Azimir's battle

[Xabben]

I've read many post critizicing the fact that, in WaT, the coallition didn't even thought about destroying the oathgate in Azimir to avoid the singers' invasion. However, for me, this is not a real plothole, as I doubt that physically destroying the Oathgate would have prevented the inksprens from transporting the singers from shadesmar into the physhical world if they wanted to.

 

What really bothers me is that the Azish could have easily built a totally closed, thick bronze dome around the oathgate's control room. By doing so, they would have completely trapped singers and gained a considerable amount of time. In fact, they could have built multiple concentric domes by using soulcasting to hinder the advance of singers even more. Why didn't they thought about this?

[Returned he/him]

I think that the major issues are that it may not have been possible (that's a lot of soulcasting to do, especially all at once), it may not have been effective (the Fused likely have options for dealing with the bronze, including but not limited to Deepest Ones, and might not have been delayed much at all), it creates a fortified beachhead for the Fused invaders to use against the defenders (they eventually built their own fortification in the Oathgate complex, though on a smaller scale), and it changes the strategic picture (they know the point of invasion and general invader strategy with the Oathgate open, but if sealed this way the Fused might have done something else; they would not have left Azimir alone).

The in-universe explanation for why they didn't do it is because the characters know it wouldn't have worked, for one reason or another (even if that reason isn't expressed on the page). The narrative reason is that it was important that Azimir be a major battleground, so the invasion would have proceeded somehow no matter what the humans did. Fortifying around the Oathgate to resist the invaders is what the defenders did anyways, so it's not quite a total strategic oversight, and they were successful in the end (well, kind of...). I, personally, am satisfied with an explanation that the soulcasting (even ignoring the cost in Light and adequate gemstones to actually do it) would have been prohibitively difficult to do with the time and resources they had available.

Edited Tuesday at 06:47 PM by Returned

[Frustration]

4 hours ago, Xabben said:

I've read many post critizicing the fact that, in WaT, the coallition didn't even thought about destroying the oathgate in Azimir to avoid the singers' invasion. However, for me, this is not a real plothole, as I doubt that physically destroying the Oathgate would have prevented the inksprens from transporting the singers from shadesmar into the physhical world if they wanted to.

Locking it actually. Though they can be destroyed, and that would have prevented travel rather easily.

4 hours ago, Xabben said:

What really bothers me is that the Azish could have easily built a totally closed, thick bronze dome around the oathgate's control room. By doing so, they would have completely trapped singers and gained a considerable amount of time. In fact, they could have built multiple concentric domes by using soulcasting to hinder the advance of singers even more. Why didn't they thought about this?

Or just fifteen foot think walls, that would have done it easily.

There really is no in world reason for them to not have done this.

3 hours ago, Returned said:

I think that the major issues are that it may not have been possible (that's a lot of soulcasting to do, especially all at once)

They make entire barracks in one go with soulcasting

3 hours ago, Returned said:

it may not have been effective (the Fused likely have options for dealing with the bronze, including but not limited to Deepest Ones, and might not have been delayed much at all)

Deepest ones can go through stone, but not bronze. And even if they could that's still only 1/1000 the force you have to fight.

[Returned he/him]

1 hour ago, Frustration said:

They make entire barracks in one go with soulcasting

I'm not sure of the dimensions of a barrack relative to the Oathgate, nor the thickness of the walls. I feel comfortable assuming that a dome covering the Oathgate would be massively taller than any barracks on the Shattered Plains, and the walls certainly aren't 15 feet thick. The cost in Light is also a factor, though also a frustratingly unclear one in this application. Gemstones crack, available Light is consumed by Radiants, it's not unreasonable to think it might be possible that there would not be enough resources to perform such a large-scale task. Not knowing the scale makes it hard for me to be fully confident in saying this definitely is so, but it seems reasonable to me that this might be more than they could confidently do in the time available.

1 hour ago, Frustration said:

Deepest ones can go through stone, but not bronze. And even if they could that's still only 1/1000 the force you have to fight.

Do you have a citation on this? My understanding is that they can move through any solid object that was never living matter, not that they have some special ability to interact with stone only. If you have information more precise than that I'd appreciate the chance to learn it. The Deepest Ones were just an example of the dome not being impervious, there are other ways it could be melted through, chipped through, blasted apart, or carved through with Shardblades. Or Odium's forces might have just come through another way, if the Oathgate were made prohibitively expensive to deal with.

[Frustration]

5 minutes ago, Returned said:

I'm not sure of the dimensions of a barrack relative to the Oathgate, nor the thickness of the walls. I feel comfortable assuming that a dome covering the Oathgate would be massively taller than any barracks on the Shattered Plains, and the walls certainly aren't 15 feet thick. The cost in Light is also a factor, though also a frustratingly unclear one in this application. Gemstones crack, available Light is consumed by Radiants, it's not unreasonable to think it might be possible that there would not be enough resources to perform such a large-scale task. Not knowing the scale makes it hard for me to be fully confident in saying this definitely is so, but it seems reasonable to me that this might be more than they could confidently do in the time available.

Even just being able to do half of it would have been a massive advantage.

6 minutes ago, Returned said:

Do you have a citation on this? My understanding is that they can move through any solid object that was never living matter, not that they have some special ability to interact with stone only.

If it was any non-living matter then the swords/spears the Alethi warriors used against them wouldn't do anything as they would just pass through them.

7 minutes ago, Returned said:

The Deepest Ones were just an example of the dome not being impervious, there are other ways it could be melted through, chipped through, blasted apart, or carved through with Shardblades.

That's true, but all of those methods require moving the bronze, which takes a lot of time. They don't have to kill a single enemy, only stall until the ten days are up.

8 minutes ago, Returned said:

Or Odium's forces might have just come through another way, if the Oathgate were made prohibitively expensive to deal with.

I'm not sure what other way would be available to them. And even if there was the characters don't know of any.

