how was aimia invaded in the first place?

[cometaryorbit]

 Also, if Aimia was all that flammable, it would burn relatively often naturally, and the local life would be adapted to periodic fires.

[CabbageHead he/him]

I'm curious, why do people assume fire was involved? Scouring something doesn't involve fire, just wiping it clean in an abrasive fashion.

[DocHoliday he/him]

Or with acid

[Spoolofwhool]

On 2/16/2017 at 7:59 PM, CabbageHead said:

I'm curious, why do people assume fire was involved? Scouring something doesn't involve fire, just wiping it clean in an abrasive fashion.

Because fire seems to be the most effective way of killing entities made from cremlings.

[king of nowhere]

On 17/2/2017 at 1:59 AM, CabbageHead said:

I'm curious, why do people assume fire was involved? Scouring something doesn't involve fire, just wiping it clean in an abrasive fashion.

You just gave me a mental image of a rosharan army advancing in a line equipped with mops, scrubbing the ground clean and shiny at its passage...

[CabbageHead he/him]

On 2/20/2017 at 0:51 AM, king of nowhere said:

You just gave me a mental image of a rosharan army advancing in a line equipped with mops, scrubbing the ground clean and shiny at its passage...

A fearsome sight to behold! But first, they must strike terror in the hearts of their enemies with a traditional war dance.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sArAC2_ow2k

[Blackhoof]

I'd certainly imagine shardblades (assuming the wielder is prepared and knowledgeable) combined with shardplate would be useful against Aimians of this sort. A single swipe through a body could kill dozens of cremlings, and if they come at you in a carpet you could destroy even more by crouching and swinging low to the ground. Not as easy as killing a normal human, but certainly useful. And the cremlings would be useless against a sharplate-wearer, the mass of them wouldn't even be able to weigh them down. Given enough time, a few full shardbearers could slaughter untold numbers of cremlings, and thus Aimians. 

Even enough normal soldiers could do it- it would be difficult, and there would be casualties, but a hundred normal soldiers to one Aimian could, in time, destroy the cremlings. Stamp on them, crush them with swords, axes or hammers. People would die- via poison, or claws, or sticky web, but that is expected in war.

A concerted and vicious campaign with enough soldiers and some Shardbearer support could, indeed, wipe out hundreds of Aimians. And I expect that there were only hundreds of Aimians before the Scouring.

[Yata he/him]

3 hours ago, Blackhoof said:

I'd certainly imagine shardblades (assuming the wielder is prepared and knowledgeable) combined with shardplate would be useful against Aimians of this sort. A single swipe through a body could kill dozens of cremlings, and if they come at you in a carpet you could destroy even more by crouching and swinging low to the ground. Not as easy as killing a normal human, but certainly useful. And the cremlings would be useless against a sharplate-wearer, the mass of them wouldn't even be able to weigh them down. Given enough time, a few full shardbearers could slaughter untold numbers of cremlings, and thus Aimians. 

Even enough normal soldiers could do it- it would be difficult, and there would be casualties, but a hundred normal soldiers to one Aimian could, in time, destroy the cremlings. Stamp on them, crush them with swords, axes or hammers. People would die- via poison, or claws, or sticky web, but that is expected in war.

A concerted and vicious campaign with enough soldiers and some Shardbearer support could, indeed, wipe out hundreds of Aimians. And I expect that there were only hundreds of Aimians before the Scouring.

Maybe we think differently but Shardbearer are the worst possible opponent for a Sleepless.

Their Plate doesn't not protect them for the swarm...the Cremling could easly go in the eyes fissure and kill the man inside...secondly a Shardblade is probably one of the "not too good" weapon to fight a Swarm (as any other slashing weapon)...first of all you could kill dozen of cremling...but you could do the same thing with ordinary blade.

Sending a Shardbearer aganist a Sleepless mean only risk Shards and make the Sleepless a greater enemy. This in theory, in practice this is worse, because usually Shardbearer are not used to fight enemy who could survive to their attacks and could sneak in their (almost) perfect defense

[Blackhoof]

8 hours ago, Yata said:

Maybe we think differently but Shardbearer are the worst possible opponent for a Sleepless.

Their Plate doesn't not protect them for the swarm...the Cremling could easly go in the eyes fissure and kill the man inside...secondly a Shardblade is probably one of the "not too good" weapon to fight a Swarm (as any other slashing weapon)...first of all you could kill dozen of cremling...but you could do the same thing with ordinary blade.

Sending a Shardbearer aganist a Sleepless mean only risk Shards and make the Sleepless a greater enemy. This in theory, in practice this is worse, because usually Shardbearer are not used to fight enemy who could survive to their attacks and could sneak in their (almost) perfect defense

The eyeslit thing is a good point- I'd completely forgotten about the eyeslit weakness.

That said. The cremlings still need to climb up the shardbearer to get to the face- and with an agile and powerful warrior constantly moving and easily able to sweep away cremlings from his suit, that would be hard. Shardbearers are mobile, dextrous and strong in a way no normal human is. No way you can pin one down for long as a swarm of cremlings.

