.'s largest non-nuclear bunker-buster, can penetrate 200 feet deep in solid bedrock. It's easy to imagine how much better it'd do in a place that is only 15% the strength of that solid stone. A few of those could be easily sent through the roof (They're accurate to within a foot). They then explode with 13,600 kilograms of force, a destructive potential equivalent to two tonnes of TNT, or ~8.6 Gigajoules, which is sent rippling through a large, brittle structure that isn't even solid stone because of all the strata lines. 

I mean, while yes, Urithiru is not full of rock, it is also not a man-made structure but a magical living organism. For all we know its strata have performance more along the lines of reinforced concrete (which they likely have to, otherwise it would have collapsed in the last few millenia). 

Also, US bunker busters had pretty poor showing in real world conditions just earlier this year, and no they are not accurate to within a foot, not without satellite navigation (that US would not have on Roshar).

And 2 tonnes of TNT is laughably small to do anything to a construction as large and solid as Urithiru. 

It would certainly do some damage, but if it cannot destroy small man made facility that is at most ~80 below ground, it would be hilariously insufficient against 1km tall structure.

12 hours ago, TheFlatScadrian said:

And that's ignoring the GBU-43B, the MOAB, which explodes in the air and has a yield of about 11 tonnes of TNT, or ~46 Gigajoules. If the burst happens right above the central tower, that's a blast wave that travels downwards through the entire tower as the blast is said (read articles by BBC, NYT) to obliterate everything within a mile radius. And that's not accounting for the fact that oxygen is denser on Roshar and that Urithiru is at a high altitude, putting it at the perfect place to have both the highest kinetic pressure wave, the biggest inflammatory effects, and the maximum destructive radii of the bomb to be at peak capacity. And if the bunker busters hit first, it opens a hole big enough to send the MOAB inside the tower.

I am sorry, but this is completely wrong. 

11 tons of TNT is not enough to destroy everything within a mile radius, what the hell are you talking about? That is nuke level (i.e. hundreds of kilotons of TNT) of yield at least.

Per the above quick estimates, 11 tons of TNT, when exploded right above Urithiru would...maybe destroy the top floor or two?  Scaling with cube root ~30m from 150 kt, that gets you ~1.3 meters at the deepest point.
So yeah, top floor would get destroyed, not much else.

If BBC or NYT wrote that, those articles  are more fictional than Roshar is.

12 hours ago, TheFlatScadrian said:

(And no, Windrunners and Skybreakers couldn't tear down the planes and missiles. Because they have to touch them, and those things are moving at mach 2+ and an altitude of 65,000 ft. You can't even see them, and much less reach them.).

Windrunners can place reverse lashing that would render missiles inaccurate, those don't need to touch target.

Or Navani can elaborate on attractor fabrials.

12 hours ago, TheFlatScadrian said:

I think that sending Jasnah to just sit in Shadesmar and just sort through and soulcast individual crates of burger meat and 5.56 ammunition would be... less than ideal. How are they going to support that long-term? Why don't they do that in the books to the Fused?

Not just Jasnah, Lightweavers as well.  Logistics wins wars, so if you can deny any resupply to your foe, who is reliant on modern technology, you can win.

And you don't need to soulcast individual creates, you can just set them on fire, or soulcast air to rock around them ,etc.

Ideally they would focus on disrupting fuel supply, because no fuel = no jets, tanks, cars.
Secondary priority would be explosives (missiles, bombs etc.)
Third priority would be bullets.

They can support that long term quite easily, you know just send shipments through Shadesmar.

They don't do that to the Fused in books since Fused don't have a single point of entry to Roshar, in this scenario US does.

Quote

Would new resources entering Roshar even have a bead to be transformed initially in the first place?

And yes, the resources should have beads, why wouldn't they?

But even if not, they can still soulcast air around those resources into .e.g rock, or oil, or flame. Take your pick, either way resupply would be very hard. and unpleasant.

Also, how large is that portal US is using? I assume it must be quite large, if you operate on the assumption they can get aircraft carries through.

12 hours ago, TheFlatScadrian said:

You're right that this is a logistical nightmare, but remember that the U.S. maintained a similar nightmare for twenty+ years, and a much larger one for eleven in WWII. And the U.S. doesn't have to conquer the whole thing in one go. There's no cap to time here unless they get pushed out entirely; they could go on for decades. Besides, the population density of Roshar is about 7.5 people per square kilometer, as opposed to Iraq's 60 people per square kilometer (in 2009) which makes things easier.

I don't think you understand how much of a nightmare it would be. 

In Afghanistan, US had control over places it resupplied into, i.e. they didn't have to worry about getting attacked from nowhere while they unload. 

On Roshar, thanks to Shadesmar, nowhere is safe.

And if this drags on, US will have to start countering Lightweavers shooting laser beams, and Elsecallers just straighup soulcasting supercritical amounts of uranium (or e.g. anthrax) in their bases.

The empty space is also a boon to defensive side, you have a lot of space where to stage any units for quick attacks, and US side simply does not have capacity to track all of that territory, unlike Roshar that basically has satellite-level info on the entire continent and surrounding areas.

12 hours ago, TheFlatScadrian said:

True. Except that, like Radiants, a few rounds of 5.56 or 6.8 can kill them, because a wooden spear can kill them.

And then they are reborn, and can go again.
Plus you have to hit them, and e.g. those Shapeshifting ones or that can meld to ground would be very hard to counter. 

How do you e.g. establish a physical base, when at any time hand can reach out from ground and snatch you?

Quote

And Lezian's susceptible to 20mm. Especially as most aircraft carrier-mounted radar-tracking Phalanx CIWS ELC 20mm rounds are aluminum tipped.

Cool, how is that useful inside the aircraft carrier? 

Lezien would travel to carrier in his spren form (which cannot be attacked physically), and then reform inside it.

Quote

As for Shadesmar, you're probably right, although who knows? Many of the Radiants are brand new, and young, and if they got surrounded by dudes with guns they might just go along with it and enter Shadesmar under false pretenses, tricking the Sibling. Although, their bond would eventually be destroyed and the Sibling and Sentries would not let it last, but that doesn't mean an attack aircraft couldn't sashay out to Jasnah's place by the teleportation zone and introduce her to the Mk-82 from 40,000 feet before then.

You assume young Radiants would know about Jasnah and where she is. Or that planes could be transported to Shadesmar by some young Radiant.

Or that somehow Radiant got captured, turned and traveled to an Oathgate to use it. Why would Radiants leave Oathgates in enemy territory unlocked for anyone to use?

So I would say Shadesmar is pretty safe, certainly safer than any US base.

And once again, bribes/threats go both ways, and unlike US soldiers that don't know the language or can shapeshift, Radiants have methods of learning language and to blend in.


On offensive side of Roshar:

• they can easily disable all planes of US side by soulcasting air inside cockpit into rock. Or if that is not possible for whatever reason, soulcasting air inside the air intakes into rock. Plane crippled.
  • They can do that from Shadesmar, they know general location of planes from knowing location of air craft carrier via Stormfather, and to get a bead that should be sufficient.
  • You can do that also with other stuff of course, like soulcasting air into rock in the missile exhaust for fun explosions that will disable/kill US units.
• (This would likely require far too much Stormlight to be realistic, but it is a fun idea) Soulcasting certain amount of water below the aircraft carrier into air, to cause it to sink in the now insufficiently dense environment.
• Unmade:
  • Thrill and directing it at US forces.
  • Or using Heart of the Revel to cripple US side.
• Also, you still didn't address e.g. Everstorm/Highstorm targeting US assets, which would be a big deal.

 

Edited December 7, 2025 by therunner

[Myst He/Him]

2 hours ago, therunner said:

And then they are reborn, and can go again.
Plus you have to hit them, and e.g. those Shapeshifting ones or that can meld to ground would be very hard to counter

That takes out taking prisoners, as any singer could become a fused if they need to. In order to take out all the fused, the US would have to hunt down and kill every single singer on roshar.

This same principle kinda applies to radiants as well. If you kill a radiant, their Spren can go and bind another, giving you another radiant.

As long as Roshar is willing to suffer heavy casualties, they can technically fight till the last person. Every single rosharian has the possibility of accessing surges.

idk about everyone else, but I’ll bet that almost the entirety of the US military would not be able to do systematic genocide over and over in order to quash and hope of rebellion. The US cannot just occupy Roshar, they literally have to destroy it.

This basically means that the US is basically extremely outnumbered against the entirety of Roshar. While most everyone will be untrained, bonding a Spren and swearing oaths does give an innate understanding of how to use them.

Assuming that each Radiant can take out one US soldier, and that’s probably higher. For Fused that’s even higher as they’ve been training for war for all their lifetimes. So they might count in the hundreds or thousands. Simply that is enough to annihilate the US army.

There’s about 1.3(edit: 1.3 million, spread across both soldiers, support staff, ext..) active personnel in the US military. Let’s say that they triple that for wartime enlistment and my drawing up reserves and to account for battleships and nukes and planes, etc. Roshar(the continent) is about 40,250,000 km*2, and so with 7.5 people per square kilometer, that’s around 300m people. 

The US would need 100 to 1 odds. That’s simply not reasonable for any military to do. Even with my low expectations of the average Rosharian, the US still would be destroyed, and plenty of people would beat plenty of soldiers by themselves 

Edited December 7, 2025 by Ookla the Broken

[TheFlatScadrian]

Alright. Time for basics, because we've had a lot of conjecture and I'd like to establish a baseline of capability for the U.S. (We all know what the Rosharans can do by now, and it is impressive).

ROSHAR: The Big Stuff (and how to beat, or at least avoid, them)

___

Fundamental Differences:

- 30% Oxygen (approx.)

Simple, but not easy.

Every internal combustion engine would need to have the intake choked by approximately 25% to reduce the O2 intake enough for sustained combustion at reasonable temperatures (accounting for reduction in nitrogen). Airplanes would need better fuel types that can handle higher oxidization without over-combustion. Everything would need an update to ECUs and avionics.

This would take months to over a year at most for the entire military, but initial landing phases would be easier, taking a few months at most. A small metal plate insert and the tech update would be simple math, and just take a while to implement on larger scales. The specific technology for this potential jet fuel already exists, and at scale, but it’s more expensive.

- 70% Gravity (6.87 m/s^2)

This actually makes everything easier. The lower gravity makes much of the strain away from mechanical operations. Engines are under far less strain for tougher jobs, and airplanes would not require full engine speeds to take off, helping to counteract the potential over-combustion of the higher atmospheric oxygen count. Also, guns become more accurate, but some basic, easy mathematical re-calibration for weapons systems would be in order.

___

Weather Phenomena:

- Highstorm (300MPH, variably predictable)

Managed in the same way as the Rosharans do, with shaped structures and natural formations. 

- Everstorm (120MPH, highly predictable OR unpredictable under Odium)

Actually, less of a problem for an average convoy. Wind speeds in excess of 120MPH are only slightly above-average for most desert sandstorms, but not unmanageable, and most ships could remain at sea.

- Crem (accretes over time, removable)

Managed in the same way as the Rosharans do, with routine cleaning.

___

Average Military Capacity:

- Infantry (Swords, leather armor)

Guns.

- Archers (Bows, leather armor)

Guns.

- Siege Engines (Catapults, ballistas)

Guns. And tanks. And attack aircraft, if you’re bored.

___

Advanced Military Capacity:

- Fused

Guns. Repeat every Everstorm. Consider implementing internment for singers, or perhaps mass freedom and outfitting, convincing members to refuse being reborn by Fused.

- Thunderclast

Bombs. Repeat every Everstorm.

- Shardbearers (dead sword/plate)

Susceptible to kinetic weaponry (Like war hammers, or Kaladin's legs), which almost all modern weaponry happens to be. Guns and tanks.

- Soulcasters

Have to touch something to soulcast it, so useless at any kind of range. Supply chains are very important, but they're also not robust or redundant due to thousands of years of not accounting for air support. While far more mobile and lasting, Soulcasters are much less robust and can be destroyed much more easily than a conventional supply line, limiting their maneuverability. Guns, assassination specifically, but also remote explosives.

- Truthwatchers

Limited to the present-sight in most cases, with rare exceptions. Losing Renarin, specifically, would be unrecoverable, and even now he's dodgy at best. He can predict a false win as much as he can an accurate loss.

___

Surges (Magic System):

- Gravitation

(Illumination ineffective (See below))

Gravitation still means G-forces, even with Stormlight; it’s nigh impossible to reach mach speeds. It’s also exceedingly hard to turn more unpredictably than a military aircraft, especially at speed, as they must either slow to turn, or turn in longer arcs (We have seen Kaladin experience a near red-out while flying at significantly slower speeds). Seeing as how Gravitation is more mathematically consistent than average flight, it makes movements easier to lead with gunfire. 

They cannot lash missiles, tank rounds, artillery shells, or bullets. They have to touch something to lash it, and even if they could catch up (Or even see it), lashing doesn’t invalidate momentum or propulsion, meaning more and more Stormlight must be applied to fully stop, or better, deflect a projectile.

Autocannons, preferably with a mix of radar and infrared tracking.

- Division

A simple case of area-denial at range. Guns.

- Abrasion

Same.

- Progression

Same.

- Illumination

They can’t actually generate light and sound, nor can they manipulate wavelength frequency. They can only manipulate ambient light and air, and use those to create illusions or focus light. Radar and infrared are not ambiently common at the wavelengths the modern military uses them, and could not be faked easily. Nor is it likely that the Lightweavers would even ever learn how Radar or Radio works, much less take advantage of it.

- Transformation

For Lightweavers, only individual items can be casted, and they must be shifted through convincing their beads to change, making perception matter rather heavily. The perception of, and thus the soul of, enemy goods and munitions would be less-than-willing to shift for enemies. This is why Lightweavers don’t already do this en-mass.

For Elsecallers, Access to Roshar from Shadesmar can be cut off easily, even from the single Elsecaller, via Oathgate capture. Generalized, mass-casting cannot be done in the Physical realm from Shadesmar (Air, water, stone), and even in the Physical realm, only the one Elscaller they have can do it at scale, and only from relatively close-by.

A more complex case of area-denial at range. Guns and strategic capture.

- Transportation

Don’t park your Humvee near a perpendicularity, but if they bring Dalinar, shoot him. Guns.

- Cohesion

A simple case of area-denial at range. Guns.

- Tension

Same.

- Adhesion

Same.

___

Installations:

- Oathgates

Can and should be captured or annihilated. 

- Urithiru

To clarify a small misconception, the GBU-57s actually worked perfectly during the initial impact and penetration in Iran. The problem was that the payload, once delivered, did not fully destroy the actual structure of the facilities due to the bunker construction. It was a bunker win, and a warhead inadequacy, but not a penetrator loss. 

Here's some fun math, because I was bored:

Spoiler

The chemical composition of the atmosphere on Roshar is approximately 30% oxygen, 69% Nitrogen, 1% miscellaneous. The GBU-43B is a thermobaric weapon, meaning it not only explodes, causing an 11-ton shockwave, but also spreads an aerosol (H-6 flammable explosive) that lights on fire and incinerates everything within a radius of a mile.  

The thermobaric effect is calculated as such: 

0.21 is the percentage of O2, 0.79 the percentage of other gasses, their multipliers are their molar mass.

0.21 x 32 / (0.21 x 32 + 0.79 x 28) = 0.233 (23.3%)

At 30% O2 content, that becomes:

0.3 x 32 / (0.3 x 32 + 0.7 x 28) = 0.329 (32.9%)

That’s (0.329/0.233) a 41% increase (1.41 x 11) to about 15.6 tons of TNT. 

So it’s actually deadlier on Roshar.

Punch a considerable hole in the roof over the main atrium hall (Which is a floor to ceiling shaft), allowing continued, smaller explosives to widen the gap and suppress resistance until the hole is big enough.

Then, you drop a GBU-43B into the hole, and detonate it halfway down the tower.

A concussive pressure wave spreads a fireball throughout the whole tower in moments, instant-roasting everyone within a approximately three-fourths of a mile, and obliterates anything that isn’t the base constructive rock of the tower (Stone walls / floors / pillars). Urithiru is composed of twisty, snaking passageways, but it’s also more pressurized. The forces travel farther and hotter faster than they would in an airburst. This explosion turns the tower unusable for weeks, if not months or years. The Atrium is mostly destroyed, along with its lifts, and nearly everything else throughout a decent chunk of the central tower.

___

I never said it’d be easy. But it’s definitely possible. Especially if the Spren eventually decide to stop trying, which is fairly reasonable. And this is assuming that the Cryptics don't bond to the United States soldiers (Which I would venture is probable, and certainly possible), which would be devastating for Roshar.