[NameIess]

2 hours ago, Frustration said:

 

2 hours ago, Returned said:

I'm not sure of the dimensions of a barrack relative to the Oathgate, nor the thickness of the walls. I feel comfortable assuming that a dome covering the Oathgate would be massively taller than any barracks on the Shattered Plains, and the walls certainly aren't 15 feet thick. The cost in Light is also a factor, though also a frustratingly unclear one in this application. Gemstones crack, available Light is consumed by Radiants, it's not unreasonable to think it might be possible that there would not be enough resources to perform such a large-scale task. Not knowing the scale makes it hard for me to be fully confident in saying this definitely is so, but it seems reasonable to me that this might be more than they could confidently do in the time available.

Expand  

Even just being able to do half of it would have been a massive advantage.

2 hours ago, Returned said:

Do you have a citation on this? My understanding is that they can move through any solid object that was never living matter, not that they have some special ability to interact with stone only.

If it was any non-living matter then the swords/spears the Alethi warriors used against them wouldn't do anything as they would just pass through them.

 

Pretty sure they mention using aluminum specifically to stop Deepest ones, which would make no sense if they could only move through stone, considering its rarity.

[alder24]

18 hours ago, Xabben said:

I doubt that physically destroying the Oathgate would have prevented the inksprens from transporting the singers from shadesmar into the physhical world if they wanted to.

Oathgates can be destroyed. They are fabrials, damage them enough and they stop functioning. However, that's just stupid because by destroying them you would permanently sever the connection between the Azish empire (largest member of the coalition) and the rest of the coalition in Urithiru. The coalition would effectively cease to function properly and the economical and political backlash would be immense. Sure, the spren were corrupted and told them they will stop letting people through them, but as long as the gate is fine, you can negotiate with them. OB ch 117:

Quote

Odium didn’t address Dalinar at first, but instead turned to his Fused. “Tell Yushah I want her to stay out here and guard the prison. Kai-garnis did well destroying the wall; tell her to return to the city and climb toward the Oathgate. If the Tisark can’t secure it, she is to destroy the device and recover its gemstones. We can rebuild it as long as the spren aren’t compromised.”

 

14 hours ago, Frustration said:

Locking it actually. Though they can be destroyed, and that would have prevented travel rather easily.

Locking them wouldn't work, because it's spren who decides who can pass from CR to PR. Azish spren were more than willing to allow Singers to cross and that was enough. WaT ch 13:

Quote

“I don’t know you,” the spren said. “You aren’t my friends; you are my oppressors. Now I find liberation. Go. We will transfer you, and will continue to do so for now. When the singers arrive, we will transfer them. This is liberation.”

 

18 hours ago, Xabben said:

What really bothers me is that the Azish could have easily built a totally closed, thick bronze dome around the oathgate's control room. By doing so, they would have completely trapped singers and gained a considerable amount of time. In fact, they could have built multiple concentric domes by using soulcasting to hinder the advance of singers even more. Why didn't they thought about this?

Their Soulcaster has limitations in what it can transform into bronze. It can't do air, so you would need to first build a solid, thick dome around the control building and then soulcast it into bronze. That alone seems too demanding for the time they had. WaT ch 37:

Quote

Soulcasters. Right. “Can you transform all the air inside the control building to bronze?” Adolin asked.
“Regrettably,” Noura said, “our Soulcasters aren’t capable of such feats. We can transform many objects to bronze, but the air itself? No, alas.”
Adolin nodded. But as he thought about it, he wasn’t certain it would be useful. Alethi Soulcasters were limited to making specific shapes, and filling a room might have been impossible for them as well. Worse, it wouldn’t actually do much. The enemy could just transfer the metal into Shadesmar and tow it out of the way.
“We’re going to fill the building with as much water as we can,” Kushkam said, “then Soulcast that into bronze."

 

14 hours ago, Frustration said:

Or just fifteen foot think walls, that would have done it easily.

Honestly, I disagree. If you can't seal off the entire control building, which seems to be the case, building a wall around it would only aid the attackers. You can't place many troops on it, you can't utilize your infantry, you can't use your archers on the dome as their sight would be obstructed by that wall and they would risk shooting their own allies on the wall and it would be quickly captured and then used by attackers as a cover and a safe retreat point. And Singers are also quite resilient against arrows so a wall defended with archers would not provide much advantage to the defenders. In fact, the archers would be quickly driven back by Heavenly Ones, Deepest Ones and Stormforms, they need infantry to cover them which is impossible with a wall.

You already have a giant chokepoint which is the control building, Singers can't bring their entire force of 15k into the dome, they can only use limited numbers, you can outnumber them with your infantry, fully supported by all your archers on the dome. Instead of using massive fortifications, I would use small scale ones - small ditches, uneven ground, traps and caltrops. Anything that would make the area surrounding the dome irritating to march through without providing cover, would be more beneficial to defenders than a wall that would be instantly used against you.

14 hours ago, Frustration said:

Deepest ones can go through stone, but not bronze. And even if they could that's still only 1/1000 the force you have to fight.

The walls of Urithiru were full of metal and they could go through them just fine. The problem was there weren't a lot of Fused in the army invading Azir. 

 

 

What I found irritating about defending Azir is that nobody knows the basic concept of the defense in depth. Sizgil knew it from the engineering standpoint and somehow lectured Dalinar's generals about it (which was stupid), but none in Azir did. They have a whole population of Azimir at their disposal and the city is full of resources, just use them. Give them axes, pickaxes and hammers and order them to construct barricades and walls all across the city. Level the area around the dome and erect another wall behind it. Turn the city into a giant maze, with hidden pathways through buildings for defenders to use to quickly fall back to deeper positions. Turn the palace itself into a fortified castle and the place of your last stand. Give weapons to any volunteer and assign them into defending those barricades, they can even drop rocks from houses. There are ten or hundreds of thousands of people living in this city, they are all free manpower for you to use, just order them to work. This wouldn't win the battle by killing all of the Singers, but it would delay them (which was the most important thing) with maximum casualties and turn your chaotic retreat into organized defense after the dome has fallen. But nope, the dome was all they used...

Edited Wednesday at 12:52 PM by alder24

[Frustration]

1 hour ago, alder24 said:

Locking them wouldn't work, because it's spren who decides who can pass from CR to PR. Azish spren were more than willing to allow Singers to cross and that was enough. WaT ch 13:

Quote

“I don’t know you,” the spren said. “You aren’t my friends; you are my oppressors. Now I find liberation. Go. We will transfer you, and will continue to do so for now. When the singers arrive, we will transfer them. This is liberation.”

