To win a Desolation

[Returned he/him]

1 hour ago, Qianweilian said:

You need to kill all the willshapers as well, they have transportation, also making a siege pointless.

I'd been leaning on the "it's much harder to leave Shadesmar than to enter it" thing to disregard the Transportation surge, but I think you're right. That the four third-Oath Willshapers are in the keep is too serious an issue to ignore. If we think we can pick off individual Radiants, they should be on the list as well. I'd prioritize them below the Elsecaller and Windrunners, but I'm not sure where I'd place them among the rest. It might be hard to bait them into a position where they could be realistically targeted.

[Frustration]

Alright, we have a few difficulties.

1. 34 Radiants with shardblades. That's almost 70% of the total number of Windrunners with Shardblades during RoW, all in one spot.
2. 6 of those radiants also have shardplate. Just two people with dead plate and blades with good support held off a massive invasion force for nine days. Now they did have Heralds support them once, but still something to be noted
3. They have a total of 122 individuals who can fly. Four of them can be seen as completely untouchable by any Heavenly ones, and a full 19 have a staggering advantage. Without massive investment the Radiants will have complete air supremacy.
4. Honor still lives, and can hurry Highstorms along so as to provide Stormlight, and information to other forces.
5. At its greatest distance the entire purelake is within ~700 miles of either an Oathgate, or Urithiru. That means that Windrunners can easily make it to whichever point is closer and back in only 2-3 hours at most. In all probability the distance is much closer. That means that we have to hit hard and fast before reinforcements arrive.
6. The thing is surrounded by water, so Stormforms are mostly useless

I'm going to try and accomplish this with as few resources as possible, but it will be difficult 

First we need a way to deal with Shardplate. If we can't handle that it will be a thorn in our side for the rest of the endeavor as they can put six basically invulnerable forces of nature wherever they are the most needed. So far only a few things in our arsenal have been shown to be dangerous to shardplate. Magnified Ones, and Focused Ones will both be crucial, however they have no way to truly pose a threat in the air. For this we need the only other thing that has been shown to be dangerous to shardplate that we have access to: Midnight essence.

In the Starfall vision Dalinar tells us that the midnight essense was able to crack shardplate with its claws. They weren't incredibly strong as Dalinar could wrestle with one, so I must assume that they have a natural ability to break shardplate. The Radiant also told Dalinar that someone had released the midnight essense, implying that it can be stored and transported. Likewise most spren seem to be able to fly naturally, however if need be the midnight essence can take the form of a creature with wings.

Second, is we need air superiority, and badly. If we can cut off access to the fortress we can mostly isolate it, however if not they can send for and receive reinforcements before we can place a siege sufficiently long to last them out. For that we need a lot of heavenly ones. My minimum estimate is around 200, with Re-Shephir to provide the midnight essence needed to swarm the windrunners and deal with shardplate. Even then, having four Radiants with shardplate in the sky is a huge task, but I believe it to be possible. Of extra-importance is to target the third oaths so that their squires fall with them.

Next is actually storming the fortress. Historical examples lead me to believe that it is unwise is to attack with less than ten times the number of the defenders. Fortunately Re-Shephir makes this significantly easier, but I'm still going to want at least 2000 direforms, given that their strength and armor effectively makes them 2-3x a human soldier or more.

Next we need to prepare siege equipment, ladders, boats, preferably siege towers if we have the time to make them. I'll need some 10 Altered Ones to make them. We'll put most of our 200+ stormforms in the boats to keep them dry, though they won't be useful for some time yet.

Our army will make its way towards the fortress, with some 40 Flowing Ones moving along the sides at high speeds to keep Radiants from harrying our forces on the way in. Two siege towers will be pushed along by a total of 4 Magnified Ones, and I'll have a total of 6 more ready to climb the ladder as soon at its ready, with 2 stormforms at the top of each ready to make an opening at the top. This is part of why having air superiority is so important, if the Radiants get a chance to cut these towers down in motion our attack is in big trouble. I'm going to try and do this without a Thunderclast, but a Thunderclast would be really useful here as well.

On approach 6 Focused Ones, and 2 Husked Ones will jump/teleport onto the wall just as the towers arrive. Once openings are made ladders are raised and it's a rush to get every single soldier we have inside the fortress before they can be forced out.

Even with all of this I'm still not certain of success, as the 5th ideal Windrunner could cut down both towers, and kill a Thunderclasts just in the approach, while still being attacked.

