Why the Alethi are not a medieval society

[animalia]

I think this thread needs to be updated with Oathbringer release. I also had a crazy idea that I hope happens. I hope Jasnah with her crazy ways of thinking as the new Queen as well as about how so much of power is about perception can invent paper currency if it’s needed.

[Gasper he/him]

I will add to this conversation. As we see in Oathbringer, Kholinar has a fairly large population, same with other cities that we see later in the book and in Edgedancer. Given that they have found Urithuru, (sorry if that is misspelled) I think fabrial tech will increase exponentially. Also, things like trains might not be able to exist on Roshar because of the highstorms. The tracks would get destroyed. Also, the highstorms would limit the population growth, especially on the stormward side of Roshar because any unprotected settlements would be destroyed in short order unless a soulcaster or radiant was available to create shelter. As mentioned earlier in this thread, phones might be invented soon because of the spanreed, that or holographic calling based on lightweaving and spanreed like connections. The medieval analogy does not hold up well because the Rosharians are developing industrial farming, just look at Sebrial and his pig farms. Also, I think the reason gun powder has not been invented is because they lack sulfur and sodium nitrate. That is because those are two substances that need to be mined, which is something that is hard on Roshar because of the highstorms. That means that both of those materials would need to be soulcast. But what might be easier is to give a Scadrian a soulcaster tuned to the proper essences and have them make the explosives. All in all, I would say that Roshar is at about a 18th to 9th century level of development, with late middle ages in some areas only.

[animalia]

Oathbringer aldo gave us a lot of new information on how warfare works on Roshar. Who ever it was who made the prediction on seige warfare not being practical, and that walls tend to be batterd down gets a cookie. But we also get the bit on how “shardbearers can’t hold ground.” It shows that for all the fabled might of the shardblade, it really has a limited use. The dead ones anyways.

[Yata he/him]

11 hours ago, animalia said:

I think this thread needs to be updated with Oathbringer release. I also had a crazy idea that I hope happens. I hope Jasnah with her crazy ways of thinking as the new Queen as well as about how so much of power is about perception can invent paper currency if it’s needed.

There is already paper currency, simply the Alethi don't use it. It's what we saw the Thaylen already do, the whole bank exposition showed us how they manage money beyond pocket money

[animalia]

11 hours ago, Yata said:

There is already paper currency, simply the Alethi don't use it. It's what we saw the Thaylen already do, the whole bank exposition showed us how they manage money beyond pocket money

My bad. I need to reread the series.

[Yata he/him]

5 minutes ago, animalia said:

My bad. I need to reread the series.

It's not truly the paper currency we have habit with.

But if you read again Rysn Interlude in OB and her teacher's explaination. You may notice that is the actually basic working of paper currency.

Paper stuffs that rappresent the ownership of something valuable stored in a safe place (in this case, gemstones)

[+Oltux72 he/him]

On 3/3/2016 at 0:50 AM, sheep said:

If only banks existed - then people would have an alternative loans without putting the lives of their children as collateral.  I know Lin Davar never liked Jushu, but Shallan was his favourite and a debt collector wouldn't care which child he took.  In fact, a creditor might just take all of them.

He was enslaved for personal debt. But why wouldn't banks take human collateral?