And yes. I do think the U.S. gets the first strike, because it's fair to say that a random off-world group appearing and setting up somewhere would be suspicious and worrying, but I doubt the assertion that Roshar would attack outright, or that anyone would know of or be able to prevent the initial strike, which would cripple their forces.

Yes, Korea and Iraq were NATO-backed, but this scenario doesn't occlude that the tactics, production, and trade agreements of NATO have ceased or are otherwise inoperable. If the Military has access to it now, they have access to it in this, so long as it isn't a nuke (because that's boring), satellite (Because that's absurd), or direct military involvement (Because that's not the question). 

Yes, Roshar is huge. But a huge percentage (Far beyond 50%) of those people are non-combatants for several reasons, especially if the spren give up after the initial devastation. And especially if the Cryptics bond with U.S. soldiers. And especially if the U.S. allies with people.

Edited December 8, 2025 by TheFlatScadrian

[therunner he/him]

You seem to heavily misunderstand what Surges actually can do, and what is the environment of Roshar, while at the same time overestimating what US can do without interference.

17 hours ago, TheFlatScadrian said:

Fundamental Differences:

- 30% Oxygen (approx.)

Simple, but not easy.

Every internal combustion engine would need to have the intake choked by approximately 25% to reduce the O2 intake enough for sustained combustion at reasonable temperatures (accounting for reduction in nitrogen). Airplanes would need better fuel types that can handle higher oxidization without over-combustion. Everything would need an update to ECUs and avionics.

This would take months to over a year at most for the entire military, but initial landing phases would be easier, taking a few months at most. A small metal plate insert and the tech update would be simple math, and just take a while to implement on larger scales. The specific technology for this potential jet fuel already exists, and at scale, but it’s more expensive.

Ok, so the portal opens up, and US needs months/year before it can even start reconnaissance.

Rosharan side meanwhile does find the portal (Stormfather), and is rather interested in it considering current events. 
Might even attempt to travel through, thus quickly discovering the dangers.

The time also means Rosharan side continues to develop, and Radiant forces become larger.

17 hours ago, TheFlatScadrian said:

Weather Phenomena:

- Highstorm (300MPH, variably predictable)

Managed in the same way as the Rosharans do, with shaped structures and natural formations. 

- Everstorm (120MPH, highly predictable OR unpredictable under Odium)

Actually, less of a problem for an average convoy. Wind speeds in excess of 120MPH are only slightly above-average for most desert sandstorms, but not unmanageable, and most ships could remain at sea.

- Crem (accretes over time, removable)

Managed in the same way as the Rosharans do, with routine cleaning.

The 300 MPH and 120 MPH are not wind speeds, they are how fast the storms travel. The wind speeds are much higher than that, considering the damage.

Highstorm rips and carries large trees for hundreds of miles, and rips boulders from earth.
If anything Highstorm is more like hurricane size tornado.  Everstorm is less destructive, but not by that much.

So they would be a problem for convoys and infrastructure.

Also, how is US going to build structures to withstand this, they don't have wood or concrete? How can they build e.g. runways? Or refueling stations?

And how they will avoid Fused just reaching from ground and killing people, destroying items?

Hell, just sending in a few Stonewards (of which there are hundreds) could do a lot of damage, by e.g. sinking planes into runways (if they had physical presence of land).

17 hours ago, TheFlatScadrian said:

Surges (Magic System):

- Gravitation

Gravitation still means G-forces, even with Stormlight; it’s nigh impossible to reach mach speeds. It’s also exceedingly hard to turn more unpredictably than a military aircraft, especially at speed, as they must either slow to turn, or turn in longer arcs (We have seen Kaladin experience a near red-out while flying at significantly slower speeds). Seeing as how Gravitation is more mathematically consistent than average flight, it makes movements easier to lead with gunfire. 

It is not impossible to reach Mach speeds, that has nothing to do with G-forces. Windrunner just has to lash themselves in direction, and wait (or occasionally add Lashings as wind resistance builds up). Likely not doable without Shardplate, though creative application of Adhesion could help.

Windrunners are far smaller and are more maneuverabl than military aircraft (at least with Shardplate).

Also, Gravitation is less predictable than average flight, as plane cannot start accelerating in arbitrary direction at arbitrary time.

Quote

They cannot lash missiles, tank rounds, artillery shells, or bullets. They have to touch something to lash it, and even if they could catch up (Or even see it), lashing doesn’t invalidate momentum or propulsion, meaning more and more Stormlight must be applied to fully stop, or better, deflect a projectile.

Again, wrong.

Reversed lashing can lash all of the above. Based on it literally ripping a Fused's head off, it generates enough force to makes deflect bullets by ~1cm per 1m travelled in range, and they can be made stronger (like any other Lashing).

Not to mention repeller and attractor fabrials, which could do all of the above as well (though how strong they can be made is a question).

17 hours ago, TheFlatScadrian said:

- Illumination

They can’t actually generate light and sound, nor can they manipulate wavelength frequency. They can only manipulate ambient light and air, and use those to create illusions or focus light. Radar and infrared are not ambiently common at the wavelengths the modern military uses them, and could not be faked easily. Nor is it likely that the Lightweavers would even ever learn how Radar or Radio works, much less take advantage of it.

Wrong, as Returned already posted, Illumination does generate light and sound.

Like, all of the above you wrote is just wrong.

17 hours ago, TheFlatScadrian said:

- Transformation

For Lightweavers, only individual items can be casted, and they must be shifted through convincing their beads to change, making perception matter rather heavily. The perception of, and thus the soul of, enemy goods and munitions would be less-than-willing to shift for enemies. This is why Lightweavers don’t already do this en-mass.

Again, wrong!

Lightweavers can do everything Elsecallers can (Soulcasting wise), Elsecallers are just more suited to it. Even the Soulcasting at range can be done by Lightweavers.

Also, enemy fuel could be convinced that burning more is surely good, as that is its purpose, and so could be soulcast into a mix that would destroy the planes by burning too hot.

17 hours ago, TheFlatScadrian said:

For Elsecallers, Access to Roshar from Shadesmar can be cut off easily, even from the single Elsecaller, via Oathgate capture.

Again wrong. 

Elsecallers can simply teleport to Shadesmar (and back, though that is more difficult).
US side also cannot 'just' capture Oathgates, that would be much more involved operation.

Quote

Generalized, mass-casting cannot be done in the Physical realm from Shadesmar (Air, water, stone), and even in the Physical realm, only the one Elscaller they have can do it at scale, and only from relatively close-by.

Any evidence for this? Because as far as I can tell, there is none.

17 hours ago, TheFlatScadrian said:

- Oathgates

Can and should be captured or annihilated. 

Because it would be surely as simple as that, and Rosharan side would not protect their most important assets at all.

E.g. by maintaining a Lightweaving to keep location hidden, or building a bunker over it. Or both.
 

Quote

- Urithiru

To clarify a small misconception, the GBU-57s actually worked perfectly during the initial impact and penetration in Iran. The problem was that the payload, once delivered, did not fully destroy the actual structure of the facilities due to the bunker construction. It was a bunker win, and a warhead inadequacy, but not a penetrator loss. 

And you think it could destroy Urithiru which is hundreds times the size?

17 hours ago, TheFlatScadrian said:

Punch a considerable hole in the roof over the main atrium hall (Which is a floor to ceiling shaft), allowing continued, smaller explosives to widen the gap and suppress resistance until the hole is big enough.

Then, you drop a GBU-43B into the hole, and detonate it halfway down the tower.

How does the US side know architectural details of Urithiru?

Quote

A concussive pressure wave spreads a fireball throughout the whole tower in moments, instant-roasting everyone within a approximately three-fourths of a mile, and obliterates anything that isn’t the base constructive rock of the tower (Stone walls / floors / pillars). Urithiru is composed of twisty, snaking passageways, but it’s also more pressurized. The forces travel farther and hotter faster than they would in an airburst. This explosion turns the tower unusable for weeks, if not months or years. The Atrium is mostly destroyed, along with its lifts, and nearly everything else throughout a decent chunk of the central tower.

...no, that is not how it works.

In OPEN space, yes the fireball would spread like that. In enclosed space with doors, walls? No.

Again, it is just 11 tons of TNT, that is not enough to render a kilometer tall mountain fort uninhabitable.
 

17 hours ago, TheFlatScadrian said:

I never said it’d be easy. But it’s definitely possible. Especially if the Spren eventually decide to stop trying, which is fairly reasonable. And this is assuming that the Cryptics don't bond to the United States soldiers (Which I would venture is probable, and certainly possible), which would be devastating for Roshar.

And why is it that you assume US soldiers won't give up? 

Or that spren can betray Rosharan side, but US soldiers cannot be swayed by as much gold as they might want?

Quote

And yes. I do think the U.S. gets the first strike, because it's fair to say that a random off-world group appearing and setting up somewhere would be suspicious and worrying, but I doubt the assertion that Roshar would attack outright, or that anyone would know of or be able to prevent the initial strike, which would cripple their forces.

And I disagree with that assertion. 

Roshar is in the middle of invasion as it is, of course they would be suspicious immediately.

Quote

Yes, Korea and Iraq were NATO-backed, but this scenario doesn't occlude that the tactics, production, and trade agreements of NATO have ceased or are otherwise inoperable. If the Military has access to it now, they have access to it in this, so long as it isn't a nuke (because that's boring), satellite (Because that's absurd), or direct military involvement (Because that's not the question). 

Ah, so its now Roshar vs NATO? 

No, US has US military, not NATO forces and support, as that is the problem statement.

17 hours ago, TheFlatScadrian said:

Yes, Roshar is huge. But a huge percentage (Far beyond 50%) of those people are non-combatants for several reasons, especially if the spren give up after the initial devastation. And especially if the Cryptics bond with U.S. soldiers. And especially if the U.S. allies with people.

Why would people ally with US? 

US famously kinda sucks at turning locals to their side, as last ~70 years or so show, and that is when they have a lot of knowledge on history and language of the area (or were invited in the first place)

Here, US does not know language, does not know customs, does not know culture or history.


It seems to me you just want US to clown on Roshar, and not much else. So you handwave away any complications (US would just spend a year or so redesigning their entire air force to work on other planet), give US advantages (first strike, asymetrical assumptions on knowledge they posses, unattackable homebase), and disregard anything Rosharan side can do, while not even sticking to known facts (such as how Lightweaving or Soulcasting works).

Edited December 9, 2025 by therunner

[alder24]

I’ll be honest, I haven’t really followed the entire discussion here, but I’m surprised it’s 4 pages long. There is no way for the USA to conquer and occupy the entirety of Roshar. They failed to establish control over Afghanistan for 20 years, they will for sure be unable to do better in a completely hostile alien environment, with no satellites, no infrastructure, no roads (which is super important), no electricity, no ability to communicate with natives, with different atmospheric and gravitational conditions and so many other problems that it’s hard to list them all. If the US were to be engaged in a big scale battle over some location on Roshar, they would probably win it due to their superiority in numbers and technology, but the only thing Rosharans have to do is to start a guerilla warfare and avoid engaging directly with the US army. Rosharans need to just hide, attack their logistical, supply or communication centers and disappear into an unfamiliar land and soon Earthlings will be stranded, starved and demoralized. Not to mention that the USA has no numbers to occupy the entirety of Roshar, they would be quickly overextended and exposed to surprise attacks, not to mention that their entire logistical network would be super fragile and would eventually collapse. It’s just impossible to do. 

But if the USA wants to, they could surely destroy the whole life on Roshar with their stockpile of 5000 nuclear warheads. They could nuke large population centers several times over and wipe out most Rosharans in the matter of minutes and there would be nothing that Rosharas could do to stop them from doing that, as they simply lack the numbers in Radiants to do so. It takes just 100-300 nuclear bombs to cause global nuclear winter, which would wipe out most of humans on Roshar by blocking sunlight, dropping temperature and massive crop failure causing years lasting global starvation. 

Urithiru itself won’t be immune to nukes. Sure, a single nuke won’t evaporate the whole Tower, but it doesn’t have to. Just drop a few of them at the base of the Tower and through the atrium and the detonations would destroy the load bearing structure of the Tower, which would simply collapse on itself. Most of the Urithiru population lives on the lower levels of the city, thus a few well dropped nukes would wipe out most of the people living there. Not to mention that it’s likely that shockwaves or earthquakes created by nukes would damage or maybe even shatter the crystal column in the basement of the Tower, which would cripple or kill the Sibling and thus disable the functionality of Urithiru. Although the current crystal barrier around the Tower is a problem, I assume it works like the glass bubble from RoW (which could be penetrated), thus it’s probably possible to overwhelm it with some kind of bombardment and create a hole for a nuke to be dropped through, or use some kind of penetrative warheads - honestly, it’s hard to tell as we don’t know how this crystal barrier works and it would be a tough nut to crack.

Ignoring the nukes, the USA has no realistic way to fully occupy and control Roshar at all. A successful planetary invasion is simply out of reach for any army on Earth or even the combined might of the entire Earth. Oh, and the assumption is that there is a portal in the middle of the ocean, thus a huge navy is needed for transportation and an amphibious assault would have to be carried out. This would create a massive bottleneck for the invasion force that could be easily exploited by Rosharans. Because of that the USA can utilize only a small fraction of their entire military force, just those that can fit on their ships and only aircrafts with large ranges can be launched from the ground as a support, because the portal is in the middle of nowhere and planes can’t fly indefinitely. The odds of a successful invasion are even worse than impossible with that in mind. Rosharans just need to sink their landing ships and the whole invasion is over before it even begins.

Btw, you guys want this invasion to happen before or after WaT? Because as of the end of WaT the Highstorm and the Stormfather are gone and the Everstorm turned into eternal rain over the entire continent and isn't much of a storm anymore. 

[TheFlatScadrian]

4 hours ago, therunner said:

Ok, so the portal opens up, and US needs months/year before it can even start reconnaissance.

Rosharan side meanwhile does find the portal (Stormfather), and is rather interested in it considering current events. 
Might even attempt to travel through, thus quickly discovering the dangers.

The time also means Rosharan side continues to develop, and Radiant forces become larger.

First, through conversation, we refined my poorly worded prompt over a few questions. It's U.S. controlled teleportation, but that can't send military-capable hardware back through; only (because this is all hypothetical) non-military support and communication. 

That's been established for most of my conversation with Returned, but yeah, I know that's a change from your perspective.

I'm still annoyed with myself that I wasn't succinct in the first post, but yes, this is the current standard and it's not going to change from here.
 

4 hours ago, therunner said:

The 300 MPH and 120 MPH are not wind speeds, they are how fast the storms travel. The wind speeds are much higher than that, considering the damage.

Highstorm rips and carries large trees for hundreds of miles, and rips boulders from earth.
If anything Highstorm is more like hurricane size tornado.  Everstorm is less destructive, but not by that much.

So they would be a problem for convoys and infrastructure.

Also, how is US going to build structures to withstand this, they don't have wood or concrete? How can they build e.g. runways? Or refueling stations?

If the winds were faster, the storms would, in turn, also be faster.

I did get the speed wrong; I'll give you that. It's actually 370MPH, not 300MPH (which is already little faster than EF5 tornadoes, which can already lift trains).

But the point still stands that they could just avoid them. You know. Like Roshar has.

Runways are just flat chunks of earth. You can land jets on rock. And any camp, station, or checkpoint can, (like on Roshar) be behind a hill. And modern aircraft carriers and submarines can run for 25 years without refueling, so power's not an issue.

They don't have wood or concrete? Wood is not that hard to find. Concrete is not that hard to make.

4 hours ago, therunner said:

It is not impossible to reach Mach speeds, that has nothing to do with G-forces. Windrunner just has to lash themselves in direction, and wait (or occasionally add Lashings as wind resistance builds up). Likely not doable without Shardplate, though creative application of Adhesion could help.

Windrunners are far smaller and are more maneuverabl than military aircraft (at least with Shardplate).

Also, Gravitation is less predictable than average flight, as plane cannot start accelerating in arbitrary direction at arbitrary time.

It has everything to do with G-forces. Kaladin nearly passes out from turning too sharply in Words for Radiance while fighting Szeth. They are absolutely limited by both velocity and conservation of energy, which severely limits their ability to turn quickly at high speeds without first slowing down. They're not just out there playing Snake in 3-D space.

(Spoiler for length)

Spoiler

Arcanum (WOB) says:

shinarit?
There is that scene where Kaladin takes a sharp turn at high speeds and he almost blacks out. That is normal for jet pilots, since they experience high G forces when their airplane tries to accelerate them by their backs and bottoms.

But Lashing doesn't work that way, it generates fake gravity. Accelerating your whole body shouldn't cause you anything, you can't even feel it.