Which is a whole lot

Spoiler

1 Unmade

6 Focused Ones

2 Husked Ones

10 Magnified Ones

10 Altered Ones

40 Flowing Ones

200 Heavenly Ones

200+ Stormforms

2000 Direforms

Just for a possible chance of success.

[Qianweilian He/him]

40 minutes ago, Frustration said:

They weren't incredibly strong as Dalinar could wrestle with one, so I must assume that they have a natural ability to break shardplate.

Tbf, this was thrill enhanced Dalinar..

43 minutes ago, Frustration said:

with Re-Shephir to provide the midnight essence needed to swarm the windrunners and deal with shardplate

If we get one of the Unmade to assist in our attack, that's a significantly more powerful force, especially considering the Heralds have the benefits of the Oathgates in higher mobility.

44 minutes ago, Frustration said:

Next is actually storming the fortress. Historical examples lead me to believe that it is unwise is to attack with less than ten times the number of the defenders.

I think Rosharan warfare—especially during the desolations—is different enough that historical examples aren't really relevant.

45 minutes ago, Frustration said:

Next we need to prepare siege equipment, ladders, boats, preferably siege towers if we have the time to make them.

Do we even know what this fortress looks like? I doubt it's just a medieval castle. Also, how would siege towers maneuver in the Purelake?

47 minutes ago, Frustration said:

Even with all of this I'm still not certain of success, as the 5th ideal Windrunner could cut down both towers, and kill a Thunderclasts just in the approach, while still being attacked.

This is why I think an infiltration of some sort is a far better prospect.

[Returned he/him]

@Frustration's general considerations seem sound, as usual. But I think that there are two big issues to be aware of when thinking about a specific scenario like this:

1. Taking a keep seems generally not that important in itself in a world with Surgebinders all over the place, or at least we don't know why such a thing might be worth the effort to them (as I mentioned above) and so it's difficult to identify when it would be too difficult to bother with. This is essentially the idea in the OP that it's not clear how the Fused can pose a meaningful threat to Radiant forces. Feverstone might be difficult enough, in this setup, that the Fused would never bother because it is (for all intents and purposes) the case that the Radiants have little to worry about.

2. Humanity never had an easy time of the Desolations, including after the Radiants were established. So even though they ultimately won them all it can't be so lopsided as to be "the Fused basically can't ever win". That leaves either author fiat or considerations that we aren't aware of which make the Fused more capable opponents as explanations for why they weren't blowout victories for the humans. My guess is that it's a mix of both, with the specific detail that tactics favor Radiant forces with high-Oathed members but there are not enough of those high-Oathed members to translate that tactical advantage into a reliable, strategic one. Even to the extent that the Radiants' battlefield advantages are decisive, that just means that the Fused's approach within a Desolation is less likely to focus on the battlefield. And I maintain that the Fused are unlikely to focus much on individual battles, wars, or even Desolations-- that's not the scale on which they're operating. The Fused don't really need to survive engagements, and inflicting casualties and degrading infrastructure advance their goals either way.

[Frustration]

1 hour ago, Qianweilian said:

I think Rosharan warfare—especially during the desolations—is different enough that historical examples aren't really relevant.

I'd argue otherwise. While some of the details might be different, war has a certain sameness to it.

1 hour ago, Qianweilian said:

Do we even know what this fortress looks like? I doubt it's just a medieval castle. Also, how would siege towers maneuver in the Purelake?

It probably doesn't, it would be built differently to withstand highstorms, but it still needs ramparts. As for maneuverability, the water isn't super deep, it's be difficult, but with Magnified Ones it should work

1 hour ago, Qianweilian said:

This is why I think an infiltration of some sort is a far better prospect.

In that case

On 4/27/2026 at 7:01 AM, Qianweilian said:

Here's what I would do: Kill them all

We know that soldiers are coming to reinforce the fortress from Dalinar's vision. I would attack these soldiers and rout them to destroy whatever organization they had. I'll now have masked ones disguise themselves as soldiers and allow the shattered army to retreat to the fortress—where they'll presumably be allowed in. Then I can have these masked ones destroy a small section of aluminum inside the fortress, using illusions to help them do this. This gives an entry point for the deepest ones. Using illusions to again disguise this, I'll use the deepest ones to make a tunnel for my forces—it won't have to be big, as I'll only bring in some of the Fused. Using the masked one's illusions, I'll spread these fused around the fortress. Around this time, I'll have my outside forces attack with thunderclasts and have the heavenly ones attack from above, as the fortress is described as "castle-like," suggesting the possibility of an aerial attack. When many of the Radiants leave the fortress to go fight, I'll use the disguised Fused to attack, hopefully taking command of large portions of the fortress. While the fighting is raging, I'll use altered ones to make something akin to tnt and blow up the fortress. If none of the Fused have any idea what gunpowder is (I mean, they have oil), then I'll have them soulcast the load bearing parts of the fortress. While many of the Fused may die, that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make, the fortress should be in ruins and the Radiants scattered. 