 

Perhaps, but we know the spren can't transfer anyone if there isn't light to power it by. I don't think they could cause a transfer if the fabrial didn't allow it. If it was locked I don't think they would have the option.

1 hour ago, alder24 said:

Honestly, I disagree. If you can't seal off the entire control building, which seems to be the case, building a wall around it would only aid the attackers. You can't place many troops on it, you can't utilize your infantry, you can't use your archers on the dome as their sight would be obstructed by that wall and they would risk shooting their own allies on the wall and it would be quickly captured and then used by attackers as a cover and a safe retreat point. And Singers are also quite resilient against arrows so a wall defended with archers would not provide much advantage to the defenders. In fact, the archers would be quickly driven back by Heavenly Ones, Deepest Ones and Stormforms, they need infantry to cover them which is impossible with a wall.

You already have a giant chokepoint which is the control building, Singers can't bring their entire force of 15k into the dome, they can only use limited numbers, you can outnumber them with your infantry, fully supported by all your archers on the dome. Instead of using massive fortifications, I would use small scale ones - small ditches, uneven ground, traps and caltrops. Anything that would make the area surrounding the dome irritating to march through without providing cover, would be more beneficial to defenders than a wall that would be instantly used against you.

Oh I meant entirely sealing the dome off. If that's impossible then making a small wall, no more than knee high or other such obstructions would also work.

1 hour ago, alder24 said:

Their Soulcaster has limitations in what it can transform into bronze. It can't do air, so you would need to first build a solid, thick dome around the control building and then soulcast it into bronze. That alone seems too demanding for the time they had. WaT ch 37:

Quote

Soulcasters. Right. “Can you transform all the air inside the control building to bronze?” Adolin asked.
“Regrettably,” Noura said, “our Soulcasters aren’t capable of such feats. We can transform many objects to bronze, but the air itself? No, alas.”
Adolin nodded. But as he thought about it, he wasn’t certain it would be useful. Alethi Soulcasters were limited to making specific shapes, and filling a room might have been impossible for them as well. Worse, it wouldn’t actually do much. The enemy could just transfer the metal into Shadesmar and tow it out of the way.
“We’re going to fill the building with as much water as we can,” Kushkam said, “then Soulcast that into bronze."

 

They were able to turn the entire platform, not just the control building into a maze in OB. If they can do that, they can put all of that wood into a set of walls to surround the control building quite easily.

1 hour ago, alder24 said:

The walls of Urithiru were full of metal and they could go through them just fine. The problem was there weren't a lot of Fused in the army invading Azir. 

I don't recall that, the Deepest Ones mentioned that there wasn't any aluminum on the walls this time, but I don't think we ever saw them go through metal.

1 hour ago, alder24 said:

What I found irritating about defending Azir is that nobody knows the basic concept of the defense in depth. Sizgil knew it from the engineering standpoint and somehow lectured Dalinar's generals about it (which was stupid), but none in Azir did. They have a whole population of Azimir at their disposal and the city is full of resources, just use them. Give them axes, pickaxes and hammers and order them to construct barricades and walls all across the city. Level the area around the dome and erect another wall behind it. Turn the city into a giant maze, with hidden pathways through buildings for defenders to use to quickly fall back to deeper positions. Turn the palace itself into a fortified castle and the place of your last stand. Give weapons to any volunteer and assign them into defending those barricades, they can even drop rocks from houses. There are ten or hundreds of thousands of people living in this city, they are all free manpower for you to use, just order them to work. This wouldn't win the battle by killing all of the Singers, but it would delay them (which was the most important thing) with maximum casualties and turn your chaotic retreat into organized defense after the dome has fallen. But nope, the dome was all they used...

That's honestly so true. Urban warfare is already a nightmare at best, but if everyone really went out of their way to prepare it would be a bloodbath.

[Returned he/him]

14 hours ago, Frustration said:

Even just being able to do half of it would have been a massive advantage.

I'm not so sure. Odium's forces eventually built their own fortifications within the Oathgate platform (I think? I really, really need to reread WaT). A wall can aid the attackers in a variety of ways, for example giving them an opportunity to stage their forces in the physical realm and sortie at their preference, or hiding what they are doing from the defenders. Maybe it would have helped the defenders and maybe not, but I don't see a dome or wall  as necessarily being all that helpful for them. Especially if it's not so easy to create. Even a knee-high wall seems dubiously useful, given the physical abilities of the Fused.

14 hours ago, Frustration said:

If it was any non-living matter then the swords/spears the Alethi warriors used against them wouldn't do anything as they would just pass through them.

Another instance in which we don't know enough details about how the power works, but as noted above by @Nameless and @alder24 it's clearly not just stone, whatever the limitations turn out to actually be.

14 hours ago, Frustration said:

That's true, but all of those methods require moving the bronze, which takes a lot of time. They don't have to kill a single enemy, only stall until the ten days are up.

Sure, but some of their options are faster than others. A light-antilight explosion might work quickly, a Shardblade will let them carve tunnels more quickly than any mundane method. They could even just tunnel under it. They also have access to Soulcasting in at least some forms, which offers options to dissolve or deform the bronze in ways that make it less of an obstruction even if they can't just cast it into nothing (or, worse, something dangerous to the defenders). They only need one accessible, effective way to deal with the wall and then its more of a hindrance to the defenders than it is helpful.

14 hours ago, Frustration said:

I'm not sure what other way would be available to them. And even if there was the characters don't know of any.

El did it at the Shattered Plains, uninteresting as it was. That the characters don't know is exactly the point: they know they have incomplete information, and so in at least some respects knowing that the invaders will come through the Oathgate is valuable because they can plan their defenses around that approach. If forces fly in, Elsegate in, or whatever else, the defenders will be more surprised and less prepared, and even if they could make it their wrong-way-facing Maginot Line dome will be worse than useless because they spent their very limited time and resources to create it rather than doing something else.

Edited Wednesday at 02:56 PM by Returned

[Frustration]

24 minutes ago, Returned said:

Even a knee-high wall seems dubiously useful, given the physical abilities of the Fused.

There weren't a lot of fused in that army, it was mostly regals.

