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

[Returned he/him]

31 minutes ago, TheFlatScadrian said:

I know, my thoughts are a little all-over on this, but... uh... oh, I know.

It's U.S. controlled teleportation, but only to and from that one place in the ocean and nowhere else. They can send entire ships through, and airplanes that are in flight, and Rosharians can't use it or access it, or even know exactly where it is. I always just considered it as a "spawn point" or a "portal" because contextualizing it was not forefront (to my slight embarrassment), but that's the explanation that fits my mind's-eye best here (My bad on the confusion, y'all). 

[...]

A singular, one time transfer to, like, the Frostlands? That'd be slightly hilarious. The Rosharians would be completely overwhelmed if the entire U.S. military appeared and was prepared. As in, the entire thing? That's roughly 2.1 million soldiers; 10,000 jets; 350,000 infantry and cavalry vehicles; and over 3,000 howitzers. Plus, 400 ships (11 carriers, and assorted cruisers, corvettes, destroyers, and cargo ships). Aircraft carriers and submarines run without refueling on nuclear for a quarter of a century, so power is no issue, especially if you include the Janus deployable-reactor program. The only issue would be fuel, and that's assuming the entire U.S. military oil reserves aren't summoned too (SPR), and those can last for months, if not years. Food can be captured and grown. Besides, does that mean satellites too? Roshar would get annihilated. (Although it's not the way I've finally figured out it works, I just think that'd be hilarious.)

That changes things yet again, if the Rosharans cannot strike back against the invaders' production in any way! The specific details still matter a lot (as I mentioned before, how much stuff can be transferred to Roshar in some span of time could be a significant bottleneck). I'm skeptical that it's a fair question if the "entire U.S. military", including all materiel and personnel and all ancillary equipment (it's definitely a cheat for satellites to be transferred through the spawn point but also be in orbit in appropriate patterns), can just be assumed to appear and get established immediately. Like, you have until the first Highstorm to get all of your storage built (at least), and all that stuff and people are not going to fit into laits for natural protection very easily.

As for the rest there is a lot of hand-waving for all of use since so much is impossible to predict outside of asserting it. I'll go to the high-value target soulcasters as an example. After even a brief set of encounters the Rosharans would appreciate the ability of the invaders to destroy single targets, and as a consequence I don't think that they would ever expose them casually. Could the invaders identify one real soulcaster among 10,000 illusory duplicates, and could they do it in time to prevent devastation? How often would the Rosharans even deploy a soulcaster in the field in that way, as opposed to something like a commando raid, and why? I, personally, would use magic to deliver the soulcaster to, say, a fuel depot or munition storage (Deepest Ones might be 100% undetectable while moving through the ground, which would make it impossible to stop or even be aware of a soulcaster arriving until they've completely annihilated their target). So much turns on whether or not we assume that the invaders can learn about the full properties of aluminum (which seems almost impossible to me), or how much Rosharans can know about how the invaders' equipment works or what parts are important to the invaders' capabilities. I would be very surprised to find that the invaders could feed their 2.1 million soldiers from Rosharan farming-- even Rosharan militaries don't do that, with much smaller numbers.

It's not a guarantee of victory, but a single Rosharan specialist getting near any of the invaders' core assets a single time can easily devastate those assets permanently. Sinking the carriers seems like it would be paramount, and obviously so to the Rosharans, and very achievable in ways I'm not sure the invaders could counteract (at least not before a critical number of the ships were destroyed). The Rosharans would have an incredible intelligence advantage: could the invaders prevent Sja-anat from observing them in any way, can military ciphers defeat a cryptic who also can observe one-time pads, etc. There is a lot of assertion that these things won't work, and if that's the standard then by definition the Rosharans can't win because you've declared that they can't. As an example, my mention of Shallan soulcasting a ship to water was meant to emphasize her lack of experience and knowledge still allowing something so dramatic. Jasnah casually transforms people directly into fire and the books suggest that that is harder than transforming any object. Asserting that soulcasters simply cannot transform invaders' materiel is akin to asserting that the invaders' aircraft can't fly, a completely arbitrary and unsupported nerf.

49 minutes ago, TheFlatScadrian said:

That's a great point. But I think the same limited-upper-hand applies, because seeing a flying man touch a tank that has its turret suddenly fly off would be a pretty clear target for soldiers nearby. The U.S. Military has over 4,000 tanks, and that's not counting the tens of thousands of light and mechanized infantry vehicles (M2 Bradleys, Strykers, MRAPs, HEMTTs, even machine-gun mounted HMMWVs). A single man might get away with one or two before getting blasted sky-high. And broken parts can be repaired.

To be fair, all this gear would have to be transported in on carriers, LCMs, and ESB, or by air, but that's not to say an initial force couldn't clean out a lot of the resistance and then be supplied by further landings.

How good are tanks going to be on Roshar? If chulls can survive Highstorms tanks might be able to, also. But one Skybreaker or Dustbringer could make an area impassable for them pretty quickly. But in any case what I was imagining is something like a Windrunner's hand popping out of the ground and suddenly making the treads ultra heavy in directions perpendicular to the ground or changing the gravity on part of an airplane such that it can't fly properly. Or an Edgedancer radically increasing the friction of the rifling or interior of an artillery barrel-- hard to repair a barrel that's blown up. Or a Skybreaker/Dustbringer shattering the ground underneath the treads. Or large-scale illusions to obfuscate their forces, equipment, and tactics. Or a soulcaster turning the water around the ships transporting all of that equipment into oil and igniting it, or turning that water into a prism of iron, or turning their propulsion systems into smoke. Can an aircraft carrier be field-repaired with totally new propulsion?

One of the key assumptions that you seem to return to often is that Rosharans will engage the invaders in the field in the open, which I think is unrealistic, and also that they won't do more than one thing at a time. A donut-like hemisphere of pure darkness, cheap and easy for a Lightweaver to create, is going to create a lot of cover for something like Windrunners dropping in and destroying equipment in irreparable ways. The Deep Ones maneuvering strikes me as basically impossible to deal with, especially if they don't understand aluminum's full properties (which, again, it seems very difficult for them to discover).

1 hour ago, TheFlatScadrian said:

I actually don't know, but I do think that'd be fascinating. I'm still new to the deeper lore. Do we have any indication that the off-world Scadrians had cognitive representations? Or Wit/Hoid, and his flute? If they didn't that would cripple the most oft-discussed offense against a modern military.

All Cosmere-native living people (and objects) constantly exist in all three realms at once, physical, cognitive, and spiritual. It's an existential part of being from the Cosmere at all, at least while alive. It's not clear if a non-Cosmere person, with no investiture-related properties, would even fully "exist" in the Cosmere. But even if they can't be directly soulcast I'm not sure that's the obstacle you're suggesting-- that seems like an inferior approach for most things when, as an example from above, you can transform the matter surrounding an aircraft carrier's propulsion system into pure tungsten (or whatever). For that matter, a small lattice of Shardblades placed in the right spots will destroy any non-godmetal equipment pretty handily, tearing propellers and housings apart or blocking artillery barrels near the base.

I definitely agree that the invaders have a lot of advantages which the Rosharans won't be able to match or counter very well, but most of the arguments in the invaders' favor seem to depend on the Rosharans being particularly incompetent in a lot of dimensions permanently and at once. That seems to run counter to what the books depict: many countries are described as having excellent militaries, especially generals, and the Fused are veterans beyond anything the invaders could imagine. I don't think it's a slam dunk for the invaders because they cannot protect themselves from magic very well and have some very hard-to-replace assets, and unless Rosharans constantly engage the invaders on the terms most favorable to those invaders attrition starts to look a lot more favorable for Roshar.

[TheFlatScadrian]

1 hour ago, Returned said:

That changes things yet again, if the Rosharans cannot strike back against the invaders' production in any way!

I know I've been hand-wavey with how they get here, but I promise that this is the final setup, my friend. That's all on me.

(To clarify, my "The US just arrives in the Frostlands" was a brief tangent to your ask after it being a full-scale summoning, which I was responding to secondarily. The final arrival is still single-point "Spawn Point" teleportation)

And I've always thought the U.S.'s ability to win was largely tied up with its distance from most conflicts and its massive production capacity, something that I think this setup preserves fairly.

1 hour ago, Returned said:

One of the key assumptions that you seem to return to often is that Rosharans will engage the invaders in the field in the open, which I think is unrealistic, and also that they won't do more than one thing at a time. A donut-like hemisphere of pure darkness, cheap and easy for a Lightweaver to create, is going to create a lot of cover for something like Windrunners dropping in and destroying equipment in irreparable ways. The Deep Ones maneuvering strikes me as basically impossible to deal with, especially if they don't understand aluminum's full properties (which, again, it seems very difficult for them to discover).

That's fair, and I think we'd both call an open-field fight a win for any modern military. But the United States has incredibly good strike teams too, as well as comprehensive bombing abilities, so it's not always going to just be big infantry/navy vs. guerrilla fighters.

Also, as dangerous as Radiant strike teams can and would be, they're still susceptible to losses, and at a much heavier ratio than the U.S. Military, which is huge and built to tank losses. A single tank being destroyed is expensive, but manageable and replaceable, while a Radiant far less so. And much bigger installations, like an aircraft carrier, do require proximity, something all modern ships are directly outfitted to defend against (SeaRAM, CIWS, radar, etc. RAM missiles and CIWS rounds are so fast that by the time you could even see them or react to Lash or Elsecall or whatever else, they're in you, so anyone trying to get close is toast). Even using Shadesmar is hard, as searching a sea of beads for a specific part is literally a needle/haystack situation, especially near towns or cities, and I don't know if soulcasting a part of the ocean from Shadesmar is even possible.

Also for soulcasters, for one, assassination is always an option against soulcasters, and they're not that hard to notice. A small team finds a bunker that some of them are hiding in, plants some C4, and it's all over for a chunk of the supply chain. Queen Jasnah the Almighty can't survive a single headshot of 6.5 from some Navy SEAL in the courtyard.

