What if... No Kaladin?

[Beholder He/him]

So me and my full cosmere friend had a discussion about, 'What if Kaladin was never in SA?' or something to that effect. And it's pretty interesting. So, no Kaldin. Let's work our way from the end (this is how we talked about it). No Kaldin means Dalinar was never saved at the end of WoK so Sadeas likely took over the war camps and unified the Alethi. Most likely he crowned himself king and then would have gathered the armies and wiped out the Parshendi before Venli discovered stormform and stopped the Desolation from occurring. So, yeah. Odium's plans would have been foiled for untold years. However, as my friend said, no Kaldin also means that Amaram would have died, losing Sadeas one of his best, if not his best, military commander. (Other than himself). My friend said this would offset the power of Sadeas' army. I disagreed however and I'm interested as to what you all think. 

[Frustration]

Sadeas never would have wiped the Parshendi out, he was against Dalinar's expedition. He would have kept doing bridge runs until the Listeners summoned the Everstorm. So now the humans lose their best Radiants, don't get to Urithiru until Jasnah returns, they don't have a Bondsmith with a Connection to the Thrill, so Theylenah falls, assuming they can even get a Windrunner to open the gate.

Szeth is never defeated, and so he continues to kill monarchs which causes a greater amount of social unrest. He also never goes with Nale, so Lift doesn't have anyone to help her in Edgedanncer, which means Nale continues to kill Radiants around the world, which further weakens humans ability to fight back.

There's no one to save Elhokar, so he dies, assuming Sadeas lets him live that long, which likely fractures Alethkar as the various Highprinces fight each other.

There are no visions so no coalition is made.

Basically everything other than Azimir ends up in the control of either Taravangian or Odium. However Taravangian doesn't have any bargaining chips and thus looses the upcoming battle, and Odium wins.

[Namle84]

Not to mention, Chana still breaks on Braize, so the fused are no longer caged whatever happens to the Parshendi

[BinarySecond]

If there is no Kaladin is there also no Tien?

[Beholder He/him]

19 hours ago, Frustration said:

Sadeas never would have wiped the Parshendi out, he was against Dalinar's expedition. He would have kept doing bridge runs until the Listeners summoned the Everstorm. So now the humans lose their best Radiants, don't get to Urithiru until Jasnah returns, they don't have a Bondsmith with a Connection to the Thrill, so Theylenah falls, assuming they can even get a Windrunner to open the gate.

Szeth is never defeated, and so he continues to kill monarchs which causes a greater amount of social unrest. He also never goes with Nale, so Lift doesn't have anyone to help her in Edgedanncer, which means Nale continues to kill Radiants around the world, which further weakens humans ability to fight back.

There's no one to save Elhokar, so he dies, assuming Sadeas lets him live that long, which likely fractures Alethkar as the various Highprinces fight each other.

There are no visions so no coalition is made.

Basically everything other than Azimir ends up in the control of either Taravangian or Odium. However Taravangian doesn't have any bargaining chips and thus looses the upcoming battle, and Odium wins.

I agree with all your points except for the fact that Sadeas explicitly says 

“Yes,” Sadeas said. “But I’m confident I can beat the Parshendi on my own now. Everything we’ve done together, I can manage by splitting my army into two—one to race on ahead, a larger force to follow.

this is from around the end of WoK. Maybe he would have continued getting gemhearts, but maybe no. 

[Frustration]

1 hour ago, Beholder said:

I agree with all your points except for the fact that Sadeas explicitly says 

“Yes,” Sadeas said. “But I’m confident I can beat the Parshendi on my own now. Everything we’ve done together, I can manage by splitting my army into two—one to race on ahead, a larger force to follow.

this is from around the end of WoK. Maybe he would have continued getting gemhearts, but maybe no. 

That was in reference to their strategy for getting gemhearts, Sadeas would race to the gemhearts with a small force, Dalinar would follow with a larger, but slower one.

[Jult]

I agree with most of what's been said. But I would think that Stormfather would send the visions to someone else if Dalinar dies. And Syl would probably bond someone. Just not Kaladin. I'm very curious to see who people think Stormfather and Syl's second choices would be.

[NameIess]

No one has yet brought up the possibility that Dalinar would not die. Eshonai wanted to speak with him to negotiate peace, so it is possible that if Kaladin had not intervened, she would’ve eventually stopped the battle to negotiate with Dalinar. Considering that the Alethi armies had massive casualties fighting through the Parshendi army, it’s possible he would’ve even come out of the day with more men alive and an agreement to negotiate with the Parshendi.

[The White Drake]

On 6/24/2026 at 12:49 PM, Frustration said:

That was in reference to their strategy for getting gemhearts, Sadeas would race to the gemhearts with a small force, Dalinar would follow with a larger, but slower one.

He does state he would have used Dalianar's death to unify and galvanize the Alethi as I recall.

5 hours ago, NameIess said:

No one has yet brought up the possibility that Dalinar would not die. Eshonai wanted to speak with him to negotiate peace, so it is possible that if Kaladin had not intervened, she would’ve eventually stopped the battle to negotiate with Dalinar. Considering that the Alethi armies had massive casualties fighting through the Parshendi army, it’s possible he would’ve even come out of the day with more men alive and an agreement to negotiate with the Parshendi.

Hard to stop a battle, particularly one so pitched. It might be so but I wouldn't bet on it.

On 6/24/2026 at 7:48 AM, Namle84 said:

Not to mention, Chana still breaks on Braize, so the fused are no longer caged whatever happens to the Parshendi

Thing is, without hosts (I doubt slaveforms will be ideal, it needs the Parsh to open themselves up to the Fused), and without an Everstorm (thus needing the unknown 'old' method), how do they get themselves bodies? It's not an insurmountable obstacle, but it gives them a hard starting period until they can pull the Everstorm over.