25 minutes ago, Returned said:

Sure, but some of their options are faster than others. A light-antilight explosion might work quickly, a Shardblade will let them carve tunnels more quickly than any mundane method. 

That army had been in the CR since the discovery of anti-light they didn't have any, or the tools to make it.

Likewise they probably didn't have shardblades as they would have used them against Adolin. However even assuming they had blades, as long as the wall was thicker than the blade was long it still would have required a significant effort to cut a way out.

32 minutes ago, Returned said:

They could even just tunnel under it. 

How though? I can't imagine that being faster, and even if they did that would just be even more of a kill chamber as the human defenders can drop whatever they want into it without fear.

33 minutes ago, Returned said:

They also have access to Soulcasting in at least some forms, which offers options to dissolve or deform the bronze in ways that make it less of an obstruction even if they can't just cast it into nothing (or, worse, something dangerous to the defenders). They only need one accessible, effective way to deal with the wall and then its more of a hindrance to the defenders than it is helpful.

With the exception of the altered ones, which we haven't seen soulcast anything outside of their body, what forms can do that?

35 minutes ago, Returned said:

El did it at the Shattered Plains, uninteresting as it was. 

That was between two places in the PR, not between the CR and the PR.

36 minutes ago, Returned said:

That the characters don't know is exactly the point: they know they have incomplete information, and so in at least some respects knowing that the invaders will come through the Oathgate is valuable because they can plan their defenses around that approach. If forces fly in, Elsegate in, or whatever else, the defenders will be more surprised and less prepared, and even if they could make it their wrong-way-facing Maginot Line dome will be worse than useless because they spent their very limited time and resources to create it rather than doing something else.

Them assuming that Odium has some previously unseen ability to move armies between the cognitive and physical realms that is more difficult than using Oathgates but also easy enough for him to do whenever. And so deciding to not do the most effective thing they can think of on the off chance that it makes using the Oathgates better for their enemy seem like a bit of a stretch to me.

[NameIess]

5 minutes ago, Frustration said:

There weren't a lot of fused in that army, it was mostly regals.

That army had been in the CR since the discovery of anti-light they didn't have any, or the tools to make it.

Likewise they probably didn't have shardblades as they would have used them against Adolin. However even assuming they had blades, as long as the wall was thicker than the blade was long it still would have required a significant effort to cut a way out.

How though? I can't imagine that being faster, and even if they did that would just be even more of a kill chamber as the human defenders can drop whatever they want into it without fear.

With the exception of the altered ones, which we haven't seen soulcast anything outside of their body, what forms can do that?

That was between two places in the PR, not between the CR and the PR.

Them assuming that Odium has some previously unseen ability to move armies between the cognitive and physical realms that is more difficult than using Oathgates but also easy enough for him to do whenever. And so deciding to not do the most effective thing they can think of on the off chance that it makes using the Oathgates better for their enemy seem like a bit of a stretch to me.

Destroying the Oathgate would’ve worked most likely, but it also would’ve been a serious economic blow to Azir. At the point that it would’ve been possible before the battle, they thought they had a significant army that would reinforce them in a few days. So they didn’t think they needed to take such desperate measures.

[Frustration]

5 minutes ago, NameIess said:

Destroying the Oathgate would’ve worked most likely, but it also would’ve been a serious economic blow to Azir. At the point that it would’ve been possible before the battle, they thought they had a significant army that would reinforce them in a few days. So they didn’t think they needed to take such desperate measures.

True, and I'm not saying they should have gone that far.

Though honestly thinking about it, Odium told Dalinar that that can be rebuilt. They could easily have just taken it apart for ten days and put it back together.

[NameIess]

2 minutes ago, Frustration said:

True, and I'm not saying they should have gone that far.

Though honestly thinking about it, Odium told Dalinar that that can be rebuilt. They could easily have just taken it apart for ten days and put it back together.

‘Easily’ is a stretch. Maybe Navani could’ve figured it out with the Sibling’s help, but she didn’t necessarily know it would be possible, since only Dalinar heard about the possibility from Odium. At the time, he might not have mentioned it. But yes, that likely would’ve been a better solution if they’d known about the possibility.

[Returned he/him]

46 minutes ago, Frustration said:

There weren't a lot of fused in that army, it was mostly regals.

Aren't Regals also superhuman, just less so than Fused? And if conditions in Azimir required a different mix of troops it's plausible that the mix of troops across the fronts would have changed. The idea that the defenders could have radically altered the situation (if they even could in this way) but the invaders would not have altered their approach at all seems unlikely. Maybe some of the Unmade would have been deployed instead of ignored.

46 minutes ago, Frustration said:

That army had been in the CR since the discovery of anti-light they didn't have any, or the tools to make it.

Likewise they probably didn't have shardblades as they would have used them against Adolin. However even assuming they had blades, as long as the wall was thicker than the blade was long it still would have required a significant effort to cut a way out.

What they had to do, and the tools they needed to prepare, depend on what they're going to do. A dome (or more realistically, wall) changes the needs of the invasion, to which the invaders will respond, as above. Sending Nale with some of his Skybreakers would have provided Shardblades, as a trivial example.

46 minutes ago, Frustration said:

How though? I can't imagine that being faster, and even if they did that would just be even more of a kill chamber as the human defenders can drop whatever they want into it without fear.

Shovels, Archimedes screws, armored claws, Thunderclast emergences? Tunneling is hardly a new innovation and is not unapproachably difficult. And even though a breach offers some advantages to the defenders, the invaders were already committed to significant losses in assaulting the city-- it's not all that different from the defenders surrounding the Oathgate, but their forces would be more stretched out around the dome's greater circumference. I'm not saying it wouldn't suck for the invaders, I'm only saying that it's not the automatic, easy win which would automatically justify the effort (assuming, again, that it's even possible).

46 minutes ago, Frustration said:

With the exception of the altered ones, which we haven't seen soulcast anything outside of their body, what forms can do that?

We haven't seen all of the Altered Ones' powers (at least, I don't think so). Their external use might be similar to an Elsecaller or Lightweaver's souclasting ability, and would be worth the cost in Voidlight if it were the only way to overcome a static fortification. They could also just spit the appropriate acids until they've dissolved/made brittle/otherwise degraded or overcome the bronze at as many points are are necessary. If they did it high up on the dome/wall they would have high ground surrounding a fortified staging area from which to launch their sorties and assaults.