Another option is just using near-complete high-altitude air superiority. A single MC-130 dropping a GBU-43B MOAB over Urithiru, or even a B2 sending a GBU-57 MOP through the ceiling, would annihilate huge portions of the best Rosharian forces overnight. Airplanes, also, would actually work better on Roshar due to lower gravity and a denser atmosphere, meaning dogfights and high-altitude bombing is cheaper and easier. This would also allow for slightly slower, but overall further, projectile ranges for the navy and land artillery. There's no way to defend against something you can't detect and aren't expecting.

Truthwatchers might foresee strikes like that initially, but they're few and far between, and dodgy at best, and it could very well become a Cassandra situation for the first few days. "Yes, the massive gray fabrial carrying a tiny, deployable sun at 30,000 feet is approaching quickly, we must abandon our only stronghold lest we all die." That disbelief wouldn't last, but at least the U.S. would have the element of surprise, something that could be life-or-death for the invasion.

Another assumption is that everyone is working together on Roshar, which isn't actually part of the setup. I doubt Alethkar or Jah Keved can afford to care initially if smaller nation-states are falling in the South or West. The Diagram probably doesn't even account for this. I doubt the Fused would help the Alethi fight the U.S., at least initially. In fact, the Fused might allow them to both fight each other first, and then step in afterwards. The Fused are likely the biggest problem, but an alliance could be made, potentially. 

Also, satellites aren't present, because that'd be kinda ridiculous (It's ground/sea teleportation to another planet). But nearly all missile and autocannon tracking systems are either/both self-contained radar and IR based, and comms can easily be established with temporary radio towers and mobile radio ships. GPS would be the biggest loss, but we were just fine before the space age, and we can go back to that with little issue.

And I think we overestimate the adaptability of Roshar. They have zero defenses against high-altitude aircraft and precision artillery bombardment, and almost all of their tactics can be boiled down to "siege" and "charge". Changing that would take months, if not years, of re-fitting, and entirely new tactical plans. A great general in the American Civil War is nearly worthless in WWII, and this is an even bigger gap. And even modern militaries are hard-pressed to stop something you can't see or hear coming but still kills you in three seconds at three miles. The Radiants are supremely adaptable, but they can't be everywhere, are still fallible, and have limited, hard-to-replace numbers.

TL;DR, the Rosharians are under-prepared, unsuspecting, and far too fractured to defend against a technologically superior invasive force with the win in both range, speed, and communication. Although Radiants and Shardbearers might pose a significant threat, a sudden attack could cripple them, leaving only the Fused and other Odium minions as the biggest threats. 

Great points!

Edited December 1, 2025 by TheFlatScadrian

[Returned he/him]

1 hour ago, TheFlatScadrian said:

I know I've been hand-wavey with how they get here, but I promise that this is the final setup, my friend. That's all on me.

[...]

And I've always thought the U.S.'s ability to win was largely tied up with its distance from most conflicts and its massive production capacity, something that I think this setup preserves fairly.

No worries about hand-waving, there's no other way to do it! The issue is that the assumptions we make about support and resupply are pretty important, almost as important as the assumptions we make about how quickly/well each side can learn about the capabilities of the other. A similar set of assumptions dictate how well the distance-from-conflict capabilities of the invaders are preserved. Structures like radio towers seem a bit brittle and short-lived to me (how would they fare in a storm, and how well can the invaders construct and secure them as they move inland?) and the radio waves themselves might be within Lightweavers' ability to interfere with (though, as above, they'd have to learn about radio first which seems like a big leap. As an aside, might the Singers be able to learn about or interact with radio waves more easily? They're very tied into sound, rhythm, and tones, but it's not clear to me that that would translate that far up the spectrum).

Some resupply can be taken for granted (like guns and bullets, probably), but losing an aircraft carrier or a long-range bomber is very difficult to recover from-- they take years to build, and until then you have that much less capacity to project force. The situation is similar, though less severe, for other ships. Those seem, to me, to be at least as important as the Rosharans losing an Elsecaller, if not more so. So assumptions that obviate these kinds of issues are really key to the whole experiment.

A lot of other stuff is so deep into the details of the situation that I don't think we can do a good job of evaluating its likely efficacy without just asserting it. For example, people have seemed to assume that airplanes in flight are impossible for Rosharans to counter. Maybe.

But, taking Urithiru as an example, any airborne approach seems like it would be pretty visible from a great distance. A cryptic could probably calculate trajectories and speeds pretty well. So upon seeing an approaching aircraft or missile, the cryptic calculates the right spot and then a Lightweaver or Elsecaller turns a small volume of air to metal right in front of it at the appropriate time, and now your supersonic jet/missile has slammed into a wall. Or simply has a very non-aerodynamic metal shell appear on it, forcing it down immediately. Or Lightweavers create illusions that fool visible-light and IR sensors, which seems well within the scope of their powers. Would those defenses work? Maybe, I don't know how we can be more precise than that.

Is it realistic to think that Rosharans would not be able to locate the spawn point? I don't think so, but again it's all assumption based in any direction. How quickly and effectively can the Rosharans learn about the invaders' equipment and methods? As soon as they understand what modern combat armor is like they can manufacture their own, they would probably have access to guns better than those the invaders have within weeks of getting one to study. The Rosharans need no industry nor supply chain to manufacture things.

I question how well invading special forces can function. Spren are perfect spies and sentries, being nearly or completely invisible at will, and the invaders aren't going to blend in well while also having to sneak across a lot of open ground. It seems very unlikely to me that they would be able to get to a high-value target this way. The situation also seems ripe for disinformation: your radio squawks with new orders, in a perfect imitation of a relevant officer's voice, possibly even providing appropriate codes, ordering you to immediately do something that creates a tactical vulnerability or ruins the mission. Radiant/Fused spies and assassins seem like they would be very hard to deal with.

And while the destructive capacity of modern ordinance is impressive, how long would they be able to use it? After a single bombardment I would imagine the Rosharans would just go underground, miles deep. They have tools and magic that would make this much easier to do than it would be in real life, and have almost no need for infrastructure to persist there indefinitely. It was just earlier this year that massive bombardment with specialized bunker-buster ordinance failed to destroy underground facilities in Iran, so this isn't even speculation. Ukraine has seen a lot of bombardment over the last several years, including Kyiv, but it's not like they've had their high-value targets picked off so easily or have every city reduced entirely to rubble.

Believing the Rosharans would work together was me misreading the original post. I'm sorry both because I missed it and also because my most key tactic involved the Deepest Ones and Radiants working together, so losing that is a blow! Stonewards and Willshapers might be able to do similar things but I was really counting on the magic of two-solid-objects-occupying-the-same-volume-of-space, and losing that really weakens my case.

In summary (my posts have gotten really long in this thread!), most of the key capabilities people assume the invaders would have seem like they would not function well (or at all) on Roshar, many of the remaining ones could be countered or subverted very flexibly by magic-capable Rosharans, the destructive capacity of the invaders' ordinance seems overstated after the first use, intelligence-gathering capability is seriously asymmetric in favor of Roshar, and the magic is powerful, flexible, inimitable, and in many cases cannot be countered. If the invaders don't win quickly (as in, right around the first strike) I don't see them as likely to win at all.

The more I think about it, the more it seems to me that the scenario is not a fair one. If Roshar has no possible way to damage the invaders' production or population, no way to address the "spawning" of invaders and equipment, and the invaders are 100% committed to deploying their full capacity to conquering Roshar no matter what the cost or facts on the ground, then the situation is one that Roshar literally cannot win because they can never stop additional invasions. It would be a lot like the Desolations, really. I guess eventually the Earth will simply run out of resources so support the invasion while Roshar never would, but that is a very bleak strategy.

Thanks for starting this thread and engaging with me, this has been really fun to think about!

Edited December 1, 2025 by Returned

[TheFlatScadrian]

Of course! I've had fun working through this too! A lot of your points are (still) really good, to my chagrin.

I am sort of operating under the assumption that the United States is not being helped expressly in the war by its allies, and that, like any other war on Earth, it's just operating as it would (Albeit with absurdly solid partisan support for an extended war with no real benefits and strangely limited teleportation technology). Maybe wartime production happens, but we're still under the restrictions of real-world production capacity and manpower limitations (2.1 millions members, vehicle and weaponry stockpiles, etc.). It's really more a test of Rosharian defense than a full-scale expansion prevention and retribution conflict (Normandy style).

I also think that the Rosharians just going full mole-people on the military would be a loss for them, as they've given up all their strongholds and lands, and even if they have relatively unhurt populations that's still going to be a logistical nightmare; and it'd probably be difficult to replenish Stormlight to boot. 

1 hour ago, Returned said:

I question how well invading special forces can function. Spren are perfect spies and sentries, being nearly or completely invisible at will, and the invaders aren't going to blend in well while also having to sneak across a lot of open ground. It seems very unlikely to me that they would be able to get to a high-value target this way. The situation also seems ripe for disinformation: your radio squawks with new orders, in a perfect imitation of a relevant officer's voice, possibly even providing appropriate codes, ordering you to immediately do something that creates a tactical vulnerability or ruins the mission. Radiant/Fused spies and assassins seem like they would be very hard to deal with.

True. But I also think we overestimate the ability of the newly-christened Radiants. They are brand-new at this, and with that in mind, I think they'd be easier to overwhelm than you think, especially without proper control, knowledge, or command. A fully outfitted Knights Radiant pre-Desolation? They'd be far more formidable. But as of WoR or WaT? I don't know. 

I think I'd be easier than you think, especially as something rather important is still true: Rosharians know about Aluminum. And if they do, than the U.S. can and probably does (in this setup). A SEAL team (preferably of Asian or Native American decents, because of epicanthic folds, and with hazel or green/blue eyes) with tinfoil crammed in their shirts and hats are now more invisible than Wit when he owes somebody money, and a single assassin in a major population center could do heavy damage to command structures and infrastructure. (Again, By the Grace of Adonalsium, We, Jasnah, Emperor and Autocrat of All the Alethkars, is as mortal as your average grunt, which is easily resolved by a helping of .45 ACP (Honor's favorite caliber) from some random Makabaki man the CIA trained to be a Zero Agent in exchange for his family's safety)

Besides, as dangerous to the military as visual illusions are, I don't think they could defeat Infrared. IR vision, which is not vision-based, would reveal most illusions, and lo and behold, almost all military hardware is outfitted with it.  