Is this something that is an admitted physics hiccup or I misunderstood this kind of Investiture usage?

Brandon Sanderson
This one is actually in the process of flux, as I do more research on the effects of acceleration (including interviews with fighter pilots, which has been fun.) Basically, I realized I needed to beef up my understanding of all this, and then make some decisions on exactly how this all works, because I've been relying on instinct too much in some of these sequences.

So...that's a RAFO, I'm afraid. More because I'm still tweaking some of the little details of how I want this all to work. (In ways that become increasingly relevant as I look forward toward things like Windrunners in space.)

There are a ton of details to consider, even if I eventually hand-wave some of it with the magic. (For example, the heart pumping blood in a high-g environment. How does that interact, if at all, with stormlight? And the direct oxygenation of the brain implied by not needing to breathe while holding stormlight...)

We have several very large math-ish projects going on behind the scenes."

They are slower and nimble (Anti-air) or faster and predictable (Air-to-Air), and everything in-between is covered by precision radar and infrared imaging. The United States military is specifically designed to counteract all aircraft, including (Similarly) drones that might match movement similarly.

4 hours ago, therunner said:

Again, wrong.

Reversed lashing can lash all of the above. Based on it literally ripping a Fused's head off, it generates enough force to makes deflect bullets by ~1cm per 1m travelled in range, and they can be made stronger (like any other Lashing).

Not to mention repeller and attractor fabrials, which could do all of the above as well (though how strong they can be made is a question).

I forgot reverse lashings, you're right, and those could work.

Of course, assuming that they even know what bullets or missiles or bombs are, or that guns or missiles or bombs are even projectile based. It's not like you can see them in flight.

There are some extremely interesting descriptions of things like this by soldiers in WWI and WWII; the explosion comes before you even hear the cannon fire, and at the ranges most militaries use today, they'd never hear the cannon fire. They would eventually figure it out, but not initially.

And then, of course:

"Sir, the bullets seem to be curving up."

"Then shoot lower down."

~~~

"They're shooting down."

"Then increase the lashing."

"If I do, we'll all start floating."

"Damnation."

___

"Dalinar, I lashed that cinderblock over there, so any incoming shells will miss us."

"Perfect. If they can't hit us directly, we can't die."

"Exact---"

BOOOOO---

4 hours ago, therunner said:

Wrong, as Returned already posted, Illumination does generate light and sound.

Like, all of the above you wrote is just wrong.

If their illusions where a simple generation of light and air they could see through them from the inside, which they explicitly can't. It also makes more sense as to why they can soulcast illusions; the stormlight is telling light and air particles how to react, but not just creating them; it creates a pseudo-ontological structure that only light/air particles interact with (which can then be soulcast into matter). If they where generating light, they'd interfere with ambient light (causing a visual halo effect), and actually occlude the innate manifestation of darkness within an enclosed illusion.

It's more so that they're influencing particles. Light is literally a particle, meaning that interacting with light directly alters light's path. However, sound is a collection of particles, particles that can be stationary. They can "generate" air, because they're interacting with particles on a fundamental level, but they can't just manifest vectored air particles.

Yolish lightweavers can generate light, but they aren't the same type.

And you're right there, I am in fact wrong. My apologies. I still don't know how accurate or even if they could soulcast more undefined cognitive stuff from Shadesmar, but I've covered that.

4 hours ago, therunner said:

Again, wrong!

Lightweavers can do everything Elsecallers can (Soulcasting wise), Elsecallers are just more suited to it. Even the Soulcasting at range can be done by Lightweavers.

Also, enemy fuel could be convinced that burning more is surely good, as that is its purpose, and so could be soulcast into a mix that would destroy the planes by burning too hot.

Yes, they can... with a much harder strain. It's really not that easy.

And all that's assuming they know the planes are there and can soulcast around them, or find their beads directly (Again, if they have them. Would a plane from Earth that's never existed on Roshar, or its fuel, before have a bead, or would it have some cognitive alternative? Like... voxels or something).

Jasnah steps up, soulcasts some troops, draws her blade, and POW, a sniper turns her head into a water balloon at 600 yards (After missing the first shot in a perfectly accurate mathematical arc due to the reverse lashing fabrial next to her, but she didn't notice over the battle sounds).

4 hours ago, therunner said:

Again wrong. 

Elsecallers can simply teleport to Shadesmar (and back, though that is more difficult).
US side also cannot 'just' capture Oathgates, that would be much more involved operation.

...Right. 

Because the books haven't at all emphasized how ridiculously hard it is to actually leave Shadesmar, and certainly it hasn't been implied that Jasnah took years to figure it out and even then, couldn't last an extended period in Shadesmar without significant backup and movement/Stormlight availability issues (especially sitting on obsidian 100 miles from shore soulcasting beans into fire all day).

4 hours ago, therunner said:

Quote

Generalized, mass-casting cannot be done in the Physical realm from Shadesmar (Air, water, stone), and even in the Physical realm, only the one Elscaller they have can do it at scale, and only from relatively close-by.

Any evidence for this? Because as far as I can tell, there is none.

As far as I can tell, there isn't any evidence against it. And it makes sense, because air, large bodies of water, or massive chunks of stone don't have individual cognitive aspects, so...

I have no idea, man, I'm just running with what I've got here.

4 hours ago, therunner said:

Because it would be surely as simple as that, and Rosharan side would not protect their most important assets at all.

E.g. by maintaining a Lightweaving to keep location hidden, or building a bunker over it. Or both.

They still know where they all are (As of the initial prompt), and it's still stone with fragile gems inside, susceptible to vibrations. Even then...

"Sir, that massive government building in the middle of that street isn't appearing on certain frequencies, and thousands of soldiers keep coming out of it."

"Huh. Guess it's a target, then."

4 hours ago, therunner said:

And you think it could destroy Urithiru which is hundreds times the size?

No, I think it could put a 5m x 5m hole in the ceiling.

4 hours ago, therunner said:

How does the US side know architectural details of Urithiru?

LiDAR. Plus, the massive window on the Eastern side.

4 hours ago, therunner said:

...no, that is not how it works.

In OPEN space, yes the fireball would spread like that. In enclosed space with doors, walls? No.

Again, it is just 11 tons of TNT, that is not enough to render a kilometer tall mountain fort uninhabitable.
 

...yes. Yes it is.

This is proven, tested fact, actually. Explosions spread much better and maintain forces in tunnels leagues better than in open air (Because of pressure). Because much of Urithiru's structure is extremely compact, too, meaning the same force has less space to actually dissipate into, forcing pressure down tunnels much, much farther and more powerfully than otherwise.

Like a water tower. Expect the tower has just suffered a massive explosion inside and there are several highly flammable things in the pipes.

And 11 tons of TNT is in fact enough to burn over a kilometer in every direction, as shown in war, and especially in what is effectively a bunch of tunnels. (Not accounting for the O2 making it closer in power to 15 tons)

So yes. Blowing up that much explosive inside a tower isn't enough to destroy the tower, but it is enough to incinerate a huge part of the not-tower stuff inside it, including Radiants.

4 hours ago, therunner said:

And why is it that you assume US soldiers won't give up? 

Or that spren can betray Rosharan side, but US soldiers cannot be swayed by as much gold as they might want?

I don't assume that some wouldn't, but I do know that once they get there it's not like they can really leave (Unless they get wounded, as explored above). 

And why take some gold to go (When you can't) when you can just take all the gold and the other stuff, too (because you have to)?

4 hours ago, therunner said:

And I disagree with that assertion. 

Roshar is in the middle of invasion as it is, of course they would be suspicious immediately.

So Kaladin and Adolin head down and silently slaughter an entire fleet's worth of people in the dead of night whose intentions they do not actually know within a week of them arriving, because obviously.

4 hours ago, therunner said:

Ah, so its now Roshar vs NATO? 

No, US has US military, not NATO forces and support, as that is the problem statement.

That is not what I said. I said specifically that the U.S. has no NATO military support.

But I did say (in the initial prompt, and many times since) that the United States has access to all production capacity and trade as they normally do, which includes peace and wartime NATO contracts for gear and supplies. Just not actual military assistance.

Just to clarify.

4 hours ago, therunner said:

Why would people ally with US? 

I didn't say people would ally with the U.S. I said the U.S. would ally with people. That's a different thing. If the U.S. attaches itself to little local causes and things, just "because", that's a different thing than natives coming to the U.S. to just ask for help, and is much easier to manage, and get out of. Plus, it weakens enemies without weakening the U.S.

And linguistics is difficult, sure. Never said it wouldn't be.

2 hours ago, alder24 said:

I’ll be honest, I haven’t really followed the entire discussion here, but I’m surprised it’s 4 pages long. There is no way for the USA to conquer and occupy the entirety of Roshar. They failed to establish control over Afghanistan for 20 years, they will for sure be unable to do better in a completely hostile alien environment, with no satellites, no infrastructure, no roads (which is super important), no electricity, no ability to communicate with natives, with different atmospheric and gravitational conditions and so many other problems that it’s hard to list them all. If the US were to be engaged in a big scale battle over some location on Roshar, they would probably win it due to their superiority in numbers and technology, but the only thing Rosharans have to do is to start a guerilla warfare and avoid engaging directly with the US army. Rosharans need to just hide, attack their logistical, supply or communication centers and disappear into an unfamiliar land and soon Earthlings will be stranded, starved and demoralized. Not to mention that the USA has no numbers to occupy the entirety of Roshar, they would be quickly overextended and exposed to surprise attacks, not to mention that their entire logistical network would be super fragile and would eventually collapse. It’s just impossible to do. 

But if the USA wants to, they could surely destroy the whole life on Roshar with their stockpile of 5000 nuclear warheads. They could nuke large population centers several times over and wipe out most Rosharans in the matter of minutes and there would be nothing that Rosharas could do to stop them from doing that, as they simply lack the numbers in Radiants to do so. It takes just 100-300 nuclear bombs to cause global nuclear winter, which would wipe out most of humans on Roshar by blocking sunlight, dropping temperature and massive crop failure causing years lasting global starvation. 

Urithiru itself won’t be immune to nukes. Sure, a single nuke won’t evaporate the whole Tower, but it doesn’t have to. Just drop a few of them at the base of the Tower and through the atrium and the detonations would destroy the load bearing structure of the Tower, which would simply collapse on itself. Most of the Urithiru population lives on the lower levels of the city, thus a few well dropped nukes would wipe out most of the people living there. Not to mention that it’s likely that shockwaves or earthquakes created by nukes would damage or maybe even shatter the crystal column in the basement of the Tower, which would cripple or kill the Sibling and thus disable the functionality of Urithiru. Although the current crystal barrier around the Tower is a problem, I assume it works like the glass bubble from RoW (which could be penetrated), thus it’s probably possible to overwhelm it with some kind of bombardment and create a hole for a nuke to be dropped through, or use some kind of penetrative warheads - honestly, it’s hard to tell as we don’t know how this crystal barrier works and it would be a tough nut to crack.

Ignoring the nukes, the USA has no realistic way to fully occupy and control Roshar at all. A successful planetary invasion is simply out of reach for any army on Earth or even the combined might of the entire Earth. Oh, and the assumption is that there is a portal in the middle of the ocean, thus a huge navy is needed for transportation and an amphibious assault would have to be carried out. This would create a massive bottleneck for the invasion force that could be easily exploited by Rosharans. Because of that the USA can utilize only a small fraction of their entire military force, just those that can fit on their ships and only aircrafts with large ranges can be launched from the ground as a support, because the portal is in the middle of nowhere and planes can’t fly indefinitely. The odds of a successful invasion are even worse than impossible with that in mind. Rosharans just need to sink their landing ships and the whole invasion is over before it even begins.

Btw, you guys want this invasion to happen before or after WaT? Because as of the end of WaT the Highstorm and the Stormfather are gone and the Everstorm turned into eternal rain over the entire continent and isn't much of a storm anymore. 

Okay... everybody should slow down (Just a little), and re-read the title of this thread again.

It's likely a loss, yes. I'm playing devil's advocate, because I think the United States has a far, far better chance than everyone thinks. I've changed how much I believe it, as the chatter fluctuates.

I said, looking back at all my posts, just once that I think the U.S. would win the initial phases (Due to several reasons), which I still think is true. But a long standing occupation is probably nonviable, just as much as an initial Rosharan victory is improbable.

Most likely, the military slams the big problems in the first few months, sweeping across the borders, but also stretching thinner and thinner, before getting locked in a counterinsurgency war across a continent that they can't fully control. It's an initial military win, and a long term war loss. It'd be like Iraq mixed with a Devastation, but less destructive than a Desolation and more confusing than Iraq.

The planning, tactical side is largely what I've been gunning for. And frankly, I've been pretty pleased with how it's all turned out. Debate for both sides is one of the best ways to discover realistic problems with a thesis, and I've gotten as much out of this as I've put in because of it. 

Edited December 9, 2025 by TheFlatScadrian

[Returned he/him]

 Wow, I'm away for a few days and the thread moves on so far! It's like a lesser version of what TheFlatScadrian experienced a couple of pages ago. Most of my best and/or most relevant ideas are already here so I don't have much fresh stuff to add.

On 12/5/2025 at 6:24 PM, TheFlatScadrian said:

Now then. What do you think about the possibility of the United States ever figuring out how to access Shadesmar? If one of their soldiers bonded to a spren, and they kept an Oathgate under control, they might just end up taking it on simultaneously, if mostly as a counter to the Radiants. I could see them controlling parts of it, especially as the Spren are fairly under supplied in most places.

This is dependent on a core issue which I've referenced but haven't laid out very clearly. We don't have any real idea of how non-Cosmere people and things would be represented in the Cosmere itself. Most important is the humans. Invaders lack spiritwebs and the Investiture that is a fundamental component of all matter in the Cosmere, so they should be inherently unable to do things like use Investiture, access Shadesmar independently, or bond spren. This also strongly implies that they would not have cognitive representations (no flames in Shadesmar). Less clear is whether or not Investiture can directly affect them, such as being soulcast from flesh to flames or participate in manipulations of Connection. The same should also be true of their equipment: without being composed of matter, energy, and Investiture it's not clear why or how they would have beads in Shadesmar, for example.

Sanderson hasn't been clear on this (which seems fair, as the real world is specifically distinct from the Cosmere and so crossovers are inherently impossible). The best WoB I could find on the subject states that a Shardblade would cut an Earth-derived human like a Cosmere-derived human rather than like an inanimate object, but the details are not really defined and so we should not feel comfortable with a specific conclusion in any specific case. I don't think that this is all that huge a handicap because it would be pretty quick and simple for Rosharans to learn whether or not they can affect invaders and their equipment directly, and they can affect them indirectly with almost as much ease and effect.

 

Overall I think that the lines of the conflict are pretty well drawn, even with the uncertainties we can't eliminate due to unclear information or the need for arbitrary assumptions. My view of the overall situation:

• The invaders probably have an advantage on their first strike because it seems unlikely that the Rosharans would understand their capabilities. For example, until they've seen a long range missile strike I don't know how they'd be able to surmise that such a thing is possible nor how destructive it could be. The invaders would have plenty of missiles, so the devastation of one specific type of missile isn't so important (because they can just rain down a salvo of hundreds if they need the extra destructive power). This can also offset the loss of precision guidance to at least some degree in at least some situations.
• The invaders have some capacity to adapt to Rosharan conditions, and will do so as they are able. For example, they can set up temporary airstrips between storms or move carrier groups around to enable sorties. We have to grant some foreknowledge of Roshar for the scenario to be considered at all, and what specific knowledge they have (and when) will obviously matter a lot. But they will certainly be able to do some things with some efficacy even though their real-world capabilities will not all be available to them.
• Rosharans' ability to counter or defend against the invaders is dependent on their understanding of what, specifically, they need to counter or address. It's easy to say "burrow under X miles of rock" (I found it easy to say upthread, at least ), but the appropriate value of X is pretty important and it's not clear how the Rosharans would determine it in advance. They can and will learn those sorts of details eventually but will suffer greatly until they do.
• The Rosharans are, in broad terms, more vulnerable to attrition than the invaders. There are fewer of them and they are difficult to replace. Being able to bond new Radiants takes time, and development of their abilities takes time and insight which can't be rushed nor forced. It's a category difference between Shallan in Words of Radiance and Shallan at the end of Oathbringer. New Skybreakers flatly cannot use Division. Personal qualities also matter here: Jasnah is simply not replaceable, because how many polymath geniuses does Roshar have that are also Radiant bond-compatible and also into an Order that is appropriately versatile?
• The ability of Roshar to resist the invading military is based not only in access to magic but also in ability to use that magic in effective ways. Losing key people, or enough "rank and file" Radiants, would degrade their ability to operate against the invaders. For that reason the Rosharans' specific losses in strikes for which they are not fully prepared, and any attrition they suffer, are pretty important.

These features lead me to the overall conclusion that the invaders will lose a protracted invasion but might be able to do enough damage early in the conflict to remove effective opposition. None of this gets into the dynamics between Rosharan groups (like, would the Fused take opportunities to strike at the Radiants while they are dealing with the invaders, or would they strike at the invaders too?), which could also be relevant. But it gets really hard to game those sorts of things out unless we just assert things, and those assertions will tend to define outcomes all by themselves.

Edited December 9, 2025 by Returned

[therunner he/him]

13 hours ago, TheFlatScadrian said:

First, through conversation, we refined my poorly worded prompt over a few questions. It's U.S. controlled teleportation, but that can't send military-capable hardware back through; only (because this is all hypothetical) non-military support and communication. 

That's been established for most of my conversation with Returned, but yeah, I know that's a change from your perspective.

I'm still annoyed with myself that I wasn't succinct in the first post, but yes, this is the current standard and it's not going to change from here.

Ok so, 

• The location of teleport is fixed, i.e. some portal or some such
• Military hardware can pass through only one way (US -> Roshar)
• US controls it in general, so Rosharan side cannot use it to launch counterattacks ( I Really don't like this one)

 

So the Rosharan side:

• would know about the location of the portal
• can setup sentries in Shadesmar (you know, to check it is not another invasion)
• can attack from Shadesmar
• can send in spies (e.g. bonded Cryptics) to learn about their technology/plans (though they would have to first decode language, luckily Cryptics are very good at that).

They have roughly a year to establish this, since US has to modify all of their planes etc.

Also, because military hardware can pass through only one way, US has to test the modifications at least partially on Rosharan side, giving Rosharans information on their hardware, how it is used, how it performs.

All of the above is before any reconnaissance gathering can even start, meaning Rosharan have information advantage for first year or so (if not beyond).

13 hours ago, TheFlatScadrian said:

If the winds were faster, the storms would, in turn, also be faster.

No, that is now how it works. 
Travel speed and wind speed are two different metrics, you can have strong hurricane that moves slowly and vice versa.

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I did get the speed wrong; I'll give you that. It's actually 370MPH, not 300MPH (which is already little faster than EF5 tornadoes, which can already lift trains).

Not little faster, EF5 tornado is around 200 MPH, Highstorm has minimum wind speeds of 370 MPH just from travel speed, and localized winds would go far beyond that, likely in 450-500 MPH range.

Everstorm is CAT5 hurricane just from travel speed, and again, localized winds would go beyond that ~200-250 MPH range.

So how is US going to set up a base runway, etc., when it is getting hit by a CAT5 hurricane (Everstorm) every 10 days, and by a hurricane sized EF5+ tornado every 10-14 days? 

Like, those are horrible conditions for operating modern military equipment.

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But the point still stands that they could just avoid them. You know. Like Roshar has.

Roshar does not avoid them, they adapted to them.

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Runways are just flat chunks of earth. You can land jets on rock. And any camp, station, or checkpoint can, (like on Roshar) be behind a hill. And modern aircraft carriers and submarines can run for 25 years without refueling, so power's not an issue.

You do realize you need very flat chunk of earth to safely land a plane? 
Not something hurricane every 5 days will help you set up. Also, where are you hiding those planes during those hurricanes/hypercanes?

Behind a hill is insufficient protection from Highstorms, you need shelters dug into the side of hill opposite storm. Basically, any and all military camps as they are usually built would be worse than useless on Roshar, they would get flattened in the first Highstorm that hits them.

And they have to build this fast.

And planes (which are the key to any US strategy) need constant refueling, so that is the key part.

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They don't have wood or concrete? Wood is not that hard to find. Concrete is not that hard to make.

Both would have to be supplied from the portal. 

Wood is present only in Shinovar, so US couldn't source it locally. 
Ditto for concrete, they don't have sand mines, or cement.

Which makes it another weakspot that Rosharans can target.

13 hours ago, TheFlatScadrian said:

It has everything to do with G-forces. Kaladin nearly passes out from turning too sharply in Words for Radiance while fighting Szeth.

(Spoiler for length)

  Reveal hidden contents

Arcanum (WOB) says:

shinarit?
There is that scene where Kaladin takes a sharp turn at high speeds and he almost blacks out. That is normal for jet pilots, since they experience high G forces when their airplane tries to accelerate them by their backs and bottoms.

But Lashing doesn't work that way, it generates fake gravity. Accelerating your whole body shouldn't cause you anything, you can't even feel it.

Is this something that is an admitted physics hiccup or I misunderstood this kind of Investiture usage?

Brandon Sanderson
This one is actually in the process of flux, as I do more research on the effects of acceleration (including interviews with fighter pilots, which has been fun.) Basically, I realized I needed to beef up my understanding of all this, and then make some decisions on exactly how this all works, because I've been relying on instinct too much in some of these sequences.

So...that's a RAFO, I'm afraid. More because I'm still tweaking some of the little details of how I want this all to work. (In ways that become increasingly relevant as I look forward toward things like Windrunners in space.)

There are a ton of details to consider, even if I eventually hand-wave some of it with the magic. (For example, the heart pumping blood in a high-g environment. How does that interact, if at all, with stormlight? And the direct oxygenation of the brain implied by not needing to breathe while holding stormlight...)

We have several very large math-ish projects going on behind the scenes."

 

I forgot reverse lashings, you're right, and those could work.

 

No, reaching mach speed has nothing to do with g forces. G forces are caused by nonuniform acceleration (which technically means that Lashings shouldnt lead to them, and indeed they are kinda inconsistent, like Kaladin lashed himself multiple dozens of times in arena in WoR and did not pass out...but I digress  )

So Windrunner can reach those speeds (and since they will eventually travel in space, they kinda have to).

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They are absolutely limited by both velocity and conservation of energy, which severely limits their ability to turn quickly at high speeds without first slowing down. They're not just out there playing Snake in 3-D space.

And coincidentally so are planes, but those are also limited in other ways (i.e. engine is only in the back for example). 

Also, Rosharans and US soldiers are equally susceptible to passing out from G-forces, so not sure why you think plane could make sharper turns. Sure they have suits to help a bit, but Windrunners have Stormlight that strenghtens their entire bodies and constantly heals them. 

All in all, Windrunner can be just as fast as plane (if they have Shardplate), and can maneuver better than any plane, because they have fewer restrictions.

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Of course, assuming that they even know what bullets or missiles or bombs are, or that guns or missiles or bombs are even projectile based. It's not like you can see them in flight.

US needs a year to adapt their technology, and have to test it on Roshar. 
That is a lot of time to observe and spy on them to learn about their technology.

Or they can just set up a general reverse lashing/attractor to attract metal, that would work also (just have to place it far enough from base).

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And then, of course:

"Sir, the bullets seem to be curving up."

"Then shoot lower down."