46 minutes ago, Frustration said:

That was between two places in the PR, not between the CR and the PR.

The Elsegates "tap into spiritual realm shenanigans" and permit faster-than-light travel, which seems irrelevant to a realm crossing and therefore implies some ability to cross physical distances. But it doesn't really matter, as I bring it up mainly to demonstrate that the defenders don't know everything about what their enemies can do which makes total confidence in a static defense a less than awesome idea.

Quote

Questioner

You've said previously that the Oathgates don't obey Physical Realm speed of light. Do they obey the speed of light in Shadesmar? Or are they tapping into the Spiritual Realm shenanigans?

Brandon Sanderson

They're tapping into Spiritual Realm shenanigans. An Elsecaller is capable of creating something that can teleport you faster than the speed of light.

Dragonsteel 2023 (Nov. 21, 2023)

 

46 minutes ago, Frustration said:

Them assuming that Odium has some previously unseen ability to move armies between the cognitive and physical realms that is more difficult than using Oathgates but also easy enough for him to do whenever. And so deciding to not do the most effective thing they can think of on the off chance that it makes using the Oathgates better for their enemy seem like a bit of a stretch to me.

It doesn't even have to be that. It could be as simple as redirecting Heavenly Ones to fly soldiers to a different place. Even though it's expensive in Light and logistical ability it might be worth it if the dome is as insurmountable as you insist. Or sending in Thunderclasts. Or sending in the Unmade. Or using their skills and abilities to deal with the dome, possibly even trivializing it. The defenders don't know everything but need to win, have limited resources and time, and so an extreme dedication of their resources is a big commitment.

The dome is already dubious in terms of whether or not they could have done it at all, which I think is the major impediment, but even if we were to grant that it was possible it's not the perfect defense you have presented while also being very expensive. Maybe still worth trying, but also maybe not. Prohibitively expensive, not effective enough, impossible to accomplish, or any combination of those: it's enough to grant that the characters rationally chose to pursue something else, unless you really want to conclude that they're all stupid and incompetent and the sequence is just badly conceived. Take your pick at your preference, but it's not an inescapable conclusion.

Edited Wednesday at 04:19 PM by Returned

[alder24]

2 hours ago, Frustration said:

I don't recall that, the Deepest Ones mentioned that there wasn't any aluminum on the walls this time, but I don't think we ever saw them go through metal.

Coppermind:

Quote

 They can move through almost any solid substance, though they can't merge with things that were previously alive, such as wood.^[40][70]

 

13 minutes ago, Frustration said:

Though honestly thinking about it, Odium told Dalinar that that can be rebuilt. They could easily have just taken it apart for ten days and put it back together.

Davar's soulcaster was easily fixed, but it still didn't work. Dismantelling Azish Oathgate without understanding why it works in the first place leaves you with no Oathgate afterwards. 

[Frustration]

49 minutes ago, Returned said:

Aren't Regals also superhuman, just less so than Fused? And if conditions in Azimir required a different mix of troops it's plausible that the mix of troops across the fronts would have changed. The idea that the defenders could have radically altered the situation (if they even could in this way) but the invaders would not have altered their approach at all seems unlikely. Maybe some of the Unmade would have been deployed instead of ignored.

The attackers would have adapted, but I do not believe that any adaptations would have been more effective than if the defenders hadn't implemented these strategies. All they had to do was gain more time. It doesn't matter if the Fused can eventually work their way around any defenses, so long as it takes them longer to do so.

53 minutes ago, Returned said:

What they had to do, and the tools they needed to prepare, depend on what they're going to do. A dome (or more realistically, wall) changes the needs of the invasion, to which the invaders will respond, as above. Sending Nale with some of his Skybreakers would have provided Shardblades, as a trivial example.

The Skybreakers were all deployed in the attack against Theylenah, which the Radiants knew about. Even assuming one of them was instantly sent to Azimir they would be at least 1.5 thousand miles away(based on the interactive map and timeline).

Even assuming they were moving at 340mph(Which is the speed of the highstorms), and they had enough stormlight to make the trip in one go it would take them almost 5 hours to arrive. And then the skybreaker still has to go and dig through the walls while being attacked.

Even under the least favorable situation that still buys the Radiants five extra hours with no loss on their side.

1 hour ago, Returned said:

Shovels, Archimedes screws, armored claws, Thunderclast emergences? Tunneling is hardly a new innovation and is not unapproachably difficult. And even though a breach offers some advantages to the defenders, the invaders were already committed to significant losses in assaulting the city-- it's not all that different from the defenders surrounding the Oathgate, but their forces would be more stretched out around the dome's greater circumference. I'm not saying it wouldn't suck for the invaders, I'm only saying that it's not the automatic, easy win which would automatically justify the effort (assuming, again, that it's even possible).

That's not fast though, it would take a significant amount of time.

1 hour ago, Returned said:

We haven't seen all of the Altered Ones' powers (at least, I don't think so). Their external use might be similar to an Elsecaller or Lightweaver's souclasting ability, and would be worth the cost in Voidlight if it were the only way to overcome a static fortification. They could also just spit the appropriate acids until they've dissolved/made brittle/otherwise degraded or overcome the bronze at as many points are are necessary. If they did it high up on the dome/wall they would have high ground surrounding a fortified staging area from which to launch their sorties and assaults.

I'm not an expert on how fast acids eat metal by any means, but pre-industrial ones to my knowledge are slow, and not only that but they often release toxic gases, which while the fused could heal from, would kill the regals inside until they got through. And again, that would take time. They could easily lose days to weeks burning through the bronze like that.

1 hour ago, Returned said:

It doesn't even have to be that. It could be as simple as redirecting Heavenly Ones to fly soldiers to a different place. Even though it's expensive in Light and logistical ability it might be worth it if the dome is as insurmountable as you insist. Or sending in Thunderclasts. Or sending in the Unmade. Or using their skills and abilities to deal with the dome, possibly even trivializing it. The defenders don't know everything but need to win, have limited resources and time, and so an extreme dedication of their resources is a big commitment.