1. This relies quite heavily on Fused being able to use their surges like Radiants, something they either can't do, or is so rare they might as well never do it.
2. What do you do if guards touch your face to make sure you aren't a Masked One? Personally I'd have a knife or something and everyone who enters is required to bleed. Human blood is a different color, and everyone can see it, with a regrowth fabrial to cure everyone after.

34 minutes ago, Returned said:

@Frustration's general considerations seem sound, as usual. But I think that there are two big issues to be aware of when thinking about a specific scenario like this:

1. Taking a keep seems generally not that important in itself in a world with Surgebinders all over the place, or at least we don't know why such a thing might be worth the effort to them (as I mentioned above) and so it's difficult to identify when it would be too difficult to bother with. This is essentially the idea in the OP that it's not clear how the Fused can pose a meaningful threat to Radiant forces. Feverstone might be difficult enough, in this setup, that the Fused would never bother because it is (for all intents and purposes) the case that the Radiants have little to worry about.

2. Humanity never had an easy time of the Desolations, including after the Radiants were established. So even though they ultimately won them all it can't be so lopsided as to be "the Fused basically can't ever win". That leaves either author fiat or considerations that we aren't aware of which make the Fused more capable opponents as explanations for why they weren't blowout victories for the humans. My guess is that it's a mix of both, with the specific detail that tactics favor Radiant forces with high-Oathed members but there are not enough of those high-Oathed members to translate that tactical advantage into a reliable, strategic one. Even to the extent that the Radiants' battlefield advantages are decisive, that just means that the Fused's approach within a Desolation is less likely to focus on the battlefield. And I maintain that the Fused are unlikely to focus much on individual battles, wars, or even Desolations-- that's not the scale on which they're operating. The Fused don't really need to survive engagements, and inflicting casualties and degrading infrastructure advance their goals either way.

Here's my thing, we know that some orders, not the knights Radiant, but some individual orders, had members in the low thousands. There were only 4,000 Fused, that's almost 2-3 Radiants per Fused. If good fortifications with a garrison are basically impervious to attack, and the humans had Heralds on top of that, along with the Fused slowly going insane I have to say it strains credibility not only that humans were almost wiped out by the Desolations, but that the Fused were ever a threat after the Radiants formed in the first place.

Spoiler

VindicationKnight

Do you mind telling us what the average number of Knights for a Knight Radiant Order were (barring Bondmiths) and possibly how close the different orders worked together?

Brandon Sanderson

It varied very widely, and depended on many factors. At their highest, some orders had members in the low thousands.

/r/books AMA 2015 (June 24, 2015)

 

[Returned he/him]

4 hours ago, Frustration said:

Here's my thing, we know that some orders, not the knights Radiant, but some individual orders, had members in the low thousands. There were only 4,000 Fused, that's almost 2-3 Radiants per Fused. If good fortifications with a garrison are basically impervious to attack, and the humans had Heralds on top of that, along with the Fused slowly going insane I have to say it strains credibility not only that humans were almost wiped out by the Desolations, but that the Fused were ever a threat after the Radiants formed in the first place.

"At the highest" is doing some heavy lifting on that low thousands estimate and is suggestive about timing. I'd wager that that number is post-Aharietiam, possibly close to the Recreance, when the Radiants were active and did not have to deal with the Desolations or anything else that degraded the human populations and their infrastructure. The ideas that there were many thousands of Radiants, that they were as capable against the Fused as we've observed, and Aharietiam was one of the worst Desolations ever (per Kalak, I think?) simply doesn't track.

So either that WoB is a mistake, Sanderson is lazy and sloppy with the worldbuilding of his flagship series that he's been writing for decades, there are factors in the struggle between Radiants and Fused we aren't aware of or aren't considering, your assessment (and our observations of the Fused's performance) is off, or the highest number of Radiants ever was not typical enough of their forces to govern their conflicts. Take your pick of those options, but at minimum the lattermost seems very parsimonious to me. 