~~~

"They're shooting down."

"Then increase the lashing."

"If I do, we'll all start floating."

"Damnation."

___

"Dalinar, I lashed that cinderblock over there, so any incoming shells will miss us."

"Perfect. If they can't hit us directly, we can't die."

"Exact---"

BOOOOO---

...you don't seem to realize that Reverse Lashing is not uniform effect.

How the bullet gets curved depends on its path through effect, so it is not a constant offset.

Also, increasing the lashing wouldn't cause anyone to float, what the hell is that part supposed to be? Reverse lashing affect only what their creator wanted them to.

13 hours ago, TheFlatScadrian said:

Yolish lightweavers can generate light, but they aren't the same type.

Again, no, Lightweaving does create light. If it 'just' manipulated ambient light, they couldn't create illusions that work in darkness, or create lasers. 

Not sure why you keep denying this.

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Yes, they can... with a much harder strain. It's really not that easy.

Only Shallan finds it difficult, other Lightweavers have relatively easy time with soulcasting (stated in RoW).
 

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And all that's assuming they know the planes are there and can soulcast around them, or find their beads directly (Again, if they have them. Would a plane from Earth that's never existed on Roshar, or its fuel, before have a bead, or would it have some cognitive alternative? Like... voxels or something).

They know planes are there because they spied on US for a year or so, and have fresh intel from Stormfather.
Planes will be either on runway (if it can survive Highstorm) or on aircraft carrier.
So they can certainly soulcast around them.

And yes, planes should have cognitive counterpart, people think about it, hence it has a bead.

And so they can soulcast it directly, as beads can be attracted via Stormlight as seen in WAT.

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Jasnah steps up, soulcasts some troops, draws her blade, and POW, a sniper turns her head into a water balloon at 600 yards (After missing the first shot in a perfectly accurate mathematical arc due to the reverse lashing fabrial next to her, but she didn't notice over the battle sounds).

As the sniper tries to fire, the gun explodes as the air in its barrel was turned to rock. He dead. Or get stabbed from behind by Lightweaver hidden by illusion.

I can write short snippets too. Plus of course non-uniformity of reverse lashings, meaning simple offset won't be enough to target...or if Jasnah just made a single step aside.

Finally, Shardplate won't get shot through in a single shot. Roseite (material not as strong as Rosharan Godmetals) withstood machine gun fire with ease, and Shardplates are used even circa 200-300 years in future.

So even the basic setup of that snippet is flawed.

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Because the books haven't at all emphasized how ridiculously hard it is to actually leave Shadesmar, and certainly it hasn't been implied that Jasnah took years to figure it out and even then, couldn't last an extended period in Shadesmar without significant backup and movement/Stormlight availability issues (especially sitting on obsidian 100 miles from shore soulcasting beans into fire all day).

You mean how modern fighter planes are a result of decades of RnD, and so could be easily retrofitted to work in very different atmospheric conditions in under a year?

I guess both sides are just adaptable.

More seriously, modern Radiants learn faster than before (Raboniel, RoW), and the ones with teachers even faster (see how quickly Kaladin learns Surges, vs his Squires).

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They still know where they all are (As of the initial prompt), and it's still stone with fragile gems inside, susceptible to vibrations. Even then...

How? Reconnaissance flights? 
How would the help them learn these are platforms for teleporting to other dimension, and so hugely important?

Not to mention if you place an illusion or build a simulacrum of it, how would the plane know they are looking at a fake?

And Oathgates are not so fragile, the one on Shattered planes survived both Shard clash (i.e. Shards clash that destroyed area hundreds of square km in size) and Everstorm/Highstorm clash. Both of those were more destructive than any bomb US has, nukes included.

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No, I think it could put a 5m x 5m hole in the ceiling.

Fair.

Of course, Sibling can simply reshape the stone to close the hole himself (considering he can shape stone in hallways), basically immediately after attack.

Or if that is not possible, any Soulcaster (even non Radiant) can plug it within minutes.

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LiDAR. Plus, the massive window on the Eastern side.

You mean ground penetrating radar, LiDAR only gives surface readings.

And ground penetrating radar is not particularly a curate unless you roughly know soil composition, which, Urithiru will be rather atypical, even for Roshar. What with actually being spren and all.

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...yes. Yes it is.

And 11 tons of TNT is in fact enough to burn over a kilometer in every direction, as shown in war, and especially in what is effectively a bunch of tunnels. (Not accounting for the O2 making it closer in power to 15 tons)

No its not. 

11 tons of TNT is just not enough to do what you describe, like, by order of magnitude.
And you conveniently forget that those tunnels can close as it is an organism, not just a structure.

The reason MOAB destroys soft target (not hard, important distinction) in such a large area is that it is thermobaric weapon, i.e. it disperes cloud of fuel which is then ignited. That is how it gets reach.

I hopefully don't have to tell you that such dispersal won't work very well in enclosed space (especially one with intelligent being in control of every things inside), which will as a result highly limit the reach.

Plus, being weapon primarily designed against soft target, it would not do much damage to Urithiru at all. 

Again, crater depth scales with cube root of yield in kilotons, 11 tons of TNT would barely crack a few walls, even if concentrated in one spot. Dispered across larger area, the effect would be even lesser.

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And why take some gold to go (When you can't) when you can just take all the gold and the other stuff, too (because you have to)?

Because the gold won't exist, unless Soulcaster make it? 

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So Kaladin and Adolin head down and silently slaughter an entire fleet's worth of people in the dead of night whose intentions they do not actually know within a week of them arriving, because obviously.

Those two? No.

Jasnah? Maybe. 

Fused, certainly.

Small red firefly flows into command center. Lezian suddenly spawns and starts murdering people left and right, decapitating the leadership in single attack. He gets hit in the head by a lucky shot, but simply heals with Voidlight and turns into a spark again to get close with the attacker. He kills everyone who saw him, then leaves.
 

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But I did say (in the initial prompt, and many times since) that the United States has access to all production capacity and trade as they normally do, which includes peace and wartime NATO contracts for gear and supplies. Just not actual military assistance.

That still means it is not US military vs Roshar, but US military (with global economy for support) vs Roshar.

That is just blatantly biased.

Quote

I didn't say people would ally with the U.S. I said the U.S. would ally with people. That's a different thing. If the U.S. attaches itself to little local causes and things, just "because", that's a different thing than natives coming to the U.S. to just ask for help, and is much easier to manage, and get out of. Plus, it weakens enemies without weakening the U.S.

How would us know what local causes are there? Again, they don't speak language, they don''t even have common lingusitic roots to fall back on, they don't know history or culture.

Plus, this assumes they somehow got foothold on land, which...how? They cannot build bases with their equipment, Fused can attack them from ground wherever, and Radiants can attack them from Shadesmar.

Edited December 10, 2025 by therunner

[TheFlatScadrian]

12 hours ago, therunner said:

Ok so, 

• The location of teleport is fixed, i.e. some portal or some such
• Military hardware can pass through only one way (US -> Roshar)
• US controls it in general, so Rosharan side cannot use it to launch counterattacks ( I Really don't like this one)

 

So the Rosharan side:

• would know about the location of the portal
• can setup sentries in Shadesmar (you know, to check it is not another invasion)
• can attack from Shadesmar
• can send in spies (e.g. bonded Cryptics) to learn about their technology/plans (though they would have to first decode language, luckily Cryptics are very good at that).

They have roughly a year to establish this, since US has to modify all of their planes etc.

Also, because military hardware can pass through only one way, US has to test the modifications at least partially on Rosharan side, giving Rosharans information on their hardware, how it is used, how it performs.

All of the above is before any reconnaissance gathering can even start, meaning Rosharan have information advantage for first year or so (if not beyond).

So, the reason I set it up this way is more for the sake of the tactical side of the question more than the purely realistic side.

In an open-field engagement, where both Earth's continents and Roshar exist on the same planet (with different atmosphere/gravity for some reason) and both sides have perfect knowledge of each other, then who knows how it'd all shake down?

If anything, the most realistic take is that the U.S. allies with the humans, they fight off the Fused together, and then they drill oil wells everywhere and McDonald's opens locations that sell Chouta. 

You're right that it's balanced oddly, but I wanted to give the U.S. a legitimate attack so that the discussion would be a more consistent analysis of an engagement from a tactical/militant standpoint of the U.S.'s attacking capability and Roshar's defensive capability, and that meant preserving the isolation of American production and command.

Now, why wouldn't the U.S. just pop through with a mars-style rover and easily learn about the atmosphere and gravity and things like that? It's a similar idea to space exploration; where you have no hardware return, and only get information. It'd actually be easier. And once everything is learned, you just upgrade everything at home, and days after the preparations they have a full map of Roshar and can launch an attack anywhere. 

12 hours ago, therunner said:

Travel speed and wind speed are two different metrics, you can have strong hurricane that moves slowly and vice versa.

That's because hurricanes and tornadoes...

...rotate.

So their winds can be fast, even if they're not moving fast directionally. Seeing as Highstorms do not rotate, or even deviate in direction at all, their top speed is their net wind speed. 370MPH is more than enough to lift a freight train, anyway, so the point is rather moot.

12 hours ago, therunner said:

Roshar does not avoid them, they adapted to them.

...by avoiding them. Almost every city and village is built in a way that it won't be hit head-on by the Highstorms, excluding Alethkar (which has massive wind diverts). 

The U.S. can do the same.

12 hours ago, therunner said:

You do realize you need very flat chunk of earth to safely land a plane? 
Not something hurricane every 5 days will help you set up. Also, where are you hiding those planes during those hurricanes/hypercanes?

Behind a hill is insufficient protection from Highstorms, you need shelters dug into the side of hill opposite storm. Basically, any and all military camps as they are usually built would be worse than useless on Roshar, they would get flattened in the first Highstorm that hits them.

And they have to build this fast.

And planes (which are the key to any US strategy) need constant refueling, so that is the key part.