If they recommit soldiers that's a win, Azamir is safe with no further losses.

The few heavenly ones could have brought soldiers to another field of battle, but it would take them traveling almost 2.5 thousand miles just to reach Cultivation's perpendicularity. At 200mph(they are slower than Skybreakers) it would take them 12 hours just to get back to the PR. It's another 1.6 thousand miles to Narak, unless Odium wants to keep an Elsegate open for the 20-30 or so soldiers that could have been brought.

Odium did send a Thunderclast to Azimir, and they did try and have it break the dome open for them.

If Odium could easily send the Unmade if the Fused got stuck, he could just as easily send one if they didn't. Only if you don't build a wall you have to deal with the unmade and the Fused instead of just the Unmade.

And even if there was some Fused ability we don't know about that would have trivialized the wall that's still not a reason to try, because if it works you just win.

1 hour ago, Returned said:

The dome is already dubious in terms of whether or not they could have done it at all, which I think is the major impediment, but even if we were to grant that it was possible it's not the perfect defense you have presented while also being very expensive. Maybe still worth trying, but also maybe not. Prohibitively expensive, not effective enough, impossible to accomplish, or any combination of those: it's enough to grant that the characters rationally chose to pursue something else, unless you really want to conclude that they're all stupid and incompetent and the sequence is just badly conceived. Take your pick at your preference, but it's not an inescapable conclusion.

I already came to that conclusion after OB. There is zero reason for the Radiants to not have won the war already unless they are all incompetent beyond all belief.

1 hour ago, alder24 said:

Coppermind:

Quote

 They can move through almost any solid substance, though they can't merge with things that were previously alive, such as wood.^[40][70]

 

I've been tricked by Ruin on that wiki too many times. I won't rule out the possibility, but I don't believe it to be the case. And even if the deepest ones could go through the bronze walls, that's still only 20-30 soldiers you have to fight instead of several thousand.

1 hour ago, alder24 said:

Davar's soulcaster was easily fixed, but it still didn't work. Dismantelling Azish Oathgate without understanding why it works in the first place leaves you with no Oathgate afterwards. 

They just took it to a blacksmith, Navani said that her Artifabrians could repair it easily.

Now would it be difficult to recreate? Sure, but with communication with Urithiru, and Azimir already being one of the most developed countries in the world with Fabrials they could have eventually done it.

[alder24]

I really think this whole discussion about the wall/dome around the control room is pointless, so to hopefully give it a final nail in the coffin I’ll say this - the moment Singers finally took over the dome, they instantly blasted one side wide open. If they could do that to a structure that massive, they could do that to your puny wall inside. Making a door in it would require even less effort and they themselves constructed a wall around the center with doors in it. Building a wall would serve Singers more than it’d help defenders.

2 hours ago, Frustration said:

I've been tricked by Ruin on that wiki too many times. I won't rule out the possibility, but I don't believe it to be the case. And even if the deepest ones could go through the bronze walls, that's still only 20-30 soldiers you have to fight instead of several thousand.

RoW I-4:

Quote

Vyre soon reached a building site near the District of Colors. Here, workers were constructing special housing for some of the Deepest Ones. Each brand of Fused had its particularities. These liked to have homes without floors, so they could touch the natural stone ground with their unshod feet. They could move through other materials too, so long as they were solid, but they liked the feeling of uncut stone underfoot, stretching to the heart of Roshar

 

2 hours ago, Frustration said:

They just took it to a blacksmith, Navani said that her Artifabrians could repair it easily.

Now would it be difficult to recreate? Sure, but with communication with Urithiru, and Azimir already being one of the most developed countries in the world with Fabrials they could have eventually done it.

An Oathgate is on a level way above a Soulcaster. But there is another problem with this idea - we don't know how it affects the spren of the fabrial. If destroying the gate hurts spren, then you can forget about ever using it again, even if you manage to repair it correctly. The spren of Azish gate are corrupted and they want freedom more than anything. Dismantling their body would turn them into your enemies and they would deny you the use of the gate forever. Fixing that would be a monumental task that would take decades or centuries. Oathgates aren’t just magical buildings, they are living spren who decide who can pass through the gate, and who can’t, so don't make them any more angry than they already are.

[Returned he/him]

2 hours ago, Frustration said:

I already came to that conclusion after OB. There is zero reason for the Radiants to not have won the war already unless they are all incompetent beyond all belief.

It's a conclusion, and I won't bother trying to dissuade you (I'm not impressed by their competence either, though my assessment is less harsh than yours). It will cover all possible issues and all argumentation against it is pointless, since they can just be too stupid and incompetent ever to accomplish anything. And if you start with that insistence and then use it to backfill every possible explanation then thinking about details is also pointless; the incompetence is really the only thing that matters. Your insistence that there is an "easy win" button that literally everyone in the books is too stupid to press, to the point that you refuse to even consider that such a button might not exist, is odd given that we know our information is so incomplete. But you seem convinced and committed.

That's not the same, however, as assuming that some specific tactic definitely would have worked and the only conceivable point of failure is the characters' boundless incompetence. If nothing else the cost in Light and gemstones could easily be enough to render the dome unworkable even if they had a Soulcaster otherwise capable of creating it (I guess the incompetence argument doesn't include their ability to Surgebind). While we don't know much about the full range of powers the Fused have, Ash and Taln certainly do (or at least know vastly more), and those details might be enough to suggest that a given strategy is impractical or won't be effective. Odium thought he would win with the forces he allocated given the situation, and was wrong. Someone is going to win, and it turned out to be the defenders, though it was close. Any change in circumstances on the ground might have changed things in ways that widened that margin of victory but might also have narrowed it, even to the point of a loss.

The books must have become very unsatisfying for you. As someone who is less satisfied with the recent releases than the earlier ones, I sympathize.

Edited Wednesday at 08:07 PM by Returned

[Xabben]

10 hours ago, alder24 said:

Oathgates can be destroyed. They are fabrials, damage them enough and they stop functioning. However, that's just stupid because by destroying them you would permanently sever the connection between the Azish empire (largest member of the coalition) and the rest of the coalition in Urithiru. The coalition would effectively cease to function properly and the economical and political backlash would be immense.