And finally, I think we always overestimate visual ability. Our senses kinda suck. And so much of magic in the Cosmere in general is based on perception. When you can be killed by something faster than the sound it makes and smaller than the eye that sees it, moving faster than it is possible to observe, calculate, and react to it, I doubt there's much any Rosharian can do, especially with most modern tech being so quick (average missile/ballistic dart speeds are at the mach 1.5-mach 2+ range). A Lightweaver doesn't know to make illusions when her enemy is five miles away with a radar rangefinder and an M777. An Elsecaller doesn't know to teleport when an A-10 is inbound at 5,000 feet. A Windrunner doesn't know to dodge when a CIWS is going to let loose from 4,000 feet with radar and IR tracking. 

(I also think that Urithiru, strong as it is, is still a bunch of brittle stone floors with wide gaps between them. A single MOP bomb dropped by a B2 at night cruising silently at an altitude double that of Urithiru itself is not going to really be prevented, especially because those things are accurate to the foot. Sadly, I doubt anyone is really going to listen to Renarin on this one, if he even could see it coming. That, on night one, is a stake in the heart of any real resistance (At least from humans). The Fused are another story entirely).

[Myst He/Him]

5 minutes ago, TheFlatScadrian said:

Besides, as dangerous to the military as visual illusions are, I don't think they could defeat Infrared. IR vision, which is not vision-based, would reveal most illusions, and lo and behold, almost all military hardware is outfitted with it.  

I’m pretty sure Lightweavers/Truthwatchers could fool both IR and UV Vision or whatever, since all that is is just invisible light, so there’s not reason Lightweavers can’t manipulate that, it’s all just light, after all. We just normally wouldn’t know that since Roshar hasn’t discovered UV/IR yet. So while that discovery period would be rough, after that it’d be good.

What I’m really interested in is whether this means Lightweavers/Truthwatchers could mess with radio waves and such, as they could mess with communication, create false orders, and theoretically, walk into a nuclear bomb and mess with the gamma rays. As far as I know, we don’t have a wavelength or frequency limit on what they’re able to manipulate/change so this is possible 

[TheFlatScadrian]

I think their lightweaving is largely perception-based. Until somebody discovers how to see the other wavelengths, I think it's safe to say they're off-limits.

(Although I do like the idea of a Lightweaver casually microwaving a styrofoam box of Chouta on the couch while watching Arrested Development.)

[Myst He/Him]

1 minute ago, TheFlatScadrian said:

I think their lightweaving is largely perception-based. Until somebody discovers how to see the other wavelengths, I think it's safe to say they're off-limits.

(Although I do like the idea of a Lightweaver casually microwaving a styrofoam box of Chouta on the couch while watching Arrested Development.)

The mental image is amazing. Microwaves would be completely obsolete, just get your local Lightweaver to do it, and you’ll have perfectly cooked popcorn every time 

[TheFlatScadrian]

2 minutes ago, Ookla the Broken said:

The mental image is amazing. Microwaves would be completely obsolete, just get your local Lightweaver to do it, and you’ll have perfectly cooked popcorn every time 

Adolin: "Shallan, this popcorn is burnt!" 

Shallan: "Sorry! Veil always gets carried away!" ~ Veil: "Cancer makes it taste better."

[Myst He/Him]

Just now, TheFlatScadrian said:

Adolin: "Shallan, this popcorn is burnt!" 

Shallan: "Sorry! Veil always gets carried away!" ~ Veil: "Cancer makes it taste better."

Beyond that, you could nuke them and they’d be mostly fine, if they can survive the heat wave and constantly Lightweave. Imagine the statement that would be, nuking the building you’re in, and walking out completely unscathed.

I really hope this is how it works. I’m gonna go and search on Arcanum 

[TheFlatScadrian]

1 minute ago, Ookla the Broken said:

I’m gonna go and search on Arcanum 

Please do; that'd be awesome.

In all seriousness, I do think that Era 1 Rosharian Lightweavers are dead in the water when it comes to the U.S.'s InfraRed seeing past illusions.

If they can manipulate the whole spectrum in later eras, however... that'd be so cool. 

[Myst He/Him]

12 minutes ago, TheFlatScadrian said:

Please do; that'd be awesome.

In all seriousness, I do think that Era 1 Rosharian Lightweavers are dead in the water when it comes to the U.S.'s InfraRed seeing past illusions.

If they can manipulate the whole spectrum in later eras, however... that'd be so cool. 

So I found these, which to me indicates that it’s possible

Spoiler

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/385/#e12579

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/324/#e9287
 

Thoughts? We may be getting Lightweavers as nuclear scientists 

Edited December 1, 2025 by Ookla the Broken
This is hype

[TheFlatScadrian]

Dang, that's cool. It certainly sounds like they could create and transmit radio frequencies, because if they're operating in waves... You could mess with a lot of modern tech with that. 

(Or microwave popcorn)

I don't know much about the sound though; that's a wave formed of interaction in empty space rather than a self-defined particle/wavelength, so I don't know how that works. Maybe because, to the magic, it's a perception-based Surge rather than a literal force of nature?

Also... I think it's more, right now anyway, that they can reproduce IR without thinking about it because they know, instinctively, that living things produce heat. It's a passive thing that they just do when they make a realistic illusion. But I don't know if they'd do that, or know how to do that, while trying to distract an enemy with a massive army. We know that Shallan does something similar for the corrupted Amaram forces, but I don't think it mentions her making them actually give off realistic human heat, even if it is technically possible.

I certainly think it's possible. But I don't think they know how to actively right now. 

("Shallan, please stop making my teeth glow with that purple light! You know I can't stand that!")

But I could certainly see nuclear science rapidly expanding as they do figure it out. Which is terrifying. Heck, they could just send in Lightweavers and slow-roast everybody on the front!

Imagine sending a Lightweaver to give someone advanced cancer, to do a subtle assassination.

[Myst He/Him]

1 minute ago, TheFlatScadrian said:

Dang, that's cool. It certainly sounds like they could create and transmit radio frequencies, because if they're operating in waves... You could mess with a lot of modern tech with that. 

(Or microwave popcorn)

I don't know much about the sound though; that's a wave formed of interaction in empty space rather than a self-defined particle/wavelength, so I don't know how that works. Maybe because, to the magic, it's a perception-based Surge rather than a literal force of nature?

Also... I think it's more, right now anyway, that they can reproduce IR without thinking about it because they know, instinctively, that living things produce heat. It's a passive thing that they just do when they make a realistic illusion. But I don't know if they'd do that, or know how to do that, while trying to distract an enemy with a massive army. We know that Shallan does something similar for the corrupted Amaram forces, but I don't think it mentions her making them actually give off realistic human heat, even if it is technically possible.

I certainly think it's possible. But I don't think they know how to actively right now. 

("Shallan, please stop making my teeth glow with that purple light! You know I can't stand that!")

Yeah, rn, they definitely don’t have access to to any of this, but

WaT

Spoiler

We’ve seen Shallan create matter with Lightweaving(though that might have been a fusion of the her two surges)

And if they can do that.. sound seems possible to me. 

[TheFlatScadrian]

Amazing. For-hire microwaving is my new favorite head-canon for Era 2.

(Man, imagine a person being given stage 4 cancer to do an assassination! That'd be so cool.)

[Myst He/Him]

Just now, TheFlatScadrian said:

Amazing. For-hire microwaving is my new favorite head-canon for Era 2.

(Man, imagine a person being given stage 4 cancer to do an assassination! That'd be so cool.)

Yeah, or, ya know, curing cancer is also a possibility. If they can mutate your cells into getting cancer, they can mutate them into not having it.

Im going to make a topic for this

[TheFlatScadrian]

I’ll be there.

3 minutes ago, Ookla the Broken said:

Yeah, or, ya know, curing cancer is also a possibility

Uh… yep. And that. Definitely my first thought.

[Returned he/him]

1 hour ago, TheFlatScadrian said:

I also think that the Rosharians just going full mole-people on the military would be a loss for them, as they've given up all their strongholds and lands, and even if they have relatively unhurt populations that's still going to be a logistical nightmare; and it'd probably be difficult to replenish Stormlight to boot. 

My point in bringing this up is that it makes their strongholds more or less invulnerable to the invaders. Living there forever isn't any good, but they're barely hampered from launching strikes while quite well protected on their own. Stormlight supply is an issue, but not an insurmountable one (especially if we tweak the assumptions we've been making).

1 hour ago, TheFlatScadrian said:

I think I'd be easier than you think, especially as something rather important is still true: Rosharians know about Aluminum. And if they do, than the U.S. can and probably does (in this setup).

This would seem to violate one of the original assumptions: the invaders know only what is common knowledge on Roshar. Some know of aluminum, but vanishingly few, mostly the Fused and a handful of spren. It seems unreasonable to me that the invaders would know much of anything about Surgebinding or investiture based on any conceivable method of observation or intelligence-gathering; too few people know the details and they are unlikely to discuss it in detail in some way that the invaders can intercept. And it's hard to say how much use they could get from it when the Rosharans aren't limited to directly affecting those things which can be made of or coated in aluminum.

Additionally (I clipped the quote to keep the post size manageable), I really doubt that the invaders can plausibly disguise themselves effectively-- they won't know the languages or other other common knowledge items. Maybe they can pass a quick visual inspection with limited equipment and being careful not to let the equipment show. But maybe. It's not a sticking point for me. I will, however, say that the CIA making contact with and training sleeper agents seems to go well outside of the scope of the question.

1 hour ago, TheFlatScadrian said:

Besides, as dangerous to the military as visual illusions are, I don't think they could defeat Infrared. IR vision, which is not vision-based, would reveal most illusions, and lo and behold, almost all military hardware is outfitted with it.  

Of course it could defeat IR sensors. IR is still light, even if not in the visible spectrum, and the Surge of Illumination covers light, sound, and waveforms generally. The only limitations are Rosharan knowledge of its existence, which they may or may not have, and awareness of its use in mechanical sensor equipment, which seems like a pretty brutal obstacle. We don't hear about it, but the top-flight scientists and spren might know enough to figure it out and may already be aware of it theoretically. I would bet that Raboniel knew about it.

Quote

I think their lightweaving is largely perception-based. Until somebody discovers how to see the other wavelengths, I think it's safe to say they're off-limits.