I also think that the Fused performance estimate is at least incomplete, and that battlefield performance isn't the standard we should be using to evaluate them. Even from Oathbringer on the Fused, while in many ways not very successful, are too much for the Radiants to overwhelm or even control during the war. WaT is really striking in how poorly the Fused fare, especially in Azimir and the Shattered Plains. It seems more plausible to me (and more agreeable) that that book is the piece that doesn't fit well, rather than retroactively unraveling the entire six-millennia backstory and making all of the books nonsensical. New details may shift my thinking, but I'd rather not tank the whole series just to accommodate Sigzil's performance against a listless and incompetent Fused army.

Edited April 29 by Returned

[Qianweilian He/him]

10 hours ago, Frustration said:

This relies quite heavily on Fused being able to use their surges like Radiants, something they either can't do, or is so rare they might as well never do it.

I can offer no other evidence than the Stormlight RPG (husked ones appear to be the only ones who cannot)

10 hours ago, Frustration said:

What do you do if guards touch your face to make sure you aren't a Masked One? Personally I'd have a knife or something and everyone who enters is required to bleed. Human blood is a different color, and everyone can see it, with a regrowth fabrial to cure everyone after.

Assuming that the Masked Ones can use illumination like Lightweavers, they could disguise their's and other's blood.

10 hours ago, Frustration said:

Here's my thing, we know that some orders, not the knights Radiant, but some individual orders, had members in the low thousands. There were only 4,000 Fused, that's almost 2-3 Radiants per Fused. If good fortifications with a garrison are basically impervious to attack, and the humans had Heralds on top of that, along with the Fused slowly going insane I have to say it strains credibility not only that humans were almost wiped out by the Desolations, but that the Fused were ever a threat after the Radiants formed in the first place.

I'm starting to think, at least in the earlier desolations, the Fused worked more as guerilla fighters, not necessarily as an opposing army.

[ParaTulip fae/faer (declines as she/her)]

3 hours ago, Qianweilian said:

I'm starting to think, at least in the earlier desolations, the Fused worked more as guerilla fighters, not necessarily as an opposing army.

That would be how I would do it. If the desolation is going to be a long thing, then it is a wonderful thing when the Radiants are gathered in one place and forming an unbreakable fortress: It means they can't be stopping my raids elsewhere. I wonder if Radiant oaths stop them from doing raids and making war in between desolations somehow?

Regrowth fabrials would also make certain tactics have to get weirder/more cruel. For example, it might make sense to sterilize rather than kill segments of the enemy population so as to force the opponent to either allow that person to continue to consume resources despite not being able to contribute to population growth. But the healing of a regrowth fabrial means that inflicting lasting maimings like that requires torturing the person such that they accept the wound as part of themself, or at least keeping them from healing for some time.

 

[Frustration]

10 hours ago, Returned said:

"At the highest" is doing some heavy lifting on that low thousands estimate and is suggestive about timing. I'd wager that that number is post-Aharietiam, possibly close to the Recreance, when the Radiants were active and did not have to deal with the Desolations or anything else that degraded the human populations and their infrastructure. The ideas that there were many thousands of Radiants, that they were as capable against the Fused as we've observed, and Aharietiam was one of the worst Desolations ever (per Kalak, I think?) simply doesn't track.

So either that WoB is a mistake, Sanderson is lazy and sloppy with the worldbuilding of his flagship series that he's been writing for decades, there are factors in the struggle between Radiants and Fused we aren't aware of or aren't considering, your assessment (and our observations of the Fused's performance) is off, or the highest number of Radiants ever was not typical enough of their forces to govern their conflicts. Take your pick of those options, but at minimum the lattermost seems very parsimonious to me. 

I also think that the Fused performance estimate is at least incomplete, and that battlefield performance isn't the standard we should be using to evaluate them. Even from Oathbringer on the Fused, while in many ways not very successful, are too much for the Radiants to overwhelm or even control during the war. WaT is really striking in how poorly the Fused fare, especially in Azimir and the Shattered Plains. It seems more plausible to me (and more agreeable) that that book is the piece that doesn't fit well, rather than retroactively unraveling the entire six-millennia backstory and making all of the books nonsensical. New details may shift my thinking, but I'd rather not tank the whole series just to accommodate Sigzil's performance against a listless and incompetent Fused army.