If he crouches low, holds the blade close to the ground parallel, and then swings, he can scythe through dozens easily. More effectively than any sword.

Also, they wouldn't really be risking the shards- Sleepless don't seem like they could use them, so a retainer can just collect the shards after death if necessary. The kingdom itself wont lose them.

 

[BlackYeti he/him]

27 minutes ago, Blackhoof said:

Also, they wouldn't really be risking the shards- Sleepless don't seem like they could use them, so a retainer can just collect the shards after death if necessary. The kingdom itself wont lose them.

1

1

Why do you think they couldn't use the Shards?

They're able to combine and take on a human-like form: with a head, torso, legs, feet, arms, hands, fingers, etc. What's to stop them putting Shardplate on in this form? Moreover, what's to stop them from leaving a swarm of their hoardlings outside the plate, thus combining the advantages of both the Shards and the swarm at the same time?

Edited February 25, 2017 by BlackYeti

[Blackhoof]

9 hours ago, BlackYeti said:

Why do you think they couldn't use the Shards?

They're able to combine and take on a human-like form: with a head, torso, legs, feet, arms, hands, fingers, etc. What's to stop them putting Shardplate on in this form? Moreover, what's to stop them from leaving a swarm of their hoardlings outside the plate, thus combining the advantages of both the Shards and the swarm at the same time?

That is a fair point, but i get the sense that assuming human form doesn't mean they form a perfect replica. Heck, Arclo even says that his disquise is pretty imperfect on most of his body, so he covers it up in the Tashikki garb. And I get the sense that they aren't as strong or as dextrous as humans are in this form- it is nothing but a disguise. Like two toddlers in a trenchcoat- they LOOK like an adult, but they can't fight or move well like an adult if necessary. That said, if they disassemble they are perfectly effective- as a cremling swarm. Just like if the toddlers jumped out of the trenchcoat, they could do a fine job swarming someone bigger... but not AS an adult, AS a swarm of smaller things.

Am I conveying my meaning properly?

I basically mean that while I have no HARD evidence to support this, I get the sense that a Sleepless would find it difficult/impossible to manoeuvre Shardplate, and possibly the plate wouldn't even register them as a wearer. If a bunch of crabs happened to crawl into empty Shardplate, would it seal shut and accept them as its wearer? If a bunch of crabs grabbed a Shardblade hilt, would it accept this group of 5 crabs as its owner? I figure that Shardplate doesn't consider Sleepless as a wearer, and would not react to them at all.

[Calderis he/him]

18 minutes ago, Blackhoof said:

That is a fair point, but i get the sense that assuming human form doesn't mean they form a perfect replica. Heck, Arclo even says that his disquise is pretty imperfect on most of his body, so he covers it up in the Tashikki garb. And I get the sense that they aren't as strong or as dextrous as humans are in this form- it is nothing but a disguise. Like two toddlers in a trenchcoat- they LOOK like an adult, but they can't fight or move well like an adult if necessary. That said, if they disassemble they are perfectly effective- as a cremling swarm. Just like if the toddlers jumped out of the trenchcoat, they could do a fine job swarming someone bigger... but not AS an adult, AS a swarm of smaller things.

Am I conveying my meaning properly?

I basically mean that while I have no HARD evidence to support this, I get the sense that a Sleepless would find it difficult/impossible to manoeuvre Shardplate, and possibly the plate wouldn't even register them as a wearer. If a bunch of crabs happened to crawl into empty Shardplate, would it seal shut and accept them as its wearer? If a bunch of crabs grabbed a Shardblade hilt, would it accept this group of 5 crabs as its owner? I figure that Shardplate doesn't consider Sleepless as a wearer, and would not react to them at all.

I think that the sleepless as a have mind would be viewed as a single entity in their cognitive aspect, and the plate would therefore recognize them as a single being. The various parts essentially functioning no differently than the individual cells in a human body. 

 

I also think an entity capable of creating specialized parts to mimic a human body would be more than capable of the arguably simpler task of making a attack cell to quickly enter the plates eyeslit and burrow into the brain. 

I don't believe shardbearers would pose them a significant problem, or that Shards would be unusable for them. 

 

Speculation is fun isn't it? 

[cometaryorbit]

Also, I don't see why a being capable of separating into bugs would try fighting a Shardbearer in the first place. They could just hide as bugs, then sneak into the army's camp as bugs, then recombine and kill the Shardbearer when he's asleep (and not wearing Plate).

The difficulty isn't so much defeating them in battle as getting them into a fight in the first place.

[Cosmere Savant]

To be honest I don't think that the Sleepless and the Aimians are related whatsoever I've always imagined the Aimians as being a very strange and very different type of human or even a crossbreed between humans and kandra/mistwraiths somehow. The Sleepless aren't even really a person they are many many creatures nesteled together to form a hive they are no more people that a beehive is.

[