It explicitly is not. It primarily changes reality, not (just) the minds of observers.

Quote

I don't know much about the sound though; that's a wave formed of interaction in empty space rather than a self-defined particle/wavelength, so I don't know how that works. Maybe because, to the magic, it's a perception-based Surge rather than a literal force of nature?

It's magic, which is about as much detail as we can get on how it's created. Lightweaving is 100% guaranteed to be able to produce actual sound out of nothing and we have many observations of this happening in the books.

1 hour ago, TheFlatScadrian said:

And finally, I think we always overestimate visual ability. Our senses kinda suck. And so much of magic in the Cosmere in general is based on perception. When you can be killed by something faster than the sound it makes and smaller than the eye that sees it, moving faster than it is possible to observe, calculate, and react to it, I doubt there's much any Rosharian can do, especially with most modern tech being so quick (average missile/ballistic dart speeds are at the mach 1.5-mach 2+ range).

Do these apply to what we're talking about, though? My comments on this were mostly about defending a high-altitude position with clear visibility in all directions, like Urithiru, plus constant watchers (including spren). Sound is fast but light is faster, and seeing a missile or aircraft approach you seems like it would give ample time to magic a barrier in front of it. If we're talking about bullets or darts I'm not sure I buy that those would be in play in these scenarios. But as before, I think that trying to defend a position that can be bombarded is not a worthwhile goal for the Rosharans, which they would recognize pretty quickly. That's fine because they don't need those as much as a real military would. So this seems (to me) to matter if and only if Urithiru is bombarded immediately, before the Rosharans even know about the invasion. And after the end of Words of Radiance I think that literally everyone would listen to Renarin's warnings of impending destruction.

Any survivors of the initial bombardments will fortify themselves behind mountains' worth of rock, travel via magic (one way or another), emerge during a Highstorm, travel along with it, and then strike decisively at the invading assets while drawing from nearly unlimited Stormlight. I don't know how much the invaders can do in the midst of a hurricane but we know that Rosharans can do a lot. An operation like this might even be enough to take out an aircraft carrier, or even a whole fleet (depending only on about a million other details ).

Edited December 1, 2025 by Returned

[TheFlatScadrian]

6 hours ago, Returned said:

(depending only on about a million other details )

Because Mr. Sanderson.

6 hours ago, Returned said:

It explicitly is not. It primarily changes reality, not (just) the minds of observers.

I was implying more so that the magic system's execution relies on the perception of the Lightweaver, not so much the perception of the people who see and interact with the illusion. Much of the Cosmere is like that; via the Cognitive realm. Reaction time is a huge limiting factor, but over-generalizing what defines something is also really helpful. It's why Mistborn don't see quadrillions of blue lines to every atom of metal nearby, or gravitation lashings are based on general objects being perceived as "down" rather than being considered by Windrunners as literal gravity manipulation. I meant that, from the perspective of a medieval society, IR and UV don't conceivably exist and can't be understood or registered. A Lightweaver might manipulate them unknowingly when weaving certain illusions, because they perceive humans as giving off heat, but won't understand why or even register that the "heat" they are creating is actually a wave of light. They wouldn't know how to manipulate those wavelengths deliberately, or even that they exist at all, meaning they couldn't purposefully over-saturate IR sensors.

6 hours ago, Returned said:

Sound is fast but light is faster, and seeing a missile or aircraft approach you seems like it would give ample time to magic a barrier in front of it.

Average missiles used, even the almighty GBU-57 MOP, are on average 2.5 ft in diameter, or smaller. On a sunny, clear day with no haze, looking for it, and with good vision, you might detect it at two to three miles, giving you two to three seconds to see it, realize what it is, figure out what to do, and then act. And that's on Earth. Not Roshar, which has thicker atmosphere. And that's if you could even find it, as most are painted specifically to be hard to see. Besides, most modern missiles are self-contained and can be deployed hundreds of miles away by airplane or ground forces, so airplane visibility isn't even a factor.

And that's a best case scenario. At night? Cloudy? No problem for high-altitude stealth bombers/fighters (B2, F-35), which don't release much possibly-Lightweaver-detectable radiation anyway.

Although I agree that eventually, Rosharians would go guerrilla on our Federal friends, the initial stages of the war would be catastrophic, and much of the Rosharian high command would be obliterated. Although the capabilities of a modern military would be nigh-incomprehensible for Roshar, Americans soldiers can certainly comprehend Roshar (Because we already do).

6 hours ago, Returned said:

Some know of aluminum, but vanishingly few, mostly the Fused and a handful of spren. It seems unreasonable to me that the invaders would know much of anything about Surgebinding or investiture based on any conceivable method of observation or intelligence-gathering; too few people know the details and they are unlikely to discuss it in detail in some way that the invaders can intercept.

As for surges and Investiture, I 100% agree. But there are excerpts in RoW where Navani expressly explains Aluminum to a large gathering of Artifabrians, so it's at least common enough that we might figure it out through captured experimental fabrian tech, at least eventually. But it is a slim chance, I'll concede.

(Unless we consider the DIA)

6 hours ago, Returned said:

I really doubt that the invaders can plausibly disguise themselves effectively-- they won't know the languages or other other common knowledge items. Maybe they can pass a quick visual inspection with limited equipment and being careful not to let the equipment show. But maybe. It's not a sticking point for me. I will, however, say that the CIA making contact with and training sleeper agents seems to go well outside of the scope of the question.

Roshar is a big place. Seeing somebody that looks native, doesn't really speak, and wears easy-to-find clothing would be one in thousands like them, and certain sniper rifles can be broken down and stuffed in a rucksack. And that's even easier if you go the pistol route. 

Aaand as I'm writing this I'm remembering that basically all Rosharians can dunk on Shaq. Welp. That's a dead end; my apologies. (The CIA was more of a joke than anything, but I wouldn't put it past the Green Beret. Or the DIA, for that matter)

Edited December 2, 2025 by TheFlatScadrian

[Returned he/him]

2 hours ago, TheFlatScadrian said:

I was implying more so that the magic system's execution relies on the perception of the Lightweaver, not so much the perception of the people who see and interact with the illusion. [...] It's why Mistborn don't see quadrillions of blue lines to every atom of metal nearby [...]

They wouldn't know how to manipulate those wavelengths deliberately, or even that they exist at all, meaning they couldn't purposefully over-saturate IR sensors.

I'm not sure that's sound.

Item one: Infrared light was discovered in the 19th century using methods that we have (mostly) observed Navani use, with prisms, light, and thermometers (the thermometer part is the reason for the "mostly", but fabrials should be able to do this well enough). In other words, Rosharans already have the science to discover IR-spectrum light and the prism experiment Navani does she describes as a simple one she already knows about (implying that any engineer or scientist on Roshar might be similarly familiar). Even if they only theorize about its properties, knowing that light outside of the visible spectrum exists might be enough for a Lightweaver's illusions to handle IR however they want, including packaging it into illusions as a matter of course. Similar to how Shallan's image of Sebarial in the carriage was realistic in details she did not draw nor think of, like the pores of his skin. "Wouldn't know IR wavelengths exist at all" is too strong, I think. They can and might already, as they already have all of the technology that was used to discover it in reality. Though, as above, learning that the IR sensors exist and how they work well enough to meddle with them specifically would take some doing.

Item 2: We know, for a fact, that solid Rosharan Lightweaver illusions utterly block light (human-visible light, if we're being pedantic, which I guess we are here ), such as when Shallan hides behind an illusory wall or inside of an illusory boulder. It violates parsimony to assume that the illusions split light based on the Lightweaver's understanding and then just are partially opaque. An illusory wall or blob of pitch darkness should destroy an IR sensor's ability to "see" beyond or through it just as it would for a human or a Fused, which suits what I had in mind for "defeating" IR sensors. More complexity is certainly possible, though tenuous in this specific case. I feel confident that Vathah knows nothing about material science, light, and optics, but his illusions look as good as Shallan's (as far as we know). He wants the illusion to be real-looking, so the magic does that. The only Cosmere mention of IR I know of is from a WoB relating to Warbreaker. It's not the same magic system at all, of course, but it's something and it indicates that Cosmere magic at least can work on the whole spectrum:

Spoiler

Argent

Does Awakening drain colors outside the visible spectrum?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes it does. You're talking about ultraviolet and infrared? Yeah.

JordanCon 2018 (April 22, 2018)

Item 3: This one is just an aside and is broadly unrelated to the Lightweaving/IR issue, but Steel Inquisitors see the world through the blue lines connecting to every metal around them, including trace metals. It's very different from how other Allomancers perceive the metal lines, and Inquisitors actually do seem to see them all (to some maximum resolution, I imagine).

As much as I hate to fall back on it, this seems like the realm of Intent in Cosmere magics. If the Lightweaver's intent is to create an image that will fool observers by appearing realistic, the magic does the work of making that happen. They aren't engineers nor physicists, they're wizards (except for the ones that are also engineers and/or physicists). Insisting on this limitation for Lightweaving doesn't seem based on any actual evidence in-text or from WoBs, as far as I know and can find. Do you have any evidence that Lightweaving is limited in the manner you describe?

But all of this is tangential and you are demanding too much in service of the invaders' technology. I'm already on record as saying that countering missiles one-by-one is an inferior strategy for the Rosharans, so they'll do something better instead (like hiding underground).

2 hours ago, TheFlatScadrian said:

Although I agree that eventually, Rosharians would go guerrilla on our Federal friends, the initial stages of the war would be catastrophic, and much of the Rosharian high command would be obliterated. Although the capabilities of a modern military would be nigh-incomprehensible for Roshar, Americans soldiers can certainly comprehend Roshar (Because we already do).

I just don't see the "eventually" here. The invaders get one salvo, which may or may not obliterate the key Rosharan figures, and I can't imagine how the invaders would be able to locate those key figures without giving away their presence and surveillance. People anywhere near the target site will be aware of how little warning there was and how devastating the results and spread the word. People who know will respond, because Rosharans are not only not stupid they have a lot of really excellent military thinkers and strategists. They adapted pretty quickly and well to the formerly incomprehensible changes brought by the return of Surgebinders. "Stay underground unless there is a Highstorm" would be both simple and effective for them.