Alternative explanation: Brandon is bad at powerscaling, and goes by whatever works best for a particular scene without deeply considering its impact on the wider narrative. This is why Lezian was a huge threat in Hearthstone, but an absolute pushover for the rest of the book. Or why all the other Husked Ones seemingly do nothing.

Personally I've dismissed the Fused as threats since their underwhelming performance in OB, and was banking on there being at least a few hundred Thunderclasts to make up for them. The reveal that there were only three of them was one of my biggest disappointments in WaT.

This results in what he says about Fused and desolations, and what he shows the Fused to be capable of to not match up.

4 hours ago, Qianweilian said:

I can offer no other evidence than the Stormlight RPG (husked ones appear to be the only ones who cannot)

The Stormlight RPG is full of inaccurate information, or outright untrue restrictions, especially for Surges.

4 hours ago, Qianweilian said:

I'm starting to think, at least in the earlier desolations, the Fused worked more as guerilla fighters, not necessarily as an opposing army.

In the earlier desolations the Fused didn't even have surges.

What I would have done with the Fused to make them threatening

Spoiler

In general: Make their carapace cover their entire bodies, rendering them almost invulnerable to attacks with normal weapons. And have a total number of Fused much higher.

1. Heavenly Ones: They need to have control of gravity over their bodies, both magnitude and direction. Their speed limit is a huge downside
2. Devastating Ones: we haven't seen enough of these ones to say.
3. Flowing Ones: They need to use both high and low friction, to climb walls as well as sliding. It's unclear if they can do this normally.
4. Magnified Ones: These guys are alright
5. Masked Ones: Masked Ones should be able to become invisible, just looking like humans with so many ways to discover them leaves them weaker than normal stormforms
6. Altered Ones: Another one I'm disappointed with. If I made them they would change their bodies into the essences, becoming air or smoke to fly, stone or metal to fight, water to hide/swim and a lot more.
7. Husked Ones: These guys are excellent, Brandon just needs to stop underselling them.
8. Deepest Ones: They either need to be able to go through any solid material, not just stone, or they should affect their bones and act like plastic man instead.
9. Focused Ones: These guys are perfect.

 

That's a 4/9 that need serious upgrades with one just completely unknown.

 

50 minutes ago, ParaTulip said:

That would be how I would do it. If the desolation is going to be a long thing, then it is a wonderful thing when the Radiants are gathered in one place and forming an unbreakable fortress: It means they can't be stopping my raids elsewhere.

I think you're underestimating Oathgates. With them the advance human forces, including high oath Radiants, can reach anywhere on the continent in both the cognitive and physical realms in a matter of hours. The Fused don't have anything that can compare to that. I think they can build up one, or even eleven or more massive unbreakable fortresses and still stop Fused attacks no matter where they are.

Edited April 29 by Frustration

[ParaTulip fae/faer (declines as she/her)]

@Frustrationokay, so my raids have to be fast, over within two hours of starting and retreating into a zone where it would delay a repositioning. I know one of the Unmade enables rapid force deployment too, but I also imagine Singers are just better at nomadic life than humans in the Rosharan environment? Unless Honor being the High Storm means that the weather is somehow more of a threat to Singers than Humans during this war, I think the Singer side should engage in constant small scale warfare and village cullings. Keeping humans mostly in cities means they will suffer worse from the introduction of disease or poison into food or water supplies, though the ability to soulcast food means this will be hard to achieve.

I do think that Koravellium rigged the balancing mechanics such that this sort of a stalemate outcome is going to be what happens most of the time. Probably why Taln hates her so much; Even if he and humanity had lost, at least that would be an end to the endless torment. But she set the table such that this endless buffet of misery could never end.

[Frustration]

54 minutes ago, ParaTulip said:

@Frustrationokay, so my raids have to be fast, over within two hours of starting and retreating into a zone where it would delay a repositioning. I know one of the Unmade enables rapid force deployment too, but I also imagine Singers are just better at nomadic life than humans in the Rosharan environment?

That's true, but there are a few things that make Dai-Gonalthis a problem. The first is that somehow or another the Radiants managed to shield the Silver Kingdoms from her touch. So for massive areas of Roshar her powers don't work. The other part is that she can only form elsegates between massive pools of investiture to start with. On top of that Odium has to pay a price, and one that Rayse didn't like paying in order to make them.

But yes, even in Hightstorms Singers are better at surviving in the Rosharan wilds.

57 minutes ago, ParaTulip said:

I think the Singer side should engage in constant small scale warfare and village cullings. Keeping humans mostly in cities means they will suffer worse from the introduction of disease or poison into food or water supplies, though the ability to soulcast food means this will be hard to achieve.