A huge percentage of military aircraft can take off and land from aircraft carriers, which can use natural windbreaks on the coast (Which are plentiful; Shallan and Jasnah use one during their trip to the Shattered Plains in Book One).

They find an uninhabited mountain, park an ESB and carrier by the cliffs nearby, and expand from there. Throw out some AM-2 matting (behind the mountain), have your B2s land on it after the initial raid, and there you go.

And this is assuming the portal isn't on the leeward side of Roshar, which would mean they would have to worry about it far less.

(Also, there are Navy-capable air tankers for refueling)

12 hours ago, therunner said:

No, reaching mach speed has nothing to do with g forces. G forces are caused by nonuniform acceleration (which technically means that Lashings shouldnt lead to them, and indeed they are kinda inconsistent, like Kaladin lashed himself multiple dozens of times in arena in WoR and did not pass out...but I digress  )

So Windrunner can reach those speeds (and since they will eventually travel in space, they kinda have to).

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They are absolutely limited by both velocity and conservation of energy, which severely limits their ability to turn quickly at high speeds without first slowing down. They're not just out there playing Snake in 3-D space.

And coincidentally so are planes, but those are also limited in other ways (i.e. engine is only in the back for example). 

Also, Rosharans and US soldiers are equally susceptible to passing out from G-forces, so not sure why you think plane could make sharper turns. Sure they have suits to help a bit, but Windrunners have Stormlight that strenghtens their entire bodies and constantly heals them. 

All in all, Windrunner can be just as fast as plane (if they have Shardplate), and can maneuver better than any plane, because they have fewer restrictions.

And Rosharans are limited by not having excess metal around them to soak up shots, and far smaller numbers of actually flight-capable individuals.

You might say "but they can heal". 

20mm wide moving mach 3. It's not something you heal from, because it kills you faster than the electrical pain signals can reach your brain. It carries leagues more kinetic force than several war hammer strikes (Which can break plate) and several of them are already aluminum tipped, anyway.

You're right that the Windrunners / Skybreakers might be able to go mach speed (And that G's don't apply), but it wouldn't be comfortable. Studies have shown that the only real way to survive it as an average human is with specialized suits (Although Shardplate meets this requirement, as of Rhythm of War, not everyone, not even most, have these).

(See the speed of sound breaking Red Bull jump; the Red Bull Stratos project; it's pretty sweet!) 

Stormlight would keep them protected to the point that they could, but I doubt they could go much faster, and it's going to drain Stormlight far quicker.

It's a little difficult to fully understand the tremendous forces involved, but unprotected the pressure will rupture surface vessels and damage tissue.

On Roshar, it's actually harder to literally go "mach" (faster than sound) in the first place, due to the denser atmosphere, but even to achieve traditionally mach speeds on earth would be extremely stressful on the body, and shardplate.

12 hours ago, therunner said:

And coincidentally so are planes, but those are also limited in other ways (i.e. engine is only in the back for example). 

Also, Rosharans and US soldiers are equally susceptible to passing out from G-forces, so not sure why you think plane could make sharper turns. Sure they have suits to help a bit, but Windrunners have Stormlight that strenghtens their entire bodies and constantly heals them. 

All in all, Windrunner can be just as fast as plane (if they have Shardplate), and can maneuver better than any plane, because they have fewer restrictions.

True, that pilots have similar restrictions. But that doesn't mean that it makes things easier for Roshar. I was more saying that the playing field is more level than you think.

Windrunners are, in fact, experiencing opposing forces. When you lash in two different directions, that is a literal example of "pulling G's" because you literally have two identical gravitational forces moving every cell in your body in two distinct directions.

They can't really turn that sharply at high speeds, not because of the pressure, but because the blood will literally leave their brain, or flood their brain from the conflicting forces. And if they undo one lashing and then do another, then the opposing force is momentum, and just as potent. They wouldn't get such acute motion sickness initially, otherwise.

So they either slow down to turn sharper, or speed up to turn wider. And I wasn't saying that they'd be picked off by jets (although that is a possibility)

I was saying they'd get picked off by anti-air weapons, which are specifically designed to kill targets that move like them.

12 hours ago, therunner said:

US needs a year to adapt their technology, and have to test it on Roshar. 
That is a lot of time to observe and spy on them to learn about their technology.

Or they can just set up a general reverse lashing/attractor to attract metal, that would work also (just have to place it far enough from base).

Testing? Because certainly, we have to test mars rovers on Mars, before we send them to Mars. And it's not like it's that hard to calculate or mimic denser oxygen (Controlled-climate) or lower gravity (reduced weight strain on engines). 

And reverse-lashing/attractors are gravity wells. They are predictable, and they are abusable.

12 hours ago, therunner said:

..you don't seem to realize that Reverse Lashing is not uniform effect.

How the bullet gets curved depends on its path through effect, so it is not a constant offset.

Also, increasing the lashing wouldn't cause anyone to float, what the hell is that part supposed to be? Reverse lashing affect only what their creator wanted them to.

It is a uniform effect, actually. It's literally a gravity well;  a localized gravitational point. It's predictable to a T. (It's like playing Super Mario Galaxy)

You're right that it can only affect specified objects, which I forgot.

So Dalinar and Kaladin stand in a single area and draw every projectile of a specific type directly towards them with a force of 100 G's, protecting their squads.

And then they're killed within minutes as hundreds of assorted .50 AP, 5.56 and 7.62 tracer, and 20mm rounds hit whatever they're touching every second, and somebody shells them, because reverse lashings are really bad if you want to avoid exploding.

12 hours ago, therunner said:

Again, no, Lightweaving does create light. If it 'just' manipulated ambient light, they couldn't create illusions that work in darkness, or create lasers. 

Not sure why you keep denying this.

My arguments for my opinion on this. I can't find a single instance of light actually being generated in the entire series nor in the Coppermind or Arcanum. 

Plus, manipulation of pre-existing molecules is almost entirely what the surges are, so for Lightweavers to just randomly be able to manifest light directly is not thematically consistent.

12 hours ago, therunner said:

Only Shallan finds it difficult, other Lightweavers have relatively easy time with soulcasting (stated in RoW).

I was talking about soulcasting massive objects or areas at-range.

12 hours ago, therunner said:

They know planes are there because they spied on US for a year or so, and have fresh intel from Stormfather.
Planes will be either on runway (if it can survive Highstorm) or on aircraft carrier.
So they can certainly soulcast around them.

And yes, planes should have cognitive counterpart, people think about it, hence it has a bead.

And so they can soulcast it directly, as beads can be attracted via Stormlight as seen in WAT.

See above.

As for beads, that's all speculation; I've got no idea. Would an object from Scadrial on Roshar have a bead, or would it have mist?

12 hours ago, therunner said:

As the sniper tries to fire, the gun explodes as the air in its barrel was turned to rock. He dead. Or get stabbed from behind by Lightweaver hidden by illusion.

I can write short snippets too. Plus of course non-uniformity of reverse lashings, meaning simple offset won't be enough to target...or if Jasnah just made a single step aside.

Finally, Shardplate won't get shot through in a single shot. Roseite (material not as strong as Rosharan Godmetals) withstood machine gun fire with ease, and Shardplates are used even circa 200-300 years in future.

So even the basic setup of that snippet is flawed.

Because Jasnah saw the sniper with... what? Her 50x magic vision? In a battlefield?

And what if it was a tank five miles away? Or a machine-gun nest with explosive rounds under a ghillie net? Or an airplane at 50,000 feet?

It's just a somewhat ridiculous assertion that anyone can see what's coming and then prevent it somehow. 

Both Roseite and Shardplate are susceptible to kinetic energy; the bullets in Era II were old-school, low-power rifle rounds. And the pilot is susceptible to thermal energy, and gas weaponry.

Take a HEAT round and send it into battle from five miles, the first shot gets drawn in and explodes the fabrial/radiant, the second slaps Jasnah across the face, all in a few seconds.

It's not that hard to see the most powerful characters dead fast just because their most powerful powers rely on near-direct sight.

12 hours ago, therunner said:

You mean how modern fighter planes are a result of decades of RnD, and so could be easily retrofitted to work in very different atmospheric conditions in under a year?

I guess both sides are just adaptable.

More seriously, modern Radiants learn faster than before (Raboniel, RoW), and the ones with teachers even faster (see how quickly Kaladin learns Surges, vs his Squires).

No retrofitting for planes (They just need new fuel), and the retrofitting for first-wave cars/boats takes a couple months at most, and this is all before Roshar even realizes that the U.S. even exist, because smol rover drone.

And yeah, they "learn" powers quickly, but also saying that they establish a massive logistical support chain (bottle-necked by an Oathgate, which is just as captureable as any other building) of Stormlight for one of their most powerful military assets to sit in Shadesmar and soulcast random stuff at a point they won't find for weeks (ships scaring off following Radiants with gunfire, not actually needing to return all that often because of stores, and it's several hundred miles out to sea)?

Makes perfect sense.

12 hours ago, therunner said:

How? Reconnaissance flights? 
How would the help them learn these are platforms for teleporting to other dimension, and so hugely important?

Not to mention if you place an illusion or build a simulacrum of it, how would the plane know they are looking at a fake?

And Oathgates are not so fragile, the one on Shattered planes survived both Shard clash (i.e. Shards clash that destroyed area hundreds of square km in size) and Everstorm/Highstorm clash. Both of those were more destructive than any bomb US has, nukes included.

So they capture them after bombarding the invincible platforms so much that no Rosharan would ever dare use them for fear of being targeted and incinerated. Like I said, a bunch of soldiers coming out of a big building is pretty obvious even if you don't know that it's a portal.

Rig the whole area around it with mines, claymores, and IEDs, and then hold the perimeter, so if anyone uses it they just explode/get shot the second they arrive, and with Jasnah either dead or sitting around in Shadesmar you can no longer access Shadesmar for tactical reasons (And if Jasnah is in Shadesmar, then you can't get her Stormlight anymore)

12 hours ago, therunner said:

Of course, Sibling can simply reshape the stone to close the hole himself (considering he can shape stone in hallways), basically immediately after attack.

Or if that is not possible, any Soulcaster (even non Radiant) can plug it within minutes.

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LiDAR. Plus, the massive window on the Eastern side.

You mean ground penetrating radar, LiDAR only gives surface readings.

And ground penetrating radar is not particularly a curate unless you roughly know soil composition, which, Urithiru will be rather atypical, even for Roshar. What with actually being spren and all.

 I do mean Radar, thank you. 

But LiDAR can still see through windows, and Urithiru has a massive one that shows the Atrium down its entire eastern side. Plus, cameras.

And the Sibling can't do much in Rhythm of War, which is when this is set.

Sure, maybe Dalinar could get there, but only if he survives the initial bunker-buster strikes (still a lot of power going off in an enclosed space, even if it's not enough to cripple the place) and only if he's close by, and that's assuming the US didn't send the no-nuclear MOAB to hit just moments later.

12 hours ago, therunner said:

No its not. 

11 tons of TNT is just not enough to do what you describe, like, by order of magnitude.
And you conveniently forget that those tunnels can close as it is an organism, not just a structure.

The reason MOAB destroys soft target (not hard, important distinction) in such a large area is that it is thermobaric weapon, i.e. it disperes cloud of fuel which is then ignited. That is how it gets reach.

I hopefully don't have to tell you that such dispersal won't work very well in enclosed space (especially one with intelligent being in control of every things inside), which will as a result highly limit the reach.

Plus, being weapon primarily designed against soft target, it would not do much damage to Urithiru at all. 

Again, crater depth scales with cube root of yield in kilotons, 11 tons of TNT would barely crack a few walls, even if concentrated in one spot. Dispered across larger area, the effect would be even lesser.

The MOAB isn't even designed to destroy soft targets with the blast. 

It's designed to burn them.

That's how the MOAB works.

And (As I am now clarifying for the second time), I am not saying that the stone of the tower is getting destroyed, because obviously it could not be.

I am saying that, in fact, because the stone is so tough, that the force of the blast will instead be forced down all the hallways and passages of the tower, roasting everything inside.

I'm not saying the bomb destroys the tower, because it can't, and that's not what the MOAB is designed to do.

What I am saying is that it turns the tower into a pressure cooker (which is proven fact for thermobaric, pressure based weapons). The 11 tons is for the dispersal, not the destructive power. The fire and shockwave are the real killer.

The strength of the tower works against it, because instead of absorbing the force it redirects the pressure down every hallway.

12 hours ago, therunner said:

Because the gold won't exist, unless Soulcaster make it? 

I didn't realize you meant soulcasted gold, but that makes more sense. 

So they just capture the soulcaster. Easy money.

12 hours ago, therunner said:

Those two? No.

Jasnah? Maybe. 

Fused, certainly.

Small red firefly flows into command center. Lezian suddenly spawns and starts murdering people left and right, decapitating the leadership in single attack. He gets hit in the head by a lucky shot, but simply heals with Voidlight and turns into a spark again to get close with the attacker. He kills everyone who saw him, then leaves.

I was more pointing out the irony that Kaladin and Adolin, two very honorable guys, are going and murdering a bunch of people that haven't provoked them, have not been around long enough to do much, and they can't even understand.

It's technically possible, but highly, highly improbable.

As for the Fused? Sure, they might just attack. But they still die like a normal people if their consciousness is severed, even if they comes back next Everstorm. Lezian can't just heal if the body's mind gets vaporized.

12 hours ago, therunner said:

That still means it is not US military vs Roshar, but US military (with global economy for support) vs Roshar.

That is just blatantly biased.

Yep.

That's the idea.

(And anyway, Roshar is enormous. The U.S. is still limited against it)

12 hours ago, therunner said:

How would us know what local causes are there? Again, they don't speak language, they don''t even have common lingusitic roots to fall back on, they don't know history or culture.

Plus, this assumes they somehow got foothold on land, which...how? They cannot build bases with their equipment, Fused can attack them from ground wherever, and Radiants can attack them from Shadesmar.

Fair, linguistics are the biggest hurdle. For both sides, so it's not viable that Roshar would ever even learn anything about the U.S. (Unless Dalinar captured a soldier, but even then it's not like the soldier couldn't just... lie. They'd have no way to tell, and Dalinar's above torturing)

They have these really cool mobile bases called ships.