Rosharans don't need to know the specific capabilities of the invaders to resist-- knowing they can lob a bunch of missiles to nearly anywhere they might go, they have guns, fast vehicles, and similar seems like enough. And I think you're overestimating how much the invaders will know about Rosharan capabilities. Realistically, how much are they going to be able to learn anything about the cognitive realm, realmatic travel, Investiture, specific capabilities of the Orders and the Fused, Rosharan politics and military organization, or anything else, and by what methods (particularly those which will not tip off the Rosharans to the presence of the invaders)? We haven't even touched on some of the craziest things the Rosharans conceivably could do, like manipulating Connection among the invaders or forcing materiel and personnel into the cognitive realm. I maintain what I said before: if the invaders don't win very quickly, they will have a hard time winning at all.

Edited December 2, 2025 by Returned

[TheFlatScadrian]

I think the entire outcome, based on everything we've talked about and the points you and I have made, can be boiled down to our interpretation of two factors, one intellectual, one physical:

PROXIMITY - How close you can get or need to be to fight

and

COMPREHENSION - How much you understand or need to know to fight

Based on how we interpret these two factors, the outcome will change, because honestly, it could go either way.

Proximity: That if Radiants, Fused, and Shardbearers can get in close, they can do pretty much anything they want without instant death. Close range conflict is the Rosharan dominion.

Conversely, the United States doesn't need to get in close. They dominate mid-to-far ranges, reaching hundreds of miles even without satellites, and weapons that can kill easily at half a kilometer are standard issue for all troops. 

Comprehension: That if the United States perfectly comprehends Roshar, they win. Period. Aluminum effects, command structures, Radiant weaknesses --- all of this means a total victory. They don't have this --- but they do have more knowledge of Roshar than Roshar does of them, and all of this is learnable, especially with captured devices.

The same is true in the opposite, where if the Rosharans understand everything about the invaders and can target the same things. This gives them the ability to counteract the upper hand the United States has with its superior weaponry. However, I doubt that Roshar could figure out American tech in the same way the Americans could potentially learn from Rosharan tech.