Edited Thursday at 09:57 PM by The White Drake

[earthexile]

Here's a weird one: No Kaladin means Helaran probably lives. Amaram's forces lose, that day. Amaram doesn't gain the Shardblade that Kaladin won. Maybe he even dies.

Maybe Helaran succeeds on his mission, gets in touch with home, learns that his jerk father is dead, and swoops in to reclaim the Davar family name as a Ghostblood-aligned Shardbearer. Bam, we're Fourth Dahn aristocrats, House Davar is golden. Shallan's mission to capture the Soulcaster either never happens or gets called off, because now it's not the Only Way To Save My Family.

Shallan does not get involved with the Ghostbloods by happenstance, but by grooming. Her wonderful mighty hero brother is there instead, to offer her a whole new way to disengage from the world she knows. She probably learns the truth about what went down with her parents a lot sooner, although it's hard to imagine her being ready for it.

[Namle84]

1 hour ago, The White Drake said:

 

Thing is, without hosts (I doubt slaveforms will be ideal, it needs the Parsh to open themselves up to the Fused), and without an Everstorm (thus needing the unknown 'old' method), how do they get themselves bodies? It's not an insurmountable obstacle, but it gives them a hard starting period until they can pull the Everstorm over.

Yup!  My guess is what would happen is more voidspren could get through… and they would figure out a way to get the everstorm through eventually…

[Cocoa he/him]

On 6/25/2026 at 2:58 PM, earthexile said:

Maybe Helaran succeeds on his mission, gets in touch with home, learns that his jerk father is dead, and swoops in to reclaim the Davar family name as a Ghostblood-aligned Shardbearer. Bam, we're Fourth Dahn aristocrats, House Davar is golden. Shallan's mission to capture the Soulcaster either never happens or gets called off, because now it's not the Only Way To Save My Family.

Slight correction: Helaran was aligned with the Skybreakers, not the Ghostbloods (that was Lin). Easy mistake to make though, as Roshar in general and the Davar family in particular are lousy with conspiracies. In retrospect it's actually kind of interesting that, in terms of secret societies, Helaran took after his (step-)mother Chana who we saw had connections to Nale and the Skybreakers from when she tried to murder Shallan, while Shallan took after their father.

Which likely would have caused some... awkwardness if and when it ever surfaced that Lin wasn't actually the one to kill Chana, that the Skybreakers had egged on Chana's insanity to try to get her to kill Shallan and were prepared to resort to other measures, and that if Shallan ever bonded Pattern or another Cryptic other than Testament that they'd try to kill her all over again (maybe even trying to pressure Helaran into it).

[Returned he/him]

On 6/25/2026 at 4:58 PM, earthexile said:

Here's a weird one: No Kaladin means Helaran probably lives.

This probably means that Shallan dies too. She's already a budding Radiant, which means Nale will almost certainly kill her. I'm not sure how expansive of a problem that is given the other consequences on the Shattered Plains (e.g., they don't cleanse Urithiru of Re-Shephir, but they may not ever have reached Urithiru anyways so what's the difference?). But she's a consequential person and someone that I think would have been caught up in events somehow.

I have to agree that never having Kaladin probably dooms the anti-Odium forces. But I can also imagine Dalinar not changing enough to cause Taravangian to try having him assassintated (he might choose "the path of the warlord" instead), and therefore unify Alethkar by violence and domination. From there he pursues the pan-Rosharan conquest most people initially assume the coalition is attempting, largely unifying the continent (save except Shinovar, at least) while also weakening all of the nations through those conquests. Taravangian still cultivates Radiants and so has more than just mundane forces to command, but they are fewer and there is constant tension between their ideals and how Taravangian insists they operate. The Radiants aren't quite restored, but spren bonds give rise to Surgebinders operating more independently, maybe order-by-order but maybe even in smaller, more ideologically focused groups of likeminded individuals.

Taravangian, as the only leader Roshar has, treats with Odium instead of Dalinar but without being the inheritor of Honor's power and so cannot necessarily release Odium. If he can release Odium after all, the bargain becomes trading Dalinar to lead Odium's armies in exchange for sparing humanity. Taravangian's age leads him to natural death not long after striking that deal, and his successor doesn't have any of the advantages Taravangian enjoyed and so fails to maintain many of the benefits of the situation Taravangian engineered. Cultivation flees and hopes to use her minor influence with Dalinar far into the future, or is splintered like Honor was. Either way Odium wipes out the spren of Honor and Cultivation, replacing them with his own spren and establishing hateful, vicious orders of Surgebinders. Odium's pressure against Rayse's will pushes Roshar into endless battles anyways, mainly to train soldiers for Odium's offworld conquests (much as the border conflicts among Alethi highprinces trained soldiers for the Shattered Plains).

Retribution never rises, so the broader state of the Cosmere doesn't change very much and Rayse continues his campaign of wiping out the other Shards one at a time, now backed by loyal armies that prevent him from needing to expose himself to danger or needing to Invest other worlds very much. Rayse might even pick up the Dawnshard Rysn found, though Hoid would work to keep that away from him above all else and is probably clever enough to succeed. The far-future war tips very much in Roshar's favor due to a lesser sense of urgency and less time to prepare for the other Shards.

[BinarySecond]

15 hours ago, Returned said:

splintered like Honor was

We do know that Honour wasn't splintered, but does Cultivation even have a weak point for Odium to exploit and attack with? AFAIK Cultivation has never exposed themselves by taking direct action that opens them up.