They could conquer Shinovar with carriers and nobody would care (or probably even realize they had) until they'd already established a massive military presence there. 

~~~

Spoiler

"Sir, there are people carrying huge amounts of that glowing magic into that massive cubic building in the middle of that field, and they're not coming out. Also, it's emitting a bunch of heat and radiation periodically."

"Huh. Sounds important. Let's bomb it maybe and then put tanks around the perimeter."

Oathgate Captured! (Jasnah loses all her stormlight and starves!)

___

"Jasnah?"

"Yes?"

"Maybe you should keep your head down."

"Why? We have the fabrial out on the field, nothing can reach me."

"Yes, but---"

(M777 Howitzer from 10 miles) BOOM

"The fabrial is gone! It attracted an explosive projectile!"

"What? Where're their---"

(Icebreaker .50 at 1 km) Crack

Jasnah Defeated!

___

(Lezian teleport) zip

"Die, short humans!"

(Block 2 M4A1 from ten feet) BaBaBaBang

Lezian Temporarily Defeated! (Repeat at Leisure)

___

(GBU-57 MOP from 65,000 feet) KA-BoO-Ka-BOom

"What was that, Adolin?"

"I've no idea; we need to move!"

"O---"

(GBU-43/B from 65,000 feet) KABOOOOOWOOOssssssHHH

Adolin and Shallan Incinerated!

___

"I claim the---"

(CIWS from 2 km) Vrrrrr-*beeeeep!*

BZZZZZZZrrT-Bz-BZz-BZZZZZrrt

Kaladin Becomes the Winds!

Edited December 10, 2025 by TheFlatScadrian

[therunner he/him]

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If anything, the most realistic take is that the U.S. allies with the humans, they fight off the Fused together, and then they drill oil wells everywhere and McDonald's opens locations that sell Chouta. 

There is no oil on Roshar, as it is artificial planet. (at least as far as we know). 

And again, Highstorms/Everstorms.

17 hours ago, TheFlatScadrian said:

You're right that it's balanced oddly, but I wanted to give the U.S. a legitimate attack so that the discussion would be a more consistent analysis of an engagement from a tactical/militant standpoint of the U.S.'s attacking capability and Roshar's defensive capability, and that meant preserving the isolation of American production and command.

I am not saying it is balanced oddly, I am saying it is not balanced at all.

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So, the reason I set it up this way is more for the sake of the tactical side of the question more than the purely realistic side.

You cannot have a tactical discussion if you throw a realism out the window.

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Now, why wouldn't the U.S. just pop through with a mars-style rover and easily learn about the atmosphere and gravity and things like that? It's a similar idea to space exploration; where you have no hardware return, and only get information. It'd actually be easier. And once everything is learned, you just upgrade everything at home, and days after the preparations they have a full map of Roshar and can launch an attack anywhere. 

Sure they could, and Rosharan side would know about it quite fast.

But you need to test updated hardware how it actually performs, and you have to do that on Roshar.
No piece of technology just worked on first try, especially not ones as complex as fighter jets.

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That's because hurricanes and tornadoes...

...rotate.

So their winds can be fast, even if they're not moving fast directionally. Seeing as Highstorms do not rotate, or even deviate in direction at all, their top speed is their net wind speed. 370MPH is more than enough to lift a freight train, anyway, so the point is rather moot.

...even non rotating storms have gusts of wind, we literally see those from characters inside Highstorm.

It is not uniform field of wind moving at 370 mph, the Stormwall moves that way across terrain, but even within it you have gusts of wind far faster than that.
 

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...by avoiding them. Almost every city and village is built in a way that it won't be hit head-on by the Highstorms, excluding Alethkar (which has massive wind diverts). 

Rosharans don't have to find planes and infrastructure, regular buildings are build sturdy enough to partially withstand them, with properly slanted roofs.

None of the standard US equipment can handle that.
 

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A huge percentage of military aircraft can take off and land from aircraft carriers, which can use natural windbreaks on the coast (Which are plentiful; Shallan and Jasnah use one during their trip to the Shattered Plains in Book One).

Are they large enough to hide aircraft carrier? 

But even if they are, that just means the carrier is susceptible to attacks from land.

And of course, windbreak that protect you from Highstorm does nothing for Everstorm, and vice versa (unless you find one situtated just right).

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They find an uninhabited mountain, park an ESB and carrier by the cliffs nearby, and expand from there. Throw out some AM-2 matting (behind the mountain), have your B2s land on it after the initial raid, and there you go.

And AM-2 promptly flies away in ~300MPH winds. And whatever stays gets torned by flying rocks, and covered in crem.

And the B2 get blown away and destroyed, or do you think planes on open field can survive tornado?

Its not like there is no wind magically behind the mountains.

Military usually handles hurricanes by moving the planes elsewhere, which is not workable solution on Roshar.

Building hardened shelters will take a lot of time, which they don't have when continually disrupted by regular Highstorms and Everstorm, plus Radiant and Fused attacks.

And the planes cannot stay on aircraft carriers, because..wind.

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And this is assuming the portal isn't on the leeward side of Roshar, which would mean they would have to worry about it far less.

Sure, why not give US another advantage.

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(Also, there are Navy-capable air tankers for refueling)

And where will those refuel?

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And Rosharans are limited by not having excess metal around them to soak up shots, and far smaller numbers of actually flight-capable individuals.

And they are far smaller targets than planes as in ~10x smaller.

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You might say "but they can heal". 

20mm wide moving mach 3. It's not something you heal from, because it kills you faster than the electrical pain signals can reach your brain.

Except of course Radiants can survive anything barring decapitation (see, well anything).

So you shoot of their legs, and they start growing them back (if they have enough Stormlight).

Only headshots would kill them on spot, and I don't think planes are precise enough to do that on purpose.
 

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It carries leagues more kinetic force than several war hammer strikes (Which can break plate) and several of them are already aluminum tipped, anyway.

Deadplate can survive minutes of above humans beating on it.

And while kinetic energy is far larger, momentum not as much difference (like, still ~10-50 more).

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It's a little difficult to fully understand the tremendous forces involved, but unprotected the pressure will rupture surface vessels and damage tissue.

I understand the forces involved just fine, that is why I specified they require Shardplate to breach Mach.

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On Roshar, it's actually harder to literally go "mach" (faster than sound) in the first place, due to the denser atmosphere, but even to achieve traditionally mach speeds on earth would be extremely stressful on the body, and shardplate.

Wrong, on Roshar atmosphere is less dense, due to lower surface gravity. 
In fact it should be basically proportional, so air is ~0.7 less dense and so is pressure 0.7 lower.

So it should be easier to reach mach (also, another thing to keep in mind when redesigning planes and their instrument).

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True, that pilots have similar restrictions. But that doesn't mean that it makes things easier for Roshar. I was more saying that the playing field is more level than you think.

Yeah, I was also saying the playing field is more level  

If anything, Radiant in Plate + Stormlight should withstand G-forces better than a pilot, because unlike them they are continuously strengthened and heal. How much of a difference does that make? No idea, no good way to quantify it.

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Windrunners are, in fact, experiencing opposing forces. When you lash in two different directions, that is a literal example of "pulling G's" because you literally have two identical gravitational forces moving every cell in your body in two distinct directions.

That is not how Lashings work. You don't experience them all, they cancel out, even with natural gravity.
See Sazed applying half-lashing to be weightless.

And even so, Radiants instinctual alter the Lashings after some practice, see Kaladin in RoW.

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Testing? Because certainly, we have to test mars rovers on Mars, before we send them to Mars. And it's not like it's that hard to calculate or mimic denser oxygen (Controlled-climate) or lower gravity (reduced weight strain on engines). 

Ah, so you say every plane will be rebuild to the same standards as NASA missions? (and its not like all worked out as they should). 

Prepare ~10 billion bill per plane, and years of time for testing and building.

Mimicking or calculating real world properties is notoriously hard, especially for extreme conditions are supersonic flights.

Even after simulating it, and building it, you have to test it. Why do you think there exists a job test pilot?

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And reverse-lashing/attractors are gravity wells. They are predictable, and they are abusable.

It is a uniform effect, actually. It's literally a gravity well;  a localized gravitational point. It's predictable to a T. (It's like playing Super Mario Galaxy)

Gravity wells are not uniform. Gravity famously falls of with ~1/r^2 (relativistic corrections not whitstanding), and reverse lashings far faster than that (from what little we have seen).

So no it is not like playing Super mario Galaxy, you are just wrong on this.

Also, how would US know that it is gravity wells that cause their bullets to fly off?

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So Dalinar and Kaladin stand in a single area and draw every projectile of a specific type directly towards them with a force of 100 G's, protecting their squads.

And then they're killed within minutes as hundreds of assorted .50 AP, 5.56 and 7.62 tracer, and 20mm rounds hit whatever they're touching every second, and somebody shells them, because reverse lashings are really bad if you want to avoid exploding.

You also forgot they can place it, and walk away and it will still be there. They would have to renew it occasionally.

So again, no, that is not how it would go down.

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My arguments for my opinion on this. I can't find a single instance of light actually being generated in the entire series nor in the Coppermind or Arcanum. 

Plus, manipulation of pre-existing molecules is almost entirely what the surges are, so for Lightweavers to just randomly be able to manifest light directly is not thematically consistent.

Soulcasting literally add/removes molecules mass as needed.

And Renarin creates light at the start of RoW in dark room.

And Stormlight literally glows and they use it as light source! That would make no sense if it just maniupated existing light.

So yes, there is precedence of light being generated by Investiture, and hence there is no reason to think Lightweavers don't create light.

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As for beads, that's all speculation; I've got no idea. Would an object from Scadrial on Roshar have a bead, or would it have mist?

It would have representation that can be manipulated by Soulcaster.

Also, if you want to give US another advantage by saying their tools don't have cognitive representation, I don't think this discussion has any point.

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Because Jasnah saw the sniper with... what? Her 50x magic vision? In a battlefield?

Because Jasnah is not dumb enough to just walk into open field, when their spying on enemy showed they can attack at pretty large distances.

So she is happily camping in Shadesmar, and soulcasting soulflames/beads from there.

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And what if it was a tank five miles away? Or a machine-gun nest with explosive rounds under a ghillie net? Or an airplane at 50,000 feet?

Same for any of the above, none of that is protected against attacks from Shadesmar.

Or against hidden Lightweaver (except the plane).

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It's just a somewhat ridiculous assertion that anyone can see what's coming and then prevent it somehow. 

I know, and yet you keep saying that about US side.

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Both Roseite and Shardplate are susceptible to kinetic energy; the bullets in Era II were old-school, low-power rifle rounds. And the pilot is susceptible to thermal energy, and gas weaponry.

We also have WoBs that Shardplate would withstand bullets well, Shardplate being used by soldiers into Era 4 (i.e. sci-fi),, Shardplate surviving re-entry and full concentrated power of the sun that literally melts rocks and forms new mountains (on Canticle, TSM), and finally Shardplate can be enclosed (so no gas weaponry). 

Shardplate is not magical medieval armor, it is magical sci-fi powered armor, per Author himself. It is pretty sturdy.

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Take a HEAT round and send it into battle from five miles, the first shot gets drawn in and explodes the fabrial/radiant, the second slaps Jasnah across the face, all in a few seconds.

Why do you assume that:

• Jasnah is just standing outside when they know about guns (cryptic spying and decipher language, both well within established capabilities)
• Only one fabrial or reverse lashing is placed
   

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It's not that hard to see the most powerful characters dead fast just because their most powerful powers rely on near-direct sight.

It is also not hard to see that they are not, you know, morons, who would just march in without any information.

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No retrofitting for planes (They just need new fuel), and the retrofitting for first-wave cars/boats takes a couple months at most, and this is all before Roshar even realizes that the U.S. even exist, because smol rover drone.

Depending on fuel changes, retrofitting would be needed.

Roshar realized immediately that something is going on, because portal (unless you want to add another advantage of portal being undetectable).

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And yeah, they "learn" powers quickly, but also saying that they establish a massive logistical support chain (bottle-necked by an Oathgate, which is just as captureable as any other building)

The logistics required are far smaller than what you seem to assume US will be doing.

As in by several orders of magnitude smaller.

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of Stormlight for one of their most powerful military assets to sit in Shadesmar and soulcast random stuff at a point they won't find for weeks (ships scaring off following Radiants with gunfire, not actually needing to return all that often because of stores, and it's several hundred miles out to sea)?

And not soulcast random stuff, destroy planes, fuel, ammo. You know, militarry targets.

Also, you said above that ships would be anchoring due to Highstorms/Everstorms, so there is at least several days where they are susceptible.

Not to mention from Shadesmar they are susceptible all the time.

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So they capture them after bombarding the invincible platforms so much that no Rosharan would ever dare use them for fear of being targeted and incinerated. Like I said, a bunch of soldiers coming out of a big building is pretty obvious even if you don't know that it's a portal.

Rig the whole area around it with mines, claymores, and IEDs, and then hold the perimeter, so if anyone uses it they just explode/get shot the second they arrive, and with Jasnah either dead or sitting around in Shadesmar you can no longer access Shadesmar for tactical reasons (And if Jasnah is in Shadesmar, then you can't get her Stormlight anymore)

And how do the soldiers get there in the first place? 

US cannot reasonably establish bases due to environmental hazards and Fused and Lightweavers.
 

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And the Sibling can't do much in Rhythm of War, which is when this is set.

Sibling does a lot during RoW, just close to the end. 

So yeah, Sibling is in the game.

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Sure, maybe Dalinar could get there, but only if he survives the initial bunker-buster strikes (still a lot of power going off in an enclosed space, even if it's not enough to cripple the place) and only if he's close by, and that's assuming the US didn't send the no-nuclear MOAB to hit just moments later.

Why Dalinar, he cannot Soulcast or Shape stone? 

Any Stoneward or Soulcaster can fix the hole.

And what reason would US have to attack within minutes of opening the hole? Do they magically know all about Surges?

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I am saying that, in fact, because the stone is so tough, that the force of the blast will instead be forced down all the hallways and passages of the tower, roasting everything inside.

I'm not saying the bomb destroys the tower, because it can't, and that's not what the MOAB is designed to do.

What I am saying is that it turns the tower into a pressure cooker (which is proven fact for thermobaric, pressure based weapons). The 11 tons is for the dispersal, not the destructive power. The fire and shockwave are the real killer.

...there are massive doors of stone there + Sibling.

not to mention the explosive won't spread as far as in open air.

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The strength of the tower works against it, because instead of absorbing the force it redirects the pressure down every hallway.

The strength of the tower also absorbs the strength of the blast, so it will not spread as far.

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I didn't realize you meant soulcasted gold, but that makes more sense. 

So they just capture the soulcaster. Easy money.

Ah, so you say we can lure US troopers with promise of gold, and then capture them.

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I was more pointing out the irony that Kaladin and Adolin, two very honorable guys, are going and murdering a bunch of people that haven't provoked them, have not been around long enough to do much, and they can't even understand.

You are the one who brought them up in the first place? (or am I missing something?)

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It's technically possible, but highly, highly improbable.

Why?

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As for the Fused? Sure, they might just attack. But they still die like a normal people if their consciousness is severed, even if they comes back next Everstorm. Lezian can't just heal if the body's mind gets vaporized.

Too bad US has no weapons that severe consciousness, just good old fashioned guns.

Which Fused can heal from, unless you destroy their head completely.

And of course then they are just reborn and go again. 

Can US afford to lose dozens of people in their camps for single Fused, that is not even dead?

So again, what would US do once Lezian just decapitates their leadership in single attack?

17 hours ago, TheFlatScadrian said:

Fair, linguistics are the biggest hurdle. For both sides, so it's not viable that Roshar would ever even learn anything about the U.S. (Unless Dalinar captured a soldier, but even then it's not like the soldier couldn't just... lie. They'd have no way to tell, and Dalinar's above torturing)

Cryptics, they do linguistics and cyphers for fun.

So Roshar would quickly learn to read US documents.

Quote

They could conquer Shinovar with carriers and nobody would care (or probably even realize they had) until they'd already established a massive military presence there. 

...again, Stormfather.

Roshar would know quickly after ships spawned, and there is that.

Plus, of course, US has to have been doing reconnaissance for a while to reach Shinovar and learn about it, which means Roshar already know about them.

Edited December 11, 2025 by therunner

[TheFlatScadrian]

7 hours ago, therunner said:

I am not saying it is balanced oddly, I am saying it is not balanced at all.

Roshar has:

- Radiants

- Fused

- Shardbearers

- Soulcasting

- Mass Teleportation

As well as:

- 300,000,000 people

- A heavily war-based economy and culture

- Home-field advantage

- Extremely hostile environment

So I gave the United States:

- The element of surprise

- Some time to retrofit for a hostile foreign environment

- An isolated home base that they can't even return to

- A single defendable supply point

That does not seem unfair to me, largely because I just want to see what happens.