The right balance of these things can lead to any outcome.

~~~

This is why I think the United States would win, with that in mind.

According to the setup, the United States:

- Knows anything that is common knowledge in Roshar. The Rosharans do not have the inverse, as this is a test of Rosharan adaptability and defense in this specific instance.

- Is operating logistically as if it were a real conflict, using real manpower, weaponry, and production limits. 

Roshar is, at this point, in a landscape similar to OB or RoW, simply because that gives the most variation to the enemies faced.

Here's a few things about PROXIMITY.

For one, the Unites States dominates nearly every range, exponentially getting better the farther away the enemy is.

With Elsecallers, this would be non-issue, except for the fact that even the most basic weaponry used by the Unites States can break shardplate and kill a Radiant instantly. They can do more damage with Elsecallers, but every mission will either be quick and meaningless, or instant suicide, especially without armor initially post-teleport. (Also, Elsecalling is either large, or fast, and the gap there is exploitable).

At further ranges, the only warning system is Truthwatchers, and they are spotty at best and wrong at worst. In a multi-front air-sea-ground war, they just can't be reliable enough except for singular groups in singular areas, leaving most of Roshar unprepared.

At any range, Windrunners, although powerful, are short-lived. If they take to the skies at all, whether that be on land or sea, radar-tracking weaponry is still devastating, even holed up during a Highstorm. And because they're limited in needing to touch or at least enter a few-foot range to Lash, there is no conceivable way they have the time or ability to redirect any real ballistic or kinetic weapons of any size, nor attack a major structure or vehicle without revealing themselves. They can do real damage, but most likely at the expense of their lives.

Spoiler

(The average speed of American self-powered munitions is from sonic (Mach 1) to supersonic (Mach 1+), and then hypersonic (Mach 5+), speeds. The average human has a visual reaction time of 0.25 seconds, during which a mach 1 projectile travels 85 meters and a mach 5 projectile travels 425 meters. On average? You wouldn't even see the blur. On a clear day, you might see a 2.5 foot wide object at two miles out, if it is brightly colored or reflective. Most missiles are within 1 to 2.5 feet in diameter. This means that, approximately, noticing a 2-foot-wide object on a clear day with great visibility, instantly seeing it as it enters your noticeable range, and isn't painted specifically to be hard to see, you have, on average, 2 seconds to react. This is basically impossible for any Rosharan to counteract outside of perfect precognition or prior knowledge, and possibly time manipulation) 

The most difficult force to counteract would be Lightweaving. Lightweavers can mimic sound, images, and potentially radiowaves, microwaves, and infrared, screwing up communication, radar, and IR imaging. Lightweavers can disguise allies as enemies for infiltration, fake orders and commanders, conduct surveillance, and even go completely invisible. They can also soulcast without impunity and with extreme prejudice, and without prior knowledge they're effectively undetectable. Although I doubt the ability of current Rosharans to understand and deliberately manipulate radar and infrared based tracking, to trick humans, airplanes, ships, turrets, and missiles, it is possible that, through Intent, they might figure out how to do it anyway.

I believe we can all agree on this: Roshar can definitely counteract American range superiority, but it is likely such tactics could cause significant losses if and only if Lightweavers don't learn to manipulate radar and IR, which would be their biggest foils. If they do, it's a much more possible win for Roshar. Also, as for Lightweavers soulcasting? Again, proximity. They don't have to reveal themselves, but it's certainly conceivable that a tank suddenly turns into wood, and the local CO just imprisons everyone nearby and then slaps everybody around until they find the impostor through visual/physical dissonance.

This is where COMPREHENSION comes in. Americans can certainly comprehend Roshar, although there'd be a learning curve.

All they need to do is read the SA! (Just kidding; that doesn't exist in this setup, It's not that meta)

I ask this: Would a Rosharan even realize that missiles exist?

Think about it. Missiles move so quickly you'd never know they're coming or see them ever, and this Roshar is not knowledgeable about Earth. Seeing as United States plans for most inferior (or perceived as inferior) fighting forces is effectively stealth bombing and covertly striking communication infrastructure / military installations, it's a safe bet to say their first strike will be blowing up everything important anywhere, all at once.

Imagine this: You're a guard standing on a balcony over Kharbranth. You're looking out at the sea, and you don't see anything. It's a clear, calm day. Suddenly, several explosions rock the city, and minutes later, landing craft full of soldiers that carry weapons which can simply point and kill at a distance arrive.

Would you connect those explosions with flying fabrials moving so fast nobody has even seen them, being launched from bigger flying fabrials moving at similar speeds, that're hundreds of miles away, and just arrived a week ago?

Could you even comprehend that what the soldiers are using to kill your men is a tiny metal projectile moving faster than you can see, when you've never even seen fireworks before because gunpowder doesn't exist?

I'm certain that, within a couple days, the presence of jets would be pretty well confirmed, and eventually a scout would follow one leaving a carrier, at their Alethi commander's bidding, and watch it drop the tiny flying cylinders under its wings, and correspond those with explosions somewhere else... I'm sure a gun would eventually be captured and pulled apart by artifabrians, and they'd realize how it worked...

...but not before significant losses. This is A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, but the Yanks aren't explaining anything and anyone with a first-hand account is dead. Would a Lightweaver even realize that there are missiles to distract with radar interference? That radio isn't just a type of advanced spanreed? That those spinning discs atop warships are literally seeing them with microwaves? I seriously doubt it. Which is why I think even invisibility wouldn't work, because they don't know they need to change anything but visible light.

And finally. The United States Military. Is. HUGE. It is enormous. As much damage as 50 Radiants and 450-odd squires can do, every single individual in a 1.3 million active-duty-member military carries gear that can kill them in a single trigger pull. If every Radiant and squire kills 100 Americans before they're killed (Which I say a very generous estimate, and average Rosharan troops are practically negligible), that's a smaller death toll than Vietnam, which is bad, but manageable, and only 3.7% of the active military, not counting reserves. Every Radiant and squire kills 1000 troops before they're killed (An obscene estimate), and that's really bad, but only a little more than WWII, and while 37% of the active military, that's again not counting reserves.

And while new Radiants can be formed, I don't believe it'd be replenishable, especially as a single radiant dying takes the powers from about 9 squires, meaning you lose 10 active magic users with one death. It might even make the spren leave, due to the heavy losses, and even still full powers take weeks, if not months or years, to achieve, time Roshar doesn't have. And even then, that's ignoring the fact that off-world people can actually bond spren, which is a whole other rabbit hole. 

In the end, the United States' ability to comprehend Roshar far more than Roshar can comprehend them, during the first few days (as well as it's utter tankiness) makes a Rosharan victory nonviable.

Of course, it Roshar is fully prepared, that's another Forum entirely...

Edited December 2, 2025 by TheFlatScadrian

[Returned he/him]

9 hours ago, TheFlatScadrian said:

The right balance of these things can lead to any outcome.

Agreed, 100%. One thing to note (I couldn't think of a good way to fit this in elsewhere, so it's here) is that "common knowledge on Roshar" seems underdefined. I very much doubt that the typical person in Azir knows much of anything about Radiants, Fused, their powers, or how fabrials work, certainly not in any detail. How much the invaders know about Surgebinding and fabrials seems like a really important detail, especially when the Rosharans are stuck knowing nothing about the invaders.

I remain unconvinced that the invaders' victory is guaranteed, though. There is visual evidence enough to reason out the broad outlines of what missiles and bullets are: contrails from missiles, ballistic traces from bullets, and so on. I would even argue that there is more evidence of those things than of the magical mechanisms Rosharans use. You don't need to understand the details to know "fast", "damaging", or "explosive" and then choose to avoid open confrontation. If someone showed up and started pointing a stick here and there, and everywhere the stick points someone gets bloody holes torn in them, you know enough to avoid situations where the stick can be pointed at you. It's not even that shocking, given that we know they use lashed objects as weapons. Evidence of a bombardment suggests shelter, and missiles are not fundamentally different from trebuchets or catapults (which we know they had at Rathalas) or even manually hurled boulders in that regard.

Your arguments all seem to depend on the speed and range of missiles and aircraft, but those are straightforwardly dealt with by going underground or deep into a mountain (where they can remain indefinitely and with no support). Radiants and Fused are minutes away from getting to those places, deeply enough to avoid the missiles and bombs, at which point I'm not sure how much good the missiles and aircraft do for the invaders. Lightweavers aren't needed for that at all. So the main factor is how effectively the initial strike kills key people, before they have the chance to go to ground (if you'll forgive the almost-pun). That seems essentially random to me (because the invaders have no way to track individual people with that precision) unless you're suggesting that the initial salvo basically levels everything on Roshar, which doesn't seem in the spirit of the question.

Once underground the Rosharans have as much time as they want to gather information because the invaders can't reach them nor monitor where they go. They can use spren invisible to the invaders and poke around in the cognitive realm to learn all sorts of things about the invaders' positions, capabilities, and high-value assets. The Rosharans are unlikely to expose themselves above ground often, and ironically (Alanis-style) the more devastating the initial strike the more cautious they would be, leaving them that much more unreachable for that much longer.

The Rosharan counter-strategy seems obvious to me, to take out the central assets of the invaders rather than bothering engaging soldiers in the field. I'm imagining that that's the aircraft carriers, though I don't think it matters if it turns out to be something else. Specific tactics are probably outside of the scope of the thread, but I can imagine an operation like:

----Begin fun speculation section----

A group of Radiants emerges at the front of a Highstorm, Windrunners and Skybreakers lashing a collection of other Radiants along with them, to travel inside of the storm until it reaches the fleet. The Highstorm provides functionally unlimited Investiture to use, makes it much harder for the invaders to operate while outside, and complicates if not neutralizes radar/sonar based air defenses.

Lightweavers create a thin, tall wall of pure darkness around the aircraft carrier(s) being targeted along with illusory invaders dropping from the sky and racing around the ship distractingly. Elsecallers conjure molten bronze which rains down on anyone on deck and then thick metal domes from the air, dropping over relevant portions of the ship (weapons, sensory equipment, doorways and hatches leading from the interior of the ship to the deck if possible) just ahead of the Radiants landing.

Once landed, Edgedancers move rapidly around the ship and remove friction from semi-random parts of the deck as well as ladder rungs, railings, and anything large on the ship (like the landing gears of airplanes). Cryptics spread out across the deck and move to the interior of the ship if needed, emitting piercing screeching noises to distract and impede communication. Windrunners have stones and lash them repeatedly, moving as fast as bullets, and Skybreakers shatter them into smaller, sharp projectiles (if they can use Division at range, I don't know if we have information on how that Surge can be used). Other Radiants bring picks and hammers (or Shardpicks/Shardhammers from their spren) and strike anything that seems like it's coated in aluminum to expose what's beneath and allow magic to penetrate. Elsecallers move across the deck, sealing any door or hatch they see by Soulcasting thick slabs of metal over them, preceded by spren who seek out anything that might be worth barricading. Any surviving soldiers on the deck are enclosed in blobs of total darkness created by Lightweavers and then pelted from above by stones lashed from within the storm or crushed by metal conjured above them (or just encased in more domes).

Elsecallers and Skybreakers move below the waterline and start damaging the hull (lashed objects, explosive/corrosive Soulcastings), constantly trying to apply Investiture to it until they are successful in affecting the ship itself. Then they go nuts, Soulcasting portions of the hull or shattering them with Division and soon the ship is taking on water. Edgedancers increase the abrasion of the ship's propulsion, ruining it with its own motion, or Elsecallers just encase the system in solid metal.

Now massive things are sliding all over the deck, airplanes especially slide off into the sea, soldiers on the deck are dead, incapacitated, or having trouble moving around and finding targets to oppose, soldiers inside of the ship are trapped, and the ship (or ships) is (or are) sinking. If the Radiants are interested in getting into the ship they have some options for doing so, more than the soldiers have to get out, and even a pinhole-sized opening lets Elsecallers turn the air in a chamber to oil which they then ignite, which is bad for anyone inside. If they find the airplane storage hangar or munitions/fuel storage, the air turns to oil which is then ignited. Windrunners and Skybreakers lash anything that seems useful or interesting (like the invaders' guns or armor) up into the storm, where waiting Windrunner squires collect anything that makes it through for study back in their bunkers. They also lash any soldiers that Lightweavers might be able to imitate (I'm mostly thinking about height) similarly.

Most of the Radiants then withdraw, having seriously degraded the invaders' abilities with the raid in less than half an hour (or some span of time that makes more sense, it just can't be longer than the storm). Some Lightweavers remain behind, disguised as abducted soldiers to be "rescued" later, perhaps feigning concussions. They can then gather further intelligence or carry out assassinations, their cryptics slide all around the invaders' domains and eavesdrop, learn voices of key officers, read operational manuals, sow confusion, possibly sabotage very small things, or any number of other tasks, vanishing to Shadesmar in the blink of an eye if they think it necessary.