For me, this is not exactly true. I mean, I think that the oathgates in the physical realm are just like "doorbells" used to contact the inksprens in shadesmar so that they know they have to send you to another physical place. If you break the "doorbell" (that is, the fabrial), you cannot contact the cognitive realm, and thus, the oathgate effectively stops working. However, if you are in shadesmar and you want to transport back to the physical realm, you don't need to use the "doorbell", as you can directly speak to the sprens. That's why you don't need to use a shardblade to activate the oathgate from the shadesmar side. Thus, even if they broke the physical oathgate, the singers could have still used it to enter Azimir.

Edited Wednesday at 10:54 PM by Xabben

[Frustration]

3 hours ago, alder24 said:

I really think this whole discussion about the wall/dome around the control room is pointless, so to hopefully give it a final nail in the coffin I’ll say this - the moment Singers finally took over the dome, they instantly blasted one side wide open. If they could do that to a structure that massive, they could do that to your puny wall inside. Making a door in it would require even less effort and they themselves constructed a wall around the center with doors in it. Building a wall would serve Singers more than it’d help defenders.

I'll have to reread that scene, but if they had that power the defenders shouldn't have been able to stop them as the dome was a lot more weight than the humans, and later the singers control the entire inside of the dome, but still fight their way out of the few exists rather than blasting through the rest of it to escape where there are no people.

3 hours ago, alder24 said:

An Oathgate is on a level way above a Soulcaster. But there is another problem with this idea - we don't know how it affects the spren of the fabrial. If destroying the gate hurts spren, then you can forget about ever using it again, even if you manage to repair it correctly. The spren of Azish gate are corrupted and they want freedom more than anything. Dismantling their body would turn them into your enemies and they would deny you the use of the gate forever. Fixing that would be a monumental task that would take decades or centuries. Oathgates aren’t just magical buildings, they are living spren who decide who can pass through the gate, and who can’t, so don't make them any more angry than they already are.

5 minutes ago, Xabben said:

For me, this is not exactly true. I mean, I think that the oathgates in the physical realm are just like "doorbells" used to contact the inksprens in shadesmar so that they know they have to send you to another physical place. If you break the "doorbell" (that is, the fabrial), you cannot contact the cognitive realm, and thus, the oathgate effectively stops working. However, if you are in shadesmar and you want to transport back to the physical realm, you don't need to use the "doorbell", as you can directly speak to the sprens. That's why you don't need to use a shardblade to activate the oathgate from the shadesmar side. Thus, even if they broke the physical oathgate, the singers could have still used it to enter Azimir.

Responding to both of these, I don't think the spren have a choice. The ones in OB told Shallan they wanted to let her through but they couldn't. As long as the device is configured correctly I don't think they can refuse.

2 hours ago, Returned said:

It's a conclusion, and I won't bother trying to dissuade you (I'm not impressed by their competence either, though my assessment is less harsh than yours). It will cover all possible issues and all argumentation against it is pointless, since they can just be too stupid and incompetent ever to accomplish anything. And if you start with that insistence and then use it to backfill every possible explanation then thinking about details is also pointless; the incompetence is really the only thing that matters. Your insistence that there is an "easy win" button that literally everyone in the books is too stupid to press, to the point that you refuse to even consider that such a button might not exist, is odd given that we know our information is so incomplete. But you seem convinced and committed.

That's not the same, however, as assuming that some specific tactic definitely would have worked and the only conceivable point of failure is the characters' boundless incompetence. If nothing else the cost in Light and gemstones could easily be enough to render the dome unworkable even if they had a Soulcaster otherwise capable of creating it (I guess the incompetence argument doesn't include their ability to Surgebind). While we don't know much about the full range of powers the Fused have, Ash and Taln certainly do (or at least know vastly more), and those details might be enough to suggest that a given strategy is impractical or won't be effective. Odium thought he would win with the forces he allocated given the situation, and was wrong. Someone is going to win, and it turned out to be the defenders, though it was close. Any change in circumstances on the ground might have changed things in ways that widened that margin of victory but might also have narrowed it, even to the point of a loss.

The books must have become very unsatisfying for you. As someone who is less satisfied with the recent releases than the earlier ones, I sympathize.

Well thank you for your sympathy, but it's not just this strategy.

There are a lot of others in particular that should be used but simply aren't. Not to mention that so few enemies could actually pose a threat to them, I don't see how Windrunners don't rack up kill counts in the four digits every battle.

[Returned he/him]

6 minutes ago, Frustration said:

Well thank you for your sympathy, but it's not just this strategy.

There are a lot of others in particular that should be used but simply aren't. Not to mention that so few enemies could actually pose a threat to them, I don't see how Windrunners don't rack up kill counts in the four digits every battle.

Sure, but we also get only a tiny fraction of the details relevant to in-world situations. If you'd rather assume we have complete and reliable information, meaning that these gaps are only arbitrary and sneer at the books because of it, have at it. If someone would prefer to acknowledge that our information is incomplete and that some of what we don't know could plausibly explain gaps we perceive, I think that's fine too.

That we've never seen a soulcasting on the scale of the dome, and that it might require a high-Oath Radiant and a direct conduit to the SR (which Azimir didn't have) to accomplish, is enough for me to not automatically declare that situation to be sloppiness alone. I agree that the Windrunners should be a lot more devastating than they seem to be and it stretches credulity that they aren't. Maybe part of that is some reality they face I'm not thinking of and that the books don't mention. Maybe some of it is detail that's expressed in the books in a wobbly way, like how far an amount of Stormlight goes. Maybe the scales of battles do involve that many casualties, hard as that is to believe. Maybe some of it is lack of actual experience with tactics on our parts. Maybe it's just arbitrary plotting and lack of thinking through the details. But even if the lattermost is true of the Windrunner's performance, that isn't evidence that some unrelated thing is also equally arbitrary and careless.

[Frustration]

2 hours ago, Returned said:

Sure, but we also get only a tiny fraction of the details relevant to in-world situations. If you'd rather assume we have complete and reliable information, meaning that these gaps are only arbitrary and sneer at the books because of it, have at it. If someone would prefer to acknowledge that our information is incomplete and that some of what we don't know could plausibly explain gaps we perceive, I think that's fine too.