That also leaves them exposed and with no protection when the Heralds and Radiants find them. I don't think that's a good long term strategy.

Additionally Rosharans just have better immune systems than we do, with the flu being introduced from off world, being really tame compared to our diseases, and then killing itself off as everyone became immune to it in, all in three years or so.

Spoiler

stormfather (paraphrased)

Does the plague on the Purelake has anything to do with the fact that the magic fish form symbiotic bonds with spren?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

No, worldhoppers brought a disease to Roshar that they didn't have before. It's the common cold. Rosharans' Investiture makes it so they're usually a healthy bunch so something like the cold is kind of frightening. "It's a plague of the sniffles."

stormfather [Alternate wording from ZenBossanova's report] (paraphrased)

Another person asked about the plague in the Purelake.

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Turns out, that was a pathogen introduced by worldhoppers. People on Roshar normally have greater health than elsewhere in the cosmere because they are more Invested (Stormlight and all that). This plague was what we call… the common cold.

Firefight Phoenix signing (Jan. 21, 2015)

Questioner

There’s a line, kind of feels like a throwaway line that Wit makes in Wind and Truth, and I don’t know if I’m way off base here. But he’s Spiritual Realm Wit, made of Investiture, and he jokes about this being how the Iriali feel all the time. The Iriali also have this religion where they believe they are one being having various unique experiences. Are the Iriali beings of Investiture? Are they, like, avatars of a Shard?

Brandon Sanderson

They are human beings. If you test them genetically, any test you could do on them would find them indistinguishable from other human beings, save that they have some of the weirdness that goes in the cosmere, the way hair manifests and things like that. But you would be like, “These are people.” What they’re saying that they are is religious and philosophical.

Now, they might have some interesting Investiture from where their origins were that also can maybe lend a little credence to them. But only in a sort of philosophical and religious way, where they can say, “Here is evidence of what we say.” Where an arcanist would be like, “This is no more than the fact that Rosharans have some native Investiture themselves that prevents them from getting tooth decay, and things like that.” The common cold was a plague that eventually just died out on Roshar because the people are strongly Invested enough that they’ve got this force keeping them healthy. The Iriali have something like that; an arcanist would be like, “Yeah, this is not proof that you’re… you know.” And they’re like, “It’s okay. You are actually also part of the one, so your perspective is also valid.”

Dragonsteel Nexus 2025 (Dec. 5, 2025)

 

 

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.

Why do I do this? There's a couple reasons. One, it's really convenient for some narrative reasons. A lot of books I'm writing are these kind of action-adventure stories, and can human beings actually take the punishment that is delivered, let's say to Adolin in the end of Oathbringer? *noncommital negative sounds* He doesn't come off well from that, but could a human being really take that? I go back and forth. Humans are capable of some pretty incredible feats, particularly with adrenaline driving them, but my kind of blanket answer is everyone in the Cosmere has got a bit more Investiture; everyone's got something like Breath. Nalthians have something kind of extra special because they can use it in different ways, but everybody's got something like that.

It's leading to the fact that for instance, I highlighted this in the books, this part is canon: There are things about Rosharans that make it so that a lot of diseases have trouble getting a foothold. You do not have the bubonic plague on Roshar. You could maybe say this is because they are not living in close enough proximity to mammals for diseases to hop species as happens on our planet, which is a pretty valid point. Things that affect a horse or a cow (a lot of different diseases from cows come to us), things that affect a cow are much more likely to be able to affect a human than something that affects a chull being able to affect a human. Totally valid, but I also think that there is something more going on here.

This allows me to do fantasy stories where... In Warbreaker we don't have to be worrying about the next outbreak of smallpox, which legitimately they probably would have to be worrying about. It means that, while this is kind of a trope that people, trope is the wrong term, but that people in the past did not have as bad as teeth as we assume that we do because they did not eat the levels of sugars and starches that we do. Investiture also in the Cosmere means that you're not going to... Dalinar probably would not have a full set of teeth, even without being punched in the face and stuff, if he were a human from Earth. But on Roshar he's got just a little bit extra vitality, a little bit extra something, just like everyone on the planet, that is making him a little tougher and making him a little more disease resistant and some of these things. It makes the stories more fun for me to tell and also gives us some suspension of disbelief on some of these things. You do not have to worry about smallpox outbreaks on most planets. You do have to worry about catching the curse of the Elantrian disease and being thrown into a prison city, but smallpox, not as big of a deal.