Things get worse for the invaders from there, having lost assets that are difficult or impossible to replace and the support capabilities that go with them. They've lost a lot of supplies and materiel, including aircraft. Their remaining forces and weapons can be baited with non-specific illusions (just blobs of blackness, attached to spheres which are lashed by Windrunners to fly menacingly wherever they want). The Rosharans now have guns and other equipment to study, and once they learn the basics they can manufacture their own, potentially even higher-quality versions almost for free, which they can also use to develop more specific counter-strategies for on their own schedule. The invaders still can't reach them, the Radiants still get to engage at their preference, and are able to equip mundane Rosharans with modern gear which they increasingly understand how to deal with. They whittle down the invaders' remaining assets, focusing especially on supply caches. Without support and resupply 2.1 million soldiers will see their combat effectiveness only degrade, and eventually they'll starve (or, in trying to secure enough land to grow crops, spread themselves thin enough to become vulnerable-- Roshar's main continent is massive, about the size of Asia).

----End fun speculation section----

Obviously not a guaranteed-successful mission, and not the only way things could shake out, but such an operation would seem to address a lot of the invaders' advantages and play to Rosharans' strengths while also being very hard to deal with. Rosharan victory being non-viable strikes me as an extreme overstatement. But I do think I've been too cavalier about the Rosharans-- there's a lot that could go wrong for them every step of the way, and you're right to point out that every one they lose is a huge blow that they can't really recover from. That plus the initial missile strike (which would be bad even if not catastrophic) doesn't give them a lot of space to be ground down.

Edited December 3, 2025 by Returned

[NameIess]

I think that if the US is smart, which I presume they are, they would bomb most important targets on Roshar in their initial strike. Urithiru for certain, likely the war camps as well, and Thaylenah, as well as any large military groups they would be able to find out on the field (through common knowledge, since it generally seems to be known where forces are being deployed). This would eliminate quite a few of the Radiants, probably including Jasnah, (who is, by the way, the only Elsecaller the Radiants have)Dalinar, Shallan, possibly even Kaladin and the majority of the Windrunners, Stonewards, and Edgedancers if they can find the armies and carpet bomb them.

The biggest hurdle with the initial airstrike is lack of gps, which could make finding the locations and pulling off a near-synchronous strike difficult. 

And yes, even if the strike goes perfectly, some resistance will survive. Radiants will likely turn to guerilla tactics, and Lightweavers could be very effective once they got a handle on the situation.

One big problem for Lightweavers, be they Fused or human, that I haven’t seen anyone talk about is the language barrier. Sure, they could crack it with the help of Cryptics. But could they learn to speak natural English quickly?

 

[TheFlatScadrian]

18 hours ago, Returned said:

----Begin fun speculation section----

A group of Radiants emerges at the front of a Highstorm, Windrunners and Skybreakers lashing a collection of other Radiants along with them, to travel inside of the storm...

[...]

----End fun speculation section----

I need to see that as a cinematic immediately.

(That's so fricken' cool)

Some context:

Most modern warships can't survive hurricanes unscathed. They certainly can ride them out, but even so, they take heavy precautions, such as putting aircraft under the deck and quite literally battening the hatches. A High storm, which moves at triple the speed of an average hurricane and is full of a godly level of debris, in one, predictable direction, would be avoided at all costs. It's safe to assume that any Highstorm-facilitated attack on a carrier, or any other ship, would be in a bay, inlet, or other similar haven, rather than in the open sea. There'd be no airplanes, and very few personnel, on deck at all.

Plus, it can be assumed that the area around a ships' haven would be brimming with anti-aircraft weaponry, machine gun nests, and artillery cannons, making that assault a lot harder for the Rosharans than an attack on a carrier at sea. And if the ship is docked in a captured city, that not only gives the Americans better vantage points around it, but more frankly, human shielding that the Radiants will be unwilling to just attack. 

Also, I sort of doubt that they'd really understand to block radar specifically, but we've covered that exhaustively and I doubt it'd really matter if they're waterfalling molten bronze everywhere.

12 hours ago, Ookla the Married said:

But could they learn to speak natural English quickly?

That's a really good point; I hadn't even considered that!

There are some instances of certain abilities granting an enhanced understanding of language (Syl learning to read in a single week; Venli being able to speak several Rosharan languages), but every one of those languages is of Odium, Cultivation, or Honor, and have been spoken and written on Roshar for millennia. I have no idea if the same would apply to an off-world language at all.

And that's not helped by the fact that the U.S. Military uses two types of language: normal, everyday English, and radio English. Radio English is almost a completely different way of speaking, with the NATO phonetic alphabet, brevity codes, and code words for specific events and instances. And that, coupled with the fact the U.S. gives nearly everything a random codename, makes learning both a new language and both styles of it nearly impossible, even for Cryptics.

("They call the Highstorm 'Oklahoma', whatever that means, but it has no etymological connections to any other words they use to refer to it? Huh?!")

12 hours ago, Ookla the Married said:

Urithiru for certain, likely the war camps as well, and Thaylenah, as well as any large military groups they would be able to find out on the field (through common knowledge, since it generally seems to be known where forces are being deployed). This would eliminate quite a few of the Radiants, probably including Jasnah, (who is, by the way, the only Elsecaller the Radiants have)Dalinar, Shallan, possibly even Kaladin and the majority of the Windrunners, Stonewards, and Edgedancers if they can find the armies and carpet bomb them.

The biggest hurdle with the initial airstrike is lack of gps, which could make finding the locations and pulling off a near-synchronous strike difficult. 

18 hours ago, Returned said:

But I do think I've been too cavalier about the Rosharans-- there's a lot that could go wrong for them every step of the way, and you're right to point out that every one they lose is a huge blow that they can't really recover from. That plus the initial missile strike (which would be bad even if not catastrophic) doesn't give them a lot of space to be ground down.

The single biggest problem with a bombing or barrage is Truthwatchers. If a Truthwatcher sees something coming, they can warn everybody, and forces can clear out in time to avoid massive casualties, even if their infrastructure is destroyed. I think it's fair to say that they can't really do much against high-altitude, supersonic bombing, but they could certainly predict it, and escape in time. If Renarin is able to sense the future, and tells Dalinar, Urithiru could evacuate in time.

Maybe.

See, the problem is that we don't know how far into the future Truthwatchers can see, or even how they do it at all. It might just be a property of Investiture, that it can sense potential outcomes (like Gold on Scadrial), but it might be based on Intent, and we have no idea how it'd work with stuff that has literally no Investiture, such as someone or something from Earth.

I think that, with everything we know, the earliest Renarin (or any other Truthwatcher) might know is the moment the bombers are "teleported" to Roshar. 

In Words of Radiance, we watch ~30,000 Alethi use the Oathgate on the Shattered Plains to retreat from the Everstorm to Urithiru (That's a lot of proper nouns). They have to use the gate twice, and we can assume they're moving ~15,000 people per, along with their supplies and gear, each time. In total, this all takes approximately 30 minutes to 1 hour to do, because while Oathgates are instant, it takes time to move so many people, animals, and supplies onto a massive platform. 

However, as of Rhythm of War, the period that this invasion is set, three Gates are viable:

Vedenar in Jah Keved,

Thaylen City in Thaylenah,

and the Azish capital Azimir in the Azish Empire.

They could, potentially, cut their time down to thirty minutes to an hour...

...but that's only if their arrival points are capable of handling literally tens of thousands of people all at once (Which they aren't), which could extend their evacuation indefinitely.

It's also possible that they go to the Shattered Plains, but that's not really viable, because at most points in a week, a bombing campaign would expose the group to a Highstorm on their way back to the camps. The other places are completely uninhabited, unprotected from storms, or controlled by enemies.

As of the beginning of Rhythm of War, Urithiru is estimated to have about 300,000 people living in it full-time. This means that, best case, it takes a hour and forty minutes to evacuate, and worst case, 3 hours and twenty minutes or greater. 

The diameter of Roshar ranges, in estimate, from 4,000 miles (6,400km) across, to 6,400 miles (10,300km) across. I've always assumed that the "point in the sea" the U.S. comes from is South of the Tarat Sea, but at furthest, it's Northeast, off the tip of Alethkar.

B2 bombers have a cruising speed of 600 miles per hour.

So, best case scenario for the Rosharans:

- 30,000 people every 30 minutes; 5 hours for one gate, 1 hour 40 minutes for three.

- A maximum distance of travel of 3,000 miles for their enemies, takes 5 hours.

That gives the Rosharans just barely enough time to maybe save everyone, if they use one Oathgate. They could easily shrink their evacuation time by using all three, to just an hour and thirty minutes, but even still that's disregarding the capacity of the three cities receiving these evacuees, and the speed that they can even process them. Sending everybody into Shadesmar would be difficult, even if they use all ten portals for it, as most Oathgates are in the middle of the bead sea and can't really hold 30,000 people comfortably. Nor could they feed them in Shadesmar.

The absolutely perfect, unattainable best case scenario, America has a really bad tactical plan, Urithiru is destroyed, 300,000 people are refugees to countries or realms that can't sustain them, and their arrival points are attacked a few minutes later anyway OR they're stranded in a place where they slowly starve to death.

Worst case scenario for the Rosharans:

- 30,000 people every hour; 10 hours for one gate, 3 hours 20 minutes for three.

- A maximum distance of travel of about 1,000 miles for their enemies, takes 1 hour 40 minutes.

That gives the Rosharans not enough time to get even half their people out. All the same problems above still apply.

And that's if everything goes perfectly.

I kind of lied. The absolute worst-case scenario is that the United States understands the Oathgate connections (which is actually common knowledge, now) and bombs the three recieving cities (And the warcamps) first, destroying the gates. Renarin knowing this and telling everyone would force refugees to Urithiru, not away from it, or force everyone to somewhere uninhabited or desolate.

And...

The United States knows about Highstorms, too (again, common knowledge). If they do the raids a couple hours before a projected Highstorm arrives, or even fly right before the Highstorm to arrive minutes before it hits, the refugees would have no way to survive, even if they all made it out in time. Most military airplanes can stay aloft for hours, easily flying above Highstorms (and faster than them). Windrunners and Skybreakers can't catch up to the planes, or even achieve an altitude as high as them without passing out (especially because they're so used to Roshar's denser atmosphere at low altitudes).

The most likely outcome is that, after Renarin's vision, Dalinar orders an evacuation order for Urithiru and every major city in the country, using Urithiru as a way station to get to other places, which takes hours. They try to make it to some other, abandoned Oathgate city before the strikes, or even to Shadesmar, but before they can fully evacuate they are hit hard by massive airstrikes and hundreds of thousands are killed across every major Rosharan city as gates are annihilated, and thousands of refugees are in transit across the Oathgate plateau in Urithiru when it gets bombed (Because times double if you're going from Thaylen City to Azimir via Urithiru). Urithiru collapses, and Dalinar, along with most Radiants, are killed. Unfortunately, Jasnah probably escapes because she'd want to go to Shadesmar with the first group and set up camp, but at least Navani probably lives for the same reason (And Dalinar's protectiveness). Kaladin is unfortunately toast, too, or maybe not, but that's just speculation. 

Dalinar stays in Urithiru to the last, with his Radiants, powering Oathgates with their powers and his Perpendicularity. They are all killed in the firebombing. Some Radiants, as well as Jasnah and Navani, might've escaped to another city, or Shadesmar, but it's doubtful they can do much anymore, or even have the will to. The sheer power of one or several explosions that would immolate you would drain Stormlight beyond all reasonable limits.

At least, that's probably what would happen.

Edited December 3, 2025 by TheFlatScadrian

[Returned he/him]

1 hour ago, TheFlatScadrian said:

Plus, it can be assumed that the area around a ships' haven would be brimming with anti-aircraft weaponry, machine gun nests, and artillery cannons, making that assault a lot harder for the Rosharans than an attack on a carrier at sea. And if the ship is docked in a captured city, that not only gives the Americans better vantage points around it, but more frankly, human shielding that the Radiants will be unwilling to just attack. 

Is that effective during a hurricane, or through the walls of perfect darkness? Would the defenses really be turned on their own ship with zero visibility? Can radar meaningfully penetrate something like a Highstorm to detect human-sized objects within it? Could ships as massive as the aircraft carriers dock in a Rosharan dock? I don't know enough to feel confident of the answers. The rest of the operation I imagined should still work similarly well with the other details. I mostly posted the mission outline because I had fun thinking it out and wanted to post it, so thanks for reading 

13 hours ago, Ookla the Married said:

One big problem for Lightweavers, be they Fused or human, that I haven’t seen anyone talk about is the language barrier. Sure, they could crack it with the help of Cryptics. But could they learn to speak natural English quickly?

Excellent point that I had glossed over. With one captured invader a Bondsmith could overcome this for limited periods but otherwise I think you're right-- the Rosharans are not going to be able to speak or understand in the field. The closest they could get might be a cryptic memorizing phonetically and bringing the exact sequence of sounds back to the Bondsmith to "translate", but that seems to have a huge number of serious limitations. Also, great catch on the lack of Elsecallers available. Even if they had more of them I also think that Jasnah is uniquely capable and I would not expect the abilities of a generic Elsecaller to be as useful as what she can do.