And I don't see your frustration, especially as you don't seem to think they could start a conflict in the first place even with all of this. 

7 hours ago, therunner said:

Rosharans don't have to find planes and infrastructure, regular buildings are build sturdy enough to partially withstand them, with properly slanted roofs.

None of the standard US equipment can handle that.

Nor can the Rosharan equipment! The only people not locked down by the storms are the Radiants and Fused, and that's because they're above them. 

The U.S. can build slanted concrete hovels far faster and much easier than Roshar can. HESCO barriers can weigh over 30 tonnes and those won't be blown away. And again, they could just use a natural windbreak.

 Besides, Roshar can hide entire castles from Highstorms behind mountains, so I don't really see the issue with a C-5 Galaxy.

And the Everstorm is rough, sure, but it also is similar in wind speed to haboobs in Afghanistan and Iraq. It also doesn't have the fine dust, or crem, that make real haboobs and the Highstorm so destructive to finer equipment, so modern equipment can certainly survive it. An average Forward Operating Base from Iraq could survive it, with only some repairs needed.

7 hours ago, therunner said:

Are they large enough to hide aircraft carrier? 

But even if they are, that just means the carrier is susceptible to attacks from land.

And of course, windbreak that protect you from Highstorm does nothing for Everstorm, and vice versa (unless you find one situtated just right).

Quote

They find an uninhabited mountain, park an ESB and carrier by the cliffs nearby, and expand from there. Throw out some AM-2 matting (behind the mountain), have your B2s land on it after the initial raid, and there you go.

And AM-2 promptly flies away in ~300MPH winds. And whatever stays gets torned by flying rocks, and covered in crem.

And the B2 get blown away and destroyed, or do you think planes on open field can survive tornado?

Its not like there is no wind magically behind the mountains.

Military usually handles hurricanes by moving the planes elsewhere, which is not workable solution on Roshar.

Building hardened shelters will take a lot of time, which they don't have when continually disrupted by regular Highstorms and Everstorm, plus Radiant and Fused attacks.

And the planes cannot stay on aircraft carriers, because..wind.

Yes. Yes, they can hide an aircraft carrier. Just weigh anchor in Kharbranth, or any other one of the numerous massive port cities. If the U.S. just minds its business and doesn't provoke anyone there won't even be a need to conquer, but even then, it's not like the locals can do anything.

A ship could stay at sea during an Everstorm, although there'd be a lot of preparations.

Unless you put the AM-2 and the B2 and the base behind a mountain. Yeah. There's wind back there. But not 370MPH wind. Not even 100MPH wind. Much more manageable. 

Sort of like how Rosharans already do it. Weird how that works.

They can absolutely build concrete structures in time. They can do it in less than a day.

And planes go below deck on carriers, of course. It doesn't even take that long to do.

7 hours ago, therunner said:

And where will those refuel?

At the spawn point, of course. You can still do long-range refuels without the Air Force's tankers.

7 hours ago, therunner said:

And they are far smaller targets than planes as in ~10x smaller.

True. But it also means that a single shot is going to do a hell of a lot more damage. Less tankiness for a smaller profile is always a trade off.

And the projectile used by most U.S. military aircraft, the PGU-28A/B, has an aluminum nosecone, as does the Enhanced Lethality Cartridge used by most CIWS modules. In real life, these nosecones are for aerodynamic reasons, but against Shardplate they take on an even more devastating effect.

Imagine an extremely powerful core of tungsten or steel alloy slamming into Shardplate through aluminum. The Aluminum isn't the force that kills, but it is the medium that negates a Shardplate's reactive abilities and helps the core of the rounds deliver pure, unchallenged energy directly onto the plate.

7 hours ago, therunner said:

Except of course Radiants can survive anything barring decapitation (see, well anything).

So you shoot of their legs, and they start growing them back (if they have enough Stormlight).

Only headshots would kill them on spot, and I don't think planes are precise enough to do that on purpose.

Brandon says, 

Quote

Questioner
Will we ever see protagonists ever come back? ...Once they're, like, dead and stuff?

Brandon Sanderson
So, there's a couple rules for people coming back in the Cosmere. If you could be revived by CPR, you could be saved. If you can't be revived by CPR, only a direct infusion of Investiture immediately to the soul will turn you into a Cognitive Shadow. Those are your two kind of outs. I'll leave it at that for you, and you can see where it goes from there.

So you get hit in the chest, get split in two pieces and the shock kills you near-instantly, and you don't come back. They can heal only if they don't die instantly. If someone gets hit by a 20mmm round, well, they're...

...well, they don't have a heart to do CPR on anymore. Sure, they can heal really well if they're still alive, but damage that catastrophic is not something you can heal in time to not die.

This holds for Fused too; it's why they can kill Fused with spears and daggers if they aim well.

7 hours ago, therunner said:

Wrong, on Roshar atmosphere is less dense, due to lower surface gravity. 
In fact it should be basically proportional, so air is ~0.7 less dense and so is pressure 0.7 lower.

So it should be easier to reach mach (also, another thing to keep in mind when redesigning planes and their instrument).

I really can't find anything specific, which has been a problem throughout every facet of this entire thread, honestly.

We'll get some random idea, like, "It's got more oxygen" and nothing else. I've been using 30% because that makes sense to me, but it could be higher or lower. We know there a greater density of Oxygen, but that's really it. 

From what I could find, it's generally agreed upon that the atmosphere is on average denser than Earth's, even with the smaller gravity, or at least that the pressures are similar. That's what I'm going to use, because I think it makes sense, as a "higher oxygen content" wouldn't really work as well as it does in the books if the atmosphere wasn't a similar density.

What you said makes sense, but I don't think it's the typically agreed upon explanation as I've seen on this site and the Coppermind, and Arcanum.

So for now, I'm going to keep working with the "30% oxygen" and "slightly denser than Earth" framework.

7 hours ago, therunner said:

That is not how Lashings work. You don't experience them all, they cancel out, even with natural gravity.
See Sazed applying half-lashing to be weightless.

And even so, Radiants instinctual alter the Lashings after some practice, see Kaladin in RoW.

It's those forces coupled with relative acceleration that's the problem. When the molecules are pulling equally in opposite directions, then yes, you're good to go. Unequally, in non-opposite directions, at high speeds? That's a lot more strenuous.

I think we would certainly see some Windrunners and Skybreakers kicking butt, but I also don't see them lasting too long o being too effective  against radar-tracking and anti-air. Attempts to assault and destroy anti-air by the Radiants can also be defended by conventional means.

7 hours ago, therunner said:

Ah, so you say every plane will be rebuild to the same standards as NASA missions? (and its not like all worked out as they should). 

Prepare ~10 billion bill per plane, and years of time for testing and building.

Mimicking or calculating real world properties is notoriously hard, especially for extreme conditions are supersonic flights.

Even after simulating it, and building it, you have to test it. Why do you think there exists a job test pilot?

They've got time.

And the easiest part of all that is the math itself. Extremely uniform calculations as to gravity, density, and atmospheric content? It's really not that difficult, and the changes are not enough to warrant a full retrofitting.

At worst, they just add a pump system to add more nitrogen to the intake.

It'll be expensive, but not that expensive, and it's not going to be decades, or even more than a year and a half. 

7 hours ago, therunner said:

Gravity wells are not uniform. Gravity famously falls of with ~1/r^2 (relativistic corrections not whitstanding), and reverse lashings far faster than that (from what little we have seen).

So no it is not like playing Super mario Galaxy, you are just wrong on this.

Also, how would US know that it is gravity wells that cause their bullets to fly off?

I meant that it's uniform to predict. Like, it's uniform in its effect. Yes, the effect increases exponentially as distance decreases, but the effects are visible and they are, as you pointed out, easy to predict. Even for a sniper. Especially for a sniper. 

And if you where on magic planet with flying dudes, and you saw bullets all curving towards a specific thing, then I think you'd assume they had gravity manipulation. And it'd be pretty easy to tell where it is because everything is going towards it.

7 hours ago, therunner said:

You also forgot they can place it, and walk away and it will still be there. They would have to renew it occasionally.

Nope. Reverse lashings require constant contact and proximity. Adhesion can be left. But not reverse lashings, which are entirely based in Gravitation.

7 hours ago, therunner said:

Soulcasting literally add/removes molecules mass as needed.

And Renarin creates light at the start of RoW in dark room.

And Stormlight literally glows and they use it as light source! That would make no sense if it just maniupated existing light.

So yes, there is precedence of light being generated by Investiture, and hence there is no reason to think Lightweavers don't create light.

Rosharan magic (And Soulcasting in particular) is specifically mass-conservative.

Brandon said,

Quote

ReaderAt2046
Is Soulcasting mass-conservative (Soulcast a 1kg goblet, you get 1 kg of blood)?

Brandon Sanderson
In most circumstances, yes.

This, seemingly, holds for all the Surges, as Soulcasting is a Surge. (Division is simply a separation of molecular bonds, not matter destruction, for example)

Plus, it would be thematically inconsistent for Illumination, as a Surge, to do two different things at once. See, the issue is that every other surge only does one thing, or more succinctly, performs one interaction with particles nearby. They can be applied in different ways.

For example, Gravitation can be used for both Lashings and Reverse Lashings, but in both cases the Surge is fundamentally convincing particles that a certain direction has gravity.

Except for, apparently... Illumination. Most people seems to think that Illumination can do three things: Generate matter out of Investiture, manipulate photons, and expound energy that exerts on particles. And we know that it's not from a combination of Illumination and Transformation, because the Truthwatchers can do the same thing with an entirely different Surge, and the Masked Ones (Mavset-Im) can do all the same things a Lightweaver can without another Surge at all!

In truth, Illumination only actually does one thing when you're casting an Illusion: it convinces particles that something is there, when it's not. It's not making a 3-D projector, it's making a pseudo-structure that only light and specific particles (like air) interact with. 

Or more simply, it manipulates light and air, but it doesn't make them. The reason a Lightweaver can make light in darkness is a mix of the fact that there is always ambient light. Even in the deepest caves, there is ambient light. "Darkness" is subjective because we, as humans, don't have very good eyes. 

(Stormlight glows, sure, but it doesn't create enough of each type of light to make convincing illusions.)

it's not a question of what Investiture (Stormlight) can do, because Yolish Lightweavers can generate light. It's a question of what Illumination is capable of. Just because Investiture can delete someone's soul doesn't mean Division is going to do that.

Anyway, that's my theory.

7 hours ago, therunner said:

Because Jasnah is not dumb enough to just walk into open field, when their spying on enemy showed they can attack at pretty large distances.

So she is happily camping in Shadesmar, and soulcasting soulflames/beads from there...

[...everything about Shadesmar and seeing the enemy, responses to various points, etc...]

...It is also not hard to see that they are not, you know, morons, who would just march in without any information.

Okay. So, the reason I pointed all that out is to exactly describe what you're pointing out.

The Radiants cannot fight on an open field. If there are tanks and planes within range they cannot win without heading out into open space (We'll get to Shadesmar in a minute).

Their magic is all proximity based, or at least, proximity must be achieved to get the magic started. Ranged attacks, from Jasnah and Soulcasters, are really difficult and requires intense concentration, and limited almost exclusively to Transformation.

It typically requires being able to see what you're casting. And if you can see them (your eyes) they can certainly see you (with advanced infrared imaging) and they probably saw you before you even knew they where nearby.

And if you're right, that Illumination is just a projection of light, than LiDAR could see through illusions with ease. Which is not great for Lightweavers.

So as fun as it is to say that Jasnah could stand on the front and soulcast stone shells around tanks, which she could, she wouldn't really be able to without revealing her location. And if someone gets a shot off (as in, a shot with a kinetic force of 13 megajoules and a velocity of 1,555m/s with a mass of 10kg and a composition of Depleted Uranium from five miles away) then they're toast.

They just can't win in those specific situations. It's not going to work.

Which means their best bet is sabotage. Which brings us to Shadesmar.

Your strategy -- that they go to Shadesmar and soulcast stuff from there -- is their best bet for a quick and relatively minimally-consequential war.

Except for the fact that Oathgates exist, and they're one of the only things that lets you leave. If Jasnah is sitting in a hovel on the obsidian wastes soulcasting stuff, she's going to get low on Stormlight fast.

She's also going to not really be able to leave. She'd teleport back to the Physical Realm... 50 miles out to sea. Which makes getting Stormlight from a Highstorm... difficult. Especially if you're surrounded by enemies at what is arguably their easiest thing to defend. 

Here's the thing. For Jasnah and a bunch of Soulcasters to actually exist in Shadesmar, she needs huge amounts of Stormlight to do the things she wants to do. That dictates an extremely bloated, cost ineffective supply chain bottle-necked by limited teleportation capacity, necessity for Radiants to be in Shadesmar to escort and deliver Stormlight, and constant Stormlight production, so...

And the thing here is not that the U.S. doesn't have the same problem. The thing here is that they have precedence. If a bottle-necked, dangerous supply chain can only be defeated by a different bottle-necked, dangerous supply chain, than the first side has the upper hand (especially if the first supply chain has much bigger bang for its dollar).

Issues. Especially when the Military has surprise, and could just deny use of all your Oathgates, or, keep such close watch on them that they bomb them to crap anytime anyone so much as sneezes within 100 yards. And the one time you might be able to use them...

is in a Highstorm. Which would be wonderful.

 And even then, the amount of damage Jasnah could actually do is doubtful. It's not possible for her to soulcast massive amounts of generalized matter from Shadesmar, so it would be an individualistic endeavor, focusing on several beads at the same time. 

And once those things enter Shadesmar fully, well, the speed at which most modern vehicles travel is going to mean that the beads are not in the same relative place in Shadesmar as their Physical counterparts.

And hey. I'm not going to say that it's a done deal. But the U.S. certainly has a much greater chance of stopping this than you'd think.

7 hours ago, therunner said:

And what reason would US have to attack within minutes of opening the hole? Do they magically know all about Surges?

Because... that's just good military tactics. Press your advantage.

7 hours ago, therunner said:

...there are massive doors of stone there + Sibling.

not to mention the explosive won't spread as far as in open air.

[...quote...]

The strength of the tower also absorbs the strength of the blast, so it will not spread as far.

The blast happens so fast the Sibling can't react, because apparently it has just real-time perception. End of story.

And no, the stronger (also called harder) a material is, the less energy it absorbs, which means that the tower is so strong it makes things worse. The reason the tower can't be scratched with a knife is because it's so hard (Mohs Hardness Scale).

You're thinking of elasticity. The same reason a balloon inflates is the same reason everybody in the tower becomes a casualty of rapidly expanding flaming super heated air pressure.

The tower fails even more so to something called Rebound Overpressure. When an energy wave bounces off of a surface, it actually has a spike in energy.

Someone I am close to was on the bomb squad for the FBI (He also served in Iraq, actually, which is where I get a lot of my information about the war on the ground), and we've discussed things like this at length. Ever heard of a shaped charge? Just by applying pressure in the correct way, an explosion that previously didn't do anything against a solid steel beam will instead punch a hole straight through.

The same concept applies here. Pressure, against hardness, leads energy down the path of least resistance, increases energy on rebound, and creates a massive shockwave far, far bigger than the bomb would've been in open air.

A tiny pile of gunpowder on the ground under a loose bullet isn't going to move that bullet very far, but if that bullet is in an enclosed barrel with that gunpowder behind it? Way, way more powerful.

And of course, Roshar has far more oxygen to fuel this massive fireball, so there's that too.

7 hours ago, therunner said:

You are the one who brought them up in the first place? (or am I missing something?)

You where saying that the Rosharans could just attack and destroy the carriers the moment they arrive, which I, rather snarkily, responded too by implying that Kaladin and Adolin, two very good people, where completely willing to murder several people they didn't know for no reason. That's sort of what I meant.

7 hours ago, therunner said:

Too bad US has no weapons that severe consciousness, just good old fashioned guns.

Which Fused can heal from, unless you destroy their head completely.

And of course then they are just reborn and go again. 

Can US afford to lose dozens of people in their camps for single Fused, that is not even dead?

So again, what would US do once Lezian just decapitates their leadership in single attack?

The consciousness severs when the body dies, because the Fused and the bodies they take don't really share a complete avatar. Also, we've seen Fused die to daggers in the neck, or spears through the chest, so it's really not that hard to say that an average rifle could kill one handily.

And being reborn is the most annoying part. But there's always Internment. Just intern the Singers, and there you go. Every time one of them tries to return, kill them again.

And he wouldn't decapitate their leadership, assuming he can teleport three times before teleporting away. He gets at best, two or three guys a teleport, before gunfire forces him away. It's not like when entering a hostile foreign planet they're just going to decide to just sleep all night, and not have huge amounts of active and awake patrols.

7 hours ago, therunner said:

Cryptics, they do linguistics and cyphers for fun.

So Roshar would quickly learn to read US documents.

Quote

They could conquer Shinovar with carriers and nobody would care (or probably even realize they had) until they'd already established a massive military presence there. 

...again, Stormfather.

Roshar would know quickly after ships spawned, and there is that.

Plus, of course, US has to have been doing reconnaissance for a while to reach Shinovar and learn about it, which means Roshar already know about them.

the Stormfather cannot, explicitly, see into Shinovar. Nor can he see anything in time if the carriers set up in a week and get the scanners and at the end of the week, the B2s, out in time, which is certainly possible, before the Highstorm even hits. A week is enough to comb Roshar from 65,000 feet and never have anyone notice.

Could the Cryptics easily and quickly figure out a language with zero etymological connections to anything on Roshar or the Rosharan system and interpret it correctly enough to predict movements and somehow intercept invisible instant communications in any reasonable length of time?

To finish, I'd just like to say that I really don't think the U.S. "conquers" Roshar. But I do think they crush the initial weeks, because I don't think they're as bad as all that.

And really, that tracks with nearly every conflict since WWII. Crush the initial resistance, and then either leave, and call it a job well done, or stick around, and lose to the insurgency.