Adam

Yeah, but you don’t have to worry about that too much anymore.

Brandon Sanderson

No, but I'm saying you could have to worry about things like that. Magical diseases, totally on the board, but the big plague they're dealing with in Roshar is the common cold that got brought across by some of the members of Seventeenth Shard, and that's going to die out pretty quickly. They will get over it and their immune system is... The common cold has come over multiple times before for reasons like that, colds just from another planet. Roshar, they've got three Shards. Basically if you want something like this to happen you go to a planet that's not quite as highly Invested where they might have a few more diseases, you pick one up, you bring it, and it spreads a little bit but then it dies off. That sort of thing happens a lot in the Cosmere. You do not have to worry about during the space age that people are going to be bringing lots of diseases across planets.

YouTube Spoiler Stream 2 (June 3, 2021)

Poison would be more effective, but they have Edgedanncer and Truthwatchers, so I don't think it would be as effective as you would want, not to mention the quantity you would need to poison an entire city.

[ParaTulip fae/faer (declines as she/her)]

23 hours ago, Frustration said:

Additionally Rosharans just have better immune systems than we do, with the flu being introduced from off world, being really tame compared to our diseases, and then killing itself off as everyone became immune to it in, all in three years or so.

Hmm, I would think that the trick there would be to try to make a, as Mr Sanderson says "magical disease", as the Signers. Of course, since they lack access to the surge of Adhesion, it is probably hard for the Fused to just stick the god juice particles to a bacterium and let it nature take its course. I would imagine needing to use Fabrials to create an environment that enhances Progression among non-mammal life while infecting hogs first and then later humans with the candidate disease, assuming such filtering is possible. Perhaps if Sja Anat can Enlighten Rotspren, they might become part of such a project. 

I hope no one minds me giving some thoughts on this general notion of Investiture being anti-plague-ish? 

---

That is a really curious choice for Mr Sanderson to make about how his world works. The specific mention of Small Pox is especially keen to me. I have long read The Stormlight Archive with an understanding that the author meant to create a a sort of spiritual analog to the history of conflicts between indigenous peoples and their colonizers, with a perspective from a man who lives in the USA obviously shaping the whole affair. Obviously things like the length of history and the nature of the crimes against the indigenous people are vastly different from those in actual history, and some aspects of these thoughts also are being explored in [checks which forum this is] the Mistborn books along with episodes like The Isles of the Emberdark also having these notions.

In actual history, the introduction of small pox among the peoples of the Americas and syphilis among the Europeans had both dramatic impacts in terms of death and subtle impacts on culture which still reverberate to this very day. I do not feel the need to explain the former as it is infamous beyond measure, but the latter is partly responsible for killing the culture of public bathing that had survived from classical Rome to the early modern era. I would personally find these kinds of complexities to be the most interesting things to work out about the world.

But then I think about how I and our author differ. While not knowing the man personally, I believe I have read remarks by him attesting to an earnest faith in Church and Christ. Further, though I know the canon of scriptures that I would have learned as a youth and those he would have learned might not contain the same books, I do know some mythic-historic concepts that would probably be relevant, IE the plagues of Egypt in the time of Mosses as recalled in the book of Exodus. In that text, God is awesomely wrathful towards those who serve Pharoh. And yet these plagues, in all their horror, have a singular aspect which is hard to find in most later plagues: They have a clear intention. The plagues were done to ensure those who followed Mosses would become the chosen people of God, from among whom would be born the savior of all humanity (assuming you read the version with that ending) from all the bad stuff. Thus, whatever horror the plagues were, they were not manifestation of pure evil as one who believes in a dualism where there is an equal and opposite force to God might infer from the deaths of first born children and rivers running red with blood.

To synthesize: Part of the horror of the plagues of the Colombian cultural exchange was how it was understood at the time. Some among the people living then read their bible, saw that God was one to send plagues upon those wicked people who opposed his chosen ones, and decided that must mean it is peachy keen to do a lot of things we now understand to be really really morally bad. Furthermore, that people did this form of misreading and we know understand them to have been commissioners of evil acts, it makes the whole practice of reading the hand of divine providence in the events of disease suspect and even casts a shadow on seeing such things in the natural world, which is wholly contrary to the kind of writing where the power of the local god is literally delivered in great big storms.

Anyway, thanks to everyone who read all of this. I am kinda shocked at how much I wrote. Sorry if I offended your religious sensibilities, but please accept I was not trying to.

[Qianweilian He/him]

24 minutes ago, ParaTulip said:

Hmm, I would think that the trick there would be to try to make a, as Mr Sanderson says "magical disease", as the Signers. Of course, since they lack access to the surge of Adhesion, it is probably hard for the Fused to just stick the god juice particles to a bacterium and let it nature take its course. I would imagine needing to use Fabrials to create an environment that enhances Progression among non-mammal life while infecting hogs first and then later humans with the candidate disease, assuming such filtering is possible. Perhaps if Sja Anat can Enlighten Rotspren, they might become part of such a project. 

I hope no one minds me giving some thoughts on this general notion of Investiture being anti-plague-ish? 

Didn't Raboniel try to do something similar? It only killed one in ten humans, and one in a hundred singers.

[ParaTulip fae/faer (declines as she/her)]

45 minutes ago, Qianweilian said:

It only killed one in ten humans

I cannot express how much "only" the wrong qualifier there. That is a horrifying amount of death that, if it happened to us, would feel like the end of the world. It might not be dramatic enough for someone who lived through the Desolations, where exterminating 90% of a nation could happen, but it would be a major event.

[Qianweilian He/him]

5 hours ago, ParaTulip said:

I cannot express how much "only" the wrong qualifier there. That is a horrifying amount of death that, if it happened to us, would feel like the end of the world. It might not be dramatic enough for someone who lived through the Desolations, where exterminating 90% of a nation could happen, but it would be a major event.

I mean, the black death killed around five times that in Europe (on average)

[Dragon_Fractal]

I know this is a smidge old but I wanted to get a response in.

My solution is to begin the assault immediately after a highstorm by ripping the exterior of the wall off with a thunderclast or fannahn-im, then have metacha-im break through the aluminium layer with thrown boulders. Once this is done, there are two parts to the plan to actually take the fortress. The first is to use the (likely temporary) lack of aluminium to get makay-im (and potentially even nex-im if they can inside without being noticed) within the fortress. They are going to lie in wait for a short while, until immediately before the next highstorm. The second part is to attack with Magnified Ones and a large group of Regals/ordinary singers to force a ground response. In the ensuing clash, there should be a number of dead and mavset-im will take their place, pretending to have been wounded instead (specifically, they will take the place of ordinary soldiers who can't heal with Stormlight). They'll almost certainly be put in some sort of infirmary, and they will remain there pretending to be wounded until the next highstorm, the same as the makay-im in the walls. Once this preparation, I will continue with a series of skirmishes like the one I just described, but with the addition of shanay-im to draw out Windrunners. The objective of these skirmishes is to drain the enemy's Stormlight, and all the timing has been chosen so as the give the largest window of time to do this. Now, it is the time to strike. The makay-im will assassinate the stronger Radiants in their sleep and the mavset-im will sow chaos and confusion while there is another large attack, once again with the thunderclast and metacha-im.

With regards to forces and casualties, I'm thinking one thunderclast to be my wall-breaker and big thing that demands attention during the initial and final assaults, a dozen or so metacha-im to act as artillery, six to thirty-four makay-im (depending on what I'm able to be allocated; the first number is how many Radiants of the Fourth Ideal or higher there are in the fortress; the second is how many Radiants of the Third Ideal or higher there are), a handful of nex-im if any, five or so Magnified Ones so that I can switch them out and let them heal, fifty to seventy shanay-im to interfere with Windrunners during the skirmishes (I'm assuming that the duel dynamic is in place during this time period and that the Windrunners will be hesitant to let their squires die against experienced shanay-im), fifty or so mavset-im to masquerade as wounded soldiers (in the hope that I can kill a bunch of them during the first assault) and as many Regals (primarily direforms since stormforms will be worse than useless in the Purelake) and ordinary singers I can get so as to not have my siege broken. I'm estimating fairly low causalties for my Fused since the bulk of them will be in hiding for the duration of the plan (the makay-im will withdraw after the assassinations, though the mavset-im will likely die after inducing panic), and the others will be engaging primarily in skirmishes where they will withdraw after provoking a large response (out of these, the Magnified Ones are most at risk). The thunderclast's body may be destroyed but that isn't a tremendous concern. There will likely be a steady stream of casualties among my non-Fused troops the whole time, with casualties peaking on the first day (when they will need to engage in a ground battle with the ordinary enemy troops) and on the last day (when my forces will storm the fortress). I'm not sure what the precise numbers would be.