1 hour ago, TheFlatScadrian said:

I think that, with everything we know, the earliest Renarin (or any other Truthwatcher) might know is the moment the bombers are "teleported" to Roshar. 

I don't think this is sound. One of the arcs of Words of Radiance involves Renarin foreseeing the return of the Fused and the coming of the Everstorm months in advance, and even provides a countdown to the exact day that it occurs. I wouldn't want to rely on it but if we're tapping Renarin's abilities we should give them their due (though I am on record as thinking that futuresight in the Cosmere is radically overvalued, those deficiencies probably don't apply to the invaders very much). We don't know the content of those particular visions, so maybe they're not specific enough to suggest specific actions, but in Oathbringer his visions seem to be very specific representations of the dangerous events (he distinctly sees Jasnah killing him and Dalinar falling in the field).

The lack of specific knowledge about the mechanism is difficult to deal with but even if it can't predict the invaders' futures it should still be able to predict the Rosharans', but I suspect that applications of Investiture should work on the invaders because we know that normal Earth-people are (potentially Sanderson has left some wiggle room) just like drabs on Nalthis. He was definitive that an Earthling could be cut with a Shardblade the same way as a Cosmere native, rather than as an object, which suggests that Investiture can work on the invaders to at least some degree and that they could not themselves make use of it:

Spoiler

Luke Beartline

Along the lines of BioChromatic Breath being akin to a person's soul, how would a Shardblade react to someone who does not have any Breath, would it cut them like an inanimate object?

Brandon Sanderson

No. Remember, one of the things with Breath is I consider Breath to be a part of someone's soul, but it is the extra part that the Cosmere has that non-Cosmere doesn't have. I don't know how far I want to lean into this, but there is definitely a part of me that thinks that Drabs, people who have given up their breath on Nalthis, are just like people from our world. That's what they are, that if we went to the Cosmere we would all be Drabs. Even on planets that aren't Nalthis, where you can't take part of that and give it away and things like that, people are invested. They are invested generally more than here.

YouTube Spoiler Stream 2 (June 3, 2021)

 

As to the rest, I still say you are overestimating the abilities of the invaders' bombardments (earlier this year it took the U.S. military four missile strikes to destroy a single small boat all alone in uncontested waters with no countermeasures of any kind, but for a general-devastation bombardment of a large area that's not really an issue) and just going underground seems like a very reasonable defense to a variety of forewarnings (and certainly after one strike). The specificity of Renarin's visions would of course be key to whether or not they take this particular action before the initial bombardment so I don't think this is a guarantee that they would be able to deal with the event effectively.

Urithiru is built into a gigantic mountain among a range of gigantic mountains and already has a good deal of tunnel infrastructure deep within it, and it wouldn't be any harder to move the population deeper there than out to the Oathgates, and Dustbringers, Skybreakers, Stonewards, and Willshapers can trivially excavate more very quickly. Your point that the Radiants would probably stay to help the civilians is a very good one, though-- that exposes them to the maximum amount of danger from the bombardment, if any evacuation takes place during one. But the refugees' survival itself is not relevant to the military response to the invaders, it's relevant only to the degree that it causes Radiants to expose themselves to danger to accomplish it.

We see many examples in the books of the Radiant coalition ceding territory they know they can't defend or retake, so while they'd want to save as many as possible they might have a very practical definition of "possible". We also see in RoW that they are prepared to take their highest value people away from danger (Jasnah transferring Dalinar to Shadesmar if their field operation goes poorly), so I wouldn't assume Dalinar is going to stay put through the bombardment. Nonetheless that significantly increases the likely damage of the initial barrage to the Radiants' most vital resources and crippling any response. And that initial strike is by far the most important operation for the invaders, so even marginally more success there might matter a lot.

This doesn't fit in anywhere in the responses but it's a fun idea (like the carrier raid), so I wanted to mention it here: Shardcages. With enough cooperating Radiant spren, they could form a gigantic, fine lattice or cage surrounding some volume of space. Since Shardblades are indestructible (excepting Nightblood), this takes anything so enclosed out of the fight for the duration (the gaps between bars of the cage I am imagining to be too small for missiles, vehicles, and larger projectiles to get through). If they could identify the spawn point and form a small cage around it they could immediately destroy or at least negate anything coming through. There isn't really anything the invaders could do about it once a cage is formed, and if the spren can coordinate the change they could contract (potentially, I have some questions about Shardmetal's state when shifting forms) and just crush everything inside. They wouldn't be able to cut through any aluminum but they could still crush it.

Edited December 3, 2025 by Returned

[TheFlatScadrian]

1 hour ago, Returned said:

Urithiru is built into a gigantic mountain among a range of gigantic mountains and already has a good deal of tunnel infrastructure deep within it, and it wouldn't be any harder to move the population deeper there than out to the Oathgates, and Dustbringers, Skybreakers, Stonewards, and Willshapers can trivially excavate more very quickly. Your point that the Radiants would probably stay to help the civilians is a very good one, though-- that exposes them to the maximum amount of danger from the bombardment, if any evacuation takes place during one. But the refugees' survival itself is not relevant to the military response to the invaders, it's relevant only to the degree that it causes Radiants to expose themselves to danger to accomplish it. We see many examples in the books of the Radiant coalition ceding territory they know they can't defend or retake, so while they'd want to save as many as possible they might have a very practical definition of "possible". Nonetheless that significantly increases the likely damage of the initial barrage to the Radiants' most vital resources and crippling any response. And that initial strike is by far the most important operation for the invaders, so even marginally more success there might matter a lot.

True, actually, and I'm glad you reminded me. I don't know if, as of RoW, they have the skills or thought to use there powers that way, and I could see an instance of bias towards the Oathgates with the digging as a last resort, which would be worse for them. They're still people, and easily frightened. Oathgate use feels less permanent, and they want to believe Renarin is wrong. 

But even if they did go the mole-people route, constantly seceding territory is sort of just a loss anyway. If the U.S. now controls like 90% of your country, and you're in a cave in the mountains eating rock-soulcast slurry, I don't think that's really a win, exactly, or even a recoverable, temporary loss.

Counterinsurgency is really a measure of last resort, although I could see them, against odds, pulling it off successfully.

The U.S. mostly loses to counterinsurgency due to policy rather than purely military reasons, but Radiants are a little more terrifying than the Taliban.

Urithiru, I think we can all agree, is as good as destroyed. So are all the Oathgates, which cripples the Rosharan alliances and military strategy, meaning armies need long marches or can't march at all. Even licking your wounds in the Mines of mUria, you still need a way to reach the coast in the first place, which is... rough, when you have to fly over actively contested area that you can guarantee the Americans are patrolling constantly.

Maybe the Radiants could tunnel all the way to the sea (And that'd be crazy useful), but if the Americans find them under there, well... bad stuff happens the second they reveal it. Like a remote-controlled rover with a bunch of C4 strapped to it. But it could be devastating to the U.S. if the Radiants do it well.

1 hour ago, Returned said:

Is that effective during a hurricane, or through the walls of perfect darkness? Would the defenses really be turned on their own ship with zero visibility? Can radar meaningfully penetrate something like a Highstorm to detect human-sized objects within it? Could ships as massive as the aircraft carriers dock in a Rosharan dock? I don't know enough to feel confident of the answers. The rest of the operation I imagined should still work similarly well with the other details. I mostly posted the mission outline because I had fun thinking it out and wanted to post it, so thanks for reading 

It was fun to read!

Most of those defenses are radar and IR based, so I might assume that they could still track them through darkness and illusions (And if they're in cover, of course, but that's where it matters) but we also don't know how fast Lightweavers would figure it out, and that's up in the air (Although being holed up in a mountain might hinder technological discovery). A carrier could probably fit in Kharbranth harbor. And if Lightweavers figure out radar and IR it's all over. 

But again, that's all speculation we've covered and could reasonably be confident about either way, depending on a few incalculable variables.

And your right. At the end of the day, your strategy is pretty dang good, and really fricken' cool, and even if the U.S. can (and probably would) kill a few Radiants and squires every assault, the loss of an entire carrier could be a worthy trade off.

Although it's absurdly hard to sink any carrier. 2,000 lbs bombs went off on the deck of the USS Forrestal and it was fine after some repairs. But the Radiants are extremely resilient. They'd probably find a way to do it though, especially because explosive defense is a little irrelevant when your ship has been rusted in half and set on fire.

But I have a strategy of my own...

---Fun Speculation Time!---

Okay. So Urithiru is gone, Dalinar is dead because moving people into a rock as it's being excavated is tough and takes a while. Huge portions of the population is dead or under American rule in the major population centers, and without the Radiants or their leaders the conventional armies are falling fast and hard, especially after the bombardments of major cities. Jasnah is alive, and Navani rules in the stead of Dalinar, but the loss of Kaladin (attempting to save his father) is a hard blow, as their first active Radiant. And Urithiru's collapse was... hard to watch. Many Radiants are in a dark place right now. So Adolin and Shallan, working with Jasnah, propose a plan (@Returned's plan!).

It works outstandingly well. The U.S.S Theodore Roosevelt is still burning and half-sunk in Kharbranth, its deck only now regaining friction, and the U.S.S Carl Vinson is a rusted hulk at the bottom of the Tarat sea, a chunk of stone encased around its screw. The Radiants are invigorated, although they've lost friends in each salvo, and the spren don't seem to be returning. The Storm Father's withdrawal after his daughter's death was... hard, for the spren. But the humans are trucking along regardless.

So the U.S. has this really neat carrier, called the U.S.S Dwight D. Eisenhower. It's a Nimitz-class, and near decommissioning; set for 2027, especially with the new Gerald R. Ford-class carriers being the next big generation on the horizon. Well, the Americans have a plan. They send the U.S.S D.D.E to attack the shores of the Azish empire, because even though they control Azir and most of the Makabaki states, the Yezzier and Desh are still fighting back, and it's irritating high command. The carrier goes up and down the coast, deploying planes all over the poor, under-equipped insurgents, and generally making a nuisance on the conscience of the Radiants while simultaneously serving the front line in the West.

The Radiants resolve to destroy it next Highstorm.

Renarin tries to warn Adolin of the dangers, but Adolin reassures his brother, saying that his most terrible visions have been wrong before. Why shouldn't they do this?

The next Highstorm, it's parked in the Berizhet Inlet in Liafor, near Tashikk. Adolin has wanted to help Liafor for ages (if only because he misses their fashion) and the others agree to it. They suit up, and send out the twenty-five or so odd Radiants they still have left.

They darken the skies, destroy radar and IR, rain molten bronze, de-friction surfaces, cut through bulkheads and encase parts of the ship in stone.

The soldiers on the deck climbed overboard and drove away in weird, small boats (that looked unlike even the more conventional ships, like some smooth black animal with a larger body beneath the water) before they even started, so they let them go. There's no reason to kill fleeing men. They land on the deck and run / slide/ glide around, destroying everything. When they approached, there where no airplanes on deck, and little gear. Not that that's uncommon, for Highstorms.

It's almost satisfying, although it is odd that there's not even a little gunfire, and that boat those men got inside has vanished underwater---

KRACKA-BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM

The entire ship explodes, its deck shredding to pieces as the 10,000 tons of really cheap, easy to acquire ANFO beneath the deck explode instantly, cracking the frame in half, crushing or exploding every deck above and below, and sending a shock-wave outward that levels buildings and blows out windows for miles in a blast nearly twice that of the Beirut Explosion, bordering on 8.3 kilotons. Every Radiant and squire on or above deck is instantly vaporized and a massive tidal bore smashes into Berizhet, killing over a thousand citizens.

If even a single Radiant or squire survives, somehow, they bring back the news that Adolin and Shallan are killed in the blast, and that it was a trap. The survivors back in the caves wonder what people could sacrifice something as powerful as one of those ships just to kill them, and speculate (Falsely, because it was just pure luck that they even had a carrier to sacrifice) that the military they've fought is barely a fraction of the U.S.'s power. Jasnah, under pressure and secretly terrified and mentally broken, agrees with a similarly-off Navani, and both offer to surrender.  

---End of Fun Speculation Time---

What about that? 

(The AI I used for some information (Which I fact-checked) told me it was possible but a "monumentally bad idea", when I asked if I could fit 1,000 tons of ANFO under an aircraft carrier flight deck, so I dectupled the amount. Apparently it'd barely be a fraction of the total capacity of the ship, but still level Manhattan.)

~~~

What I think I've learned the most is that it'd be really hard either way for either side, and the Americans would get the upper hand first, but the Rosharans would be devastating as strike teams and might pull off a successful counterinsurgency.

Edited December 3, 2025 by TheFlatScadrian