That we've never seen a soulcasting on the scale of the dome, and that it might require a high-Oath Radiant and a direct conduit to the SR (which Azimir didn't have) to accomplish, is enough for me to not automatically declare that situation to be sloppiness alone. I agree that the Windrunners should be a lot more devastating than they seem to be and it stretches credulity that they aren't. Maybe part of that is some reality they face I'm not thinking of and that the books don't mention. Maybe some of it is detail that's expressed in the books in a wobbly way, like how far an amount of Stormlight goes. Maybe the scales of battles do involve that many casualties, hard as that is to believe. Maybe some of it is lack of actual experience with tactics on our parts. Maybe it's just arbitrary plotting and lack of thinking through the details. But even if the lattermost is true of the Windrunner's performance, that isn't evidence that some unrelated thing is also equally arbitrary and careless.

I don't like the assumption that there must be in world information that makes it not work. If it's really obvious the it's something the author should address in the text.

For example, why don't windrunners just make really thin shardblades and mow down thousands of singers in a single pass? They can get them to about 15 feet long as per Syl. Make a small axehead-like shield for their head with two really long blades on the sides and just fly through them?

Or better yet, attach multiple shardblades together to make a really long and thin wire and have a windrunner on either end fly through the entire army?

20,000 regals and fused dead in the span of 20 seconds without a single human casulaty.

[alder24]

13 hours ago, Xabben said:

For me, this is not exactly true. I mean, I think that the oathgates in the physical realm are just like "doorbells" used to contact the inksprens in shadesmar so that they know they have to send you to another physical place. If you break the "doorbell" (that is, the fabrial), you cannot contact the cognitive realm, and thus, the oathgate effectively stops working. However, if you are in shadesmar and you want to transport back to the physical realm, you don't need to use the "doorbell", as you can directly speak to the sprens. That's why you don't need to use a shardblade to activate the oathgate from the shadesmar side. Thus, even if they broke the physical oathgate, the singers could have still used it to enter Azimir.

The Oathgates are physical manifestations of spren. If you damage their physical manifestation (fabrial), they stop functioning, their link to the Physical Realm is disrupted and they can't send someone on the other side. 

13 hours ago, Frustration said:

I'll have to reread that scene, but if they had that power the defenders shouldn't have been able to stop them as the dome was a lot more weight than the humans, and later the singers control the entire inside of the dome, but still fight their way out of the few exists rather than blasting through the rest of it to escape where there are no people.

But that's what happened. We haven't seen this happening, because Adolin at that time was fighting the Thunderclast with another Shardbearer, but Singers did destroy a section of the dome. The only reason Azish survived another day was because they used their oil trap and set the inside of the dome ablaze forcing Singers to retreat back to CR, and the Fused and Singers who left the dome through that breach before were mauled to death by Taln. 

At that time of the siege, more Fused joined Odium's army, so it's highly likely they used their Surges to collapse a part of the dome and they either ran out of Voidlight or were killed by Taln so they couldn't have done it again. Or they might have used some kind of conventional explosive device prepared specifically for this moment. We don't know how they did it, but they did it anyway. 

13 hours ago, Frustration said:

Responding to both of these, I don't think the spren have a choice. The ones in OB told Shallan they wanted to let her through but they couldn't. As long as the device is configured correctly I don't think they can refuse.

The ones in Thaylen City denied the passage to Shallan, despite the Oathgate being open properly on the other side. Yes, they can refuse. In that case it was because they were bound by the Sibling to close the access to CR. In RoW, some Oathgate spren decided to accept Stormfather in place of the absent Sibling, others decided to remain closed off following Sibling's final order - it was their decision to make.

But in this case it's different. Azish spren were corrupted by Sja-Anat, they were released from some of the limitations that were chaining them. They had gained their freedom and now they could refuse anyone they wanted not only the access to CR, but also the access to the transportation between Oathgates in the Physical Realm. It was stated multiple times in the book that the Azish gate will soon stop working because of the spren and it didn't matter that the gate was opened on both sides. 

13 hours ago, Frustration said:

I don't see how Windrunners don't rack up kill counts in the four digits every battle.

Because all of them are greenhorns and they are not Kaladin, who's the only one among them who has natural talent and actual expertise in fighting. All of them were former slaves who were just learning how to fight with a spear and how to use their Surges for the first time ever with no proper instructors, because none could have taught them how to fight in the air. Moreover, most of them have no Shardblade yet and they are regularly fighting Fused who has 7000 years of experience in battle and with Surges. That's enough for me to understand why they aren't as powerful as their Surges make them. 

But I agree, Fused are a disappointment. All of them should be on the level of Lezian in terms of their fighting prowess. It's hard for me to comprehend why Desolations were so devastating if Radiants are so op compared to Fused. 

[Frustration]

55 minutes ago, alder24 said:

The ones in Thaylen City denied the passage to Shallan, despite the Oathgate being open properly on the other side. Yes, they can refuse. In that case it was because they were bound by the Sibling to close the access to CR. In RoW, some Oathgate spren decided to accept Stormfather in place of the absent Sibling, others decided to remain closed off following Sibling's final order - it was their decision to make.

But in this case it's different. Azish spren were corrupted by Sja-Anat, they were released from some of the limitations that were chaining them. They had gained their freedom and now they could refuse anyone they wanted not only the access to CR, but also the access to the transportation between Oathgates in the Physical Realm. It was stated multiple times in the book that the Azish gate will soon stop working because of the spren and it didn't matter that the gate was opened on both sides. 

They did specifically say they wanted to help Shallan, though now that you point it out I do recall them saying that the spren would cut off their ability to go to Urithiru and back. That's odd, I'll have to look into that.

But in that case there's even less of a reason to keep the Oathgates operational as there's no garuntee they would even get the ability to use it again.

[alder24]

4 hours ago, Frustration said:

But in that case there's even less of a reason to keep the Oathgates operational as there's no garuntee they would even get the ability to use it again.

That’s shortsighted. They wanted freedom, they have it, now you just need to treat them like people and not objects and negotiate with them. You need to show them that you’re not their enemy but their friend. That’s why you cannot piss them off by dismantling the Oathgate