~~~

Speaking of languages, I looked at your profile and learned that you are Czech, or at least living there. Do you speak English, are are you using a translator? Just curious. Honestly, it's super neat. I really like how universal this community is!

I started putting my writing through a translator twice, to see if any of the phrasing changed too much, just in case. I know that English is frustrating language, especially when being translated into Czech. Did it help some?

Edited December 11, 2025 by TheFlatScadrian

[therunner he/him]

14 hours ago, TheFlatScadrian said:

So I gave the United States:

- The element of surprise

- Some time to retrofit for a hostile foreign environment

- An isolated home base that they can't even return to

- A single defendable supply point

That does not seem unfair to me, largely because I just want to see what happens.

And I don't see your frustration, especially as you don't seem to think they could start a conflict in the first place even with all of this. 

So stated simply, you let Roshar have their native abilities, and added advantages on top of US native abilities.

So it is not 'can side A beat side B', it is 'can side A (with the following additional bonuses) beat side B'

14 hours ago, TheFlatScadrian said:

Nor can the Rosharan equipment! The only people not locked down by the storms are the Radiants and Fused, and that's because they're above them. 

Rosharans don't have sensitive precision equipment. 

Swords and armor can be stored much easier than tanks, planes.

Quote

The U.S. can build slanted concrete hovels far faster and much easier than Roshar can. HESCO barriers can weigh over 30 tonnes and those won't be blown away. And again, they could just use a natural windbreak.

No they can't. Roshar can soulcast them which is basically instantenous, and indeed they do.

Quote

 Besides, Roshar can hide entire castles from Highstorms behind mountains, so I don't really see the issue with a C-5 Galaxy.

The castles are build to withstand the Highstorms, not necessarily hidden.

Plane, is very much not.

Quote

And the Everstorm is rough, sure, but it also is similar in wind speed to haboobs in Afghanistan and Iraq. It also doesn't have the fine dust, or crem, that make real haboobs and the Highstorm so destructive to finer equipment, so modern equipment can certainly survive it. An average Forward Operating Base from Iraq could survive it, with only some repairs needed.

Wrong, haboobs are only up to about 60mph in forward speed, i.e. about 1/2 of the Everstorm.

So no, average FOB very much couldn't survive it.

Quote

Yes. Yes, they can hide an aircraft carrier. Just weigh anchor in Kharbranth, or any other one of the numerous massive port cities. If the U.S. just minds its business and doesn't provoke anyone there won't even be a need to conquer, but even then, it's not like the locals can do anything.

And then they get destroyed by e.g. Windrunner in Plate approaching underwater from sea, and slashing a hole in hull.

Or soulcasting, again.

Quote

Unless you put the AM-2 and the B2 and the base behind a mountain. Yeah. There's wind back there. But not 370MPH wind. Not even 100MPH wind. Much more manageable. 

...that is not how mountains work

In fact, as the pressure builds on the side storm is hitting, the air can be faster on the opposite side.

Basically, this heavily depends on the shape of the mountain, but even then there is certainly more than 150-200 MPH wind there.

Quote

At the spawn point, of course. You can still do long-range refuels without the Air Force's tankers.

The spawn point Rosharans now about for about several months before invasion starts? 

The spawn point which can be comfortably attacked from Shadesmar?

Quote

And planes go below deck on carriers, of course. It doesn't even take that long to do.

Not all planes can fit there.

E.g. the bomber that carry the MOAB is too large for that.

Quote

Brandon says, 

Quote

Questioner
Will we ever see protagonists ever come back? ...Once they're, like, dead and stuff?

Brandon Sanderson
So, there's a couple rules for people coming back in the Cosmere. If you could be revived by CPR, you could be saved. If you can't be revived by CPR, only a direct infusion of Investiture immediately to the soul will turn you into a Cognitive Shadow. Those are your two kind of outs. I'll leave it at that for you, and you can see where it goes from there.

So you get hit in the chest, get split in two pieces and the shock kills you near-instantly, and you don't come back. They can heal only if they don't die instantly. If someone gets hit by a 20mmm round, well, they're...

...well, they don't have a heart to do CPR on anymore. Sure, they can heal really well if they're still alive, but damage that catastrophic is not something you can heal in time to not die.

This holds for Fused too; it's why they can kill Fused with spears and daggers if they aim well.

The WoB you are quoting is about people coming back from the dead, not about healing.

Kaladin got his spine severed repeatadly at the start of RoW and survived.

Shallan got headshot by arrow and literally walked it of.

And note this:

Quote

Brandon Sanderson

A full-blown Radiant can heal almost anything (cut from a Shardblade included) because of the way the magic works--their soul is literally bonded to Investiture, and it suffuses them in such a way that even the soul is very resilient to damage.

Honorblades are what you'd consider a "prototype" for what eventually happened with Shardblades. An Honorblade can be used by anyone, without need for oaths, which makes them very dangerous--but since the bond isn't as deep, they are far less efficient. They use more Stormlight, for example, and can't heal to the extent that a Radiant can.

So the difference is not in the device that did the damage, but in the method using to heal. Over the course of the first two book, the reader should be able to subtly pick out differences from what Szeth says is possible (in more than just healing) and what Kaladin experiences.

General Reddit 2017 (Sept. 8, 2017)

So long as they have Stormlight, they will be kept alive.

And same holds for Fused too.

If you read Mistborn Era 2, they are likely slightly toned down version of Miles Hundredlives.

Quote

So for now, I'm going to keep working with the "30% oxygen" and "slightly denser than Earth" framework.

Coppermind does not say that Roshar has slightly denser atmosphere, nor can I find anything on Arcanum.

And again, physics is quite clear that it should have less dense atmosphere.

Quote

It's those forces coupled with relative acceleration that's the problem. When the molecules are pulling equally in opposite directions, then yes, you're good to go. Unequally, in non-opposite directions, at high speeds? That's a lot more strenuous.

Again, that is not how Lashings work.

The only force you feel is the vector sum of Lashings applied, not all of them at once, just the resulting vector sum. 

Quote

They've got time.

So, how much prep time are you giving US? 

Because if you want to rebuild all the planes to NASA specifications, you will need several years, if not decade.

Alternative is of course to build them to usual tolerances, and test them on Roshar (which would take few iterations), and even than it would take a year at minimum, if not longer.

E.g. F35 started development in 1995, and first flight was in 2000, and they did not have to account for completely different gravitational and atmospheric conditions.

F22 also took around 5 years from full development start (1991, though work already started in 1981) to production (1996).

So I am reasonably confident in saying US military will take minimum of a year to design the planes, and start testing them on Roshar. Year and a half to full production. 

And I would say the above is being generous.

Quote

And the easiest part of all that is the math itself. Extremely uniform calculations as to gravity, density, and atmospheric content? It's really not that difficult, and the changes are not enough to warrant a full retrofitting.

Sorry to maybe sound rude, but I guess you don't have a physics focused university education?

Because calculations relating to atmosphere and fluid flows are many things, but 'extremely uniform' and 'not that difficult' are certainly not on the list.

Quote

I meant that it's uniform to predict. Like, it's uniform in its effect. Yes, the effect increases exponentially as distance decreases, but the effects are visible and they are, as you pointed out, easy to predict. Even for a sniper. Especially for a sniper. 

...no, I did not point out the effect are easy to predict, I literally did the opposite.

One, effects are not visible (except the direct spot where it is placed), so the sniper does not know the range of the reverse lashing, nor its strength. 

Two, effects are path dependent, and I don't think snipers can calculate relatively complex integral to compute total force across the path way on the spot, in their head.

And finally, all they have is one curved pathway, and that is not enough information to reconstruct both strength and range, not without prior experimental information. So they don't even have information needed to define the integral in the first place.

Quote

Nope. Reverse lashings require constant contact and proximity. Adhesion can be left. But not reverse lashings, which are entirely based in Gravitation.

No you are wrong, see e.g. RoW ch. 106 where Kaladin rips Leziens head off

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Kaladin turned and strode toward the watching Heavenly Ones, as the Pursuer's head ripped from his body and slammed to the floor with a crunch.

Kaladin walks away and the Reverse Lashing still functions.

Or earlier, when he steals the fabrials ch 58

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..., the he infused the flat of the brush with a Reverse Lashing, commanding it to attract certain objects only.
...
He lowered the brush on the rope toward the table. As the brush drew near, the leather case moved of its own volition

So Kaladin infuses the brush, and the brush then has the Reverse Lashing, even after Kaladin is no longer touching the brush.

Maybe you should read up more on the individual abilities?


Also, Reverse Lashing is combination of Adhesion and Gravitation, not just Gravitation alone.

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Rosharan magic (And Soulcasting in particular) is specifically mass-conservative.

Brandon said,

In 'most' circumstance, i.e. not in all, i.e. Soulcasting can create mass.

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For example, Gravitation can be used for both Lashings and Reverse Lashings, but in both cases the Surge is fundamentally convincing particles that a certain direction has gravity.

Gravitation via Reverse Lashing literally creates new localized gravity wells.

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(Stormlight glows, sure, but it doesn't create enough of each type of light to make convincing illusions.)

It creates enough light to use it as primary light source across continent.

And based on Navani's experiments it creates almost regular white light (i.e. the same stuff as from sun) except blue band is supernaturally thick.

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In truth, Illumination only actually does one thing when you're casting an Illusion: it convinces particles that something is there, when it's not. It's not making a 3-D projector, it's making a pseudo-structure that only light and specific particles (like air) interact with. 

If you can cite that I would be happy.

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it's not a question of what Investiture (Stormlight) can do, because Yolish Lightweavers can generate light. It's a question of what Illumination is capable of.

And what makes you so sure Yolish Lightweaving can do it, but not Rosharan one?

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The Radiants cannot fight on an open field. If there are tanks and planes within range they cannot win without heading out into open space (We'll get to Shadesmar in a minute).

On this we agree.

Shardplate possibly excepted (as per what is has already withstood on-screen, and what has been stated about it), but even then not on fully open ground.

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Their magic is all proximity based, or at least, proximity must be achieved to get the magic started. Ranged attacks, from Jasnah and Soulcasters, are really difficult and requires intense concentration, and limited almost exclusively to Transformation.

Except of course, for Soulcasting from Shadesmar.

(frankly, without Soulcasting Radiants would have far more difficult time of striking back).

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It typically requires being able to see what you're casting.

Not if you have appropriate bead.

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And if you can see them (your eyes) they can certainly see you (with advanced infrared imaging) and they probably saw you before you even knew they where nearby.

Not if you are Lightweaver hidden behind an illusion.

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And if you're right, that Illumination is just a projection of light, than LiDAR could see through illusions with ease. Which is not great for Lightweavers.

LiDAR relies on light reflected back, i.e. something that is reasonably easy to fake for Lightweavers.

And I am saying that Lightweavers can manipulate/create light to effectively replace 'visual reality' of the observer.

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Except for the fact that Oathgates exist, and they're one of the only things that lets you leave. If Jasnah is sitting in a hovel on the obsidian wastes soulcasting stuff, she's going to get low on Stormlight fast.

And so she just requires supply of Stormlight through some supply chain.

Also, Dalinar's perpendicularity should theoretically let you leave as well, as we saw in Oathbringer.

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Here's the thing. For Jasnah and a bunch of Soulcasters to actually exist in Shadesmar, she needs huge amounts of Stormlight to do the things she wants to do. That dictates an extremely bloated, cost ineffective supply chain bottle-necked by limited teleportation capacity, necessity for Radiants to be in Shadesmar to escort and deliver Stormlight, and constant Stormlight production, so...

US has much more limited and fragile supply system.

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Issues. Especially when the Military has surprise, and could just deny use of all your Oathgates, or, keep such close watch on them that they bomb them to crap anytime anyone so much as sneezes within 100 yards. And the one time you might be able to use them...

Again, how does the millitary know about Oathgates?

Even if they protect just the ones in Urithiru (which, vast majority of people on Roshar does not know its physical location, and get there only through Oathgates), that is enough.

And military wouldn't see anything within 100 yards, when Lightweavers exist.

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 And even then, the amount of damage Jasnah could actually do is doubtful. It's not possible for her to soulcast massive amounts of generalized matter from Shadesmar, so it would be an individualistic endeavor, focusing on several beads at the same time. 

Again, citation needed. 

You seem to point out a lot of limitations of Surges which don't actually have any support in text, or are flat out contradicted by text.

And she can just soulcast e..g few munitions into fire to cause a lot of problems. You likely saw how munitions depos can explode if just few catch fire.

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And once those things enter Shadesmar fully, well, the speed at which most modern vehicles travel is going to mean that the beads are not in the same relative place in Shadesmar as their Physical counterparts.

Except that Shadesmar is already not 1-1 to Physical realm, and beads can be attracted away from their closest location via Stormlight.

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Because... that's just good military tactics. Press your advantage.

When they don't know where and how large the hole will be in the first place?

Ordering strike so quickly after is not reasonable, not before you verify that the first strike did what you wanted it to do in the first place.

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The blast happens so fast the Sibling can't react, because apparently it has just real-time perception. End of story.

...citation needed?

At the end of RoW Sibling does things far faster than real-time perception would allow for.

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And no, the stronger (also called harder) a material is, the less energy it absorbs, which means that the tower is so strong it makes things worse. The reason the tower can't be scratched with a knife is because it's so hard (Mohs Hardness Scale).

...no again not how it works. 

Toughness, not hardness measures how much energy material can absorb before failure, it does not mean it absorbs less energy.

Yeah, the walls near the explosion would likely crack or get damaged, which is how they are absorbing the energy.

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Someone I am close to was on the bomb squad for the FBI (He also served in Iraq, actually, which is where I get a lot of my information about the war on the ground), and we've discussed things like this at length. Ever heard of a shaped charge? Just by applying pressure in the correct way, an explosion that previously didn't do anything against a solid steel beam will instead punch a hole straight through.

The same concept applies here. Pressure, against hardness, leads energy down the path of least resistance, increases energy on rebound, and creates a massive shockwave far, far bigger than the bomb would've been in open air.

A tiny pile of gunpowder on the ground under a loose bullet isn't going to move that bullet very far, but if that bullet is in an enclosed barrel with that gunpowder behind it? Way, way more powerful.

Additional note, there is the huge window which provides the path of the least resistance across the entire length of the shaft.

So, based on what you are saying, wouldn't most of the energy dissipate that way?

Basically the shaft at the moment of explosion has the following vents:

• door on the ~180 floors (of which >50% are closed)
• Huge window across one entire side
• 5x5 hole on top

Based on the least resistance argument, vast majority of the force of explosion will semi-harmlessly dissipate through window, axial overpressure gets primarily vented from top, and then some damage through doors.

But it would not cause the tower to be uninhabitable to any extent.

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The consciousness severs when the body dies, because the Fused and the bodies they take don't really share a complete avatar. Also, we've seen Fused die to daggers in the neck, or spears through the chest, so it's really not that hard to say that an average rifle could kill one handily.

They die to spears/daggers only after the run out of Voidlight.

That still gives them minutes to kill soldiers in close quarters (where they will be difficult to hit).

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And being reborn is the most annoying part. But there's always Internment. Just intern the Singers, and there you go. Every time one of them tries to return, kill them again.

US millitary has nowhere near resources to do that.

You are talking about internment of population of ~300 million across landmass the size of Asia.

So no, they can't prevent Fused that way.

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And he wouldn't decapitate their leadership, assuming he can teleport three times before teleporting away. He gets at best, two or three guys a teleport, before gunfire forces him away. It's not like when entering a hostile foreign planet they're just going to decide to just sleep all night, and not have huge amounts of active and awake patrols.

So if people just start shooting at him, during e.g. a meeting, they will also hit a lot of other soldiers/leadership.

He is literally in the middle of them, no one gets clear shot at him.

And he would kill far more than two three guys per teleport, stabbing people to death when you are ~2x as strong as them is rather easy. Plus faster in general, with better reflexes.

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the Stormfather cannot, explicitly, see into Shinovar. Nor can he see anything in time if the carriers set up in a week and get the scanners and at the end of the week, the B2s, out in time, which is certainly possible, before the Highstorm even hits.

Stormfather cannot see Shinovar because of Ishar hoped up on Odium juice, if I recall correctly.

Which of course means that US would now have to fight Heralds, Ishar's human Fused (they first appear in WAT, but that is only 10 days after RoW, and they clearly existed throughout events of RoW as well, we just didn't know).

It would be a bit problematic if US leadership/soldeirs started being taken over by his human Fused.

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A week is enough to comb Roshar from 65,000 feet and never have anyone notice.

Not by a long shot, they would get footage of the Rosharan area, but they would not be able to analyze that at all.

Of course, Roshar already knows about B2 etc, thanks to the portal being opened for several months, and practical tests of modified aircraft.

14 hours ago, TheFlatScadrian said:

Could the Cryptics easily and quickly figure out a language with zero etymological connections to anything on Roshar or the Rosharan system and interpret it correctly enough to predict movements and somehow intercept invisible instant communications in any reasonable length of time?

Considering they decipher texts of Scadrian origin (i.e. different planet), then yes, they can.

And they don't have to intercept instant communication, they can send them to camps and read the notes directly.

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Speaking of languages, I looked at your profile and learned that you are Czech, or at least living there. Do you speak English, are are you using a translator? Just curious. Honestly, it's super neat. I really like how universal this community is!

I speak english.

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I started putting my writing through a translator twice, to see if any of the phrasing changed too much, just in case. I know that English is frustrating language, especially when being translated into Czech. Did it help some?

I honestly didn't notice any difference.
 

Edited December 12, 2025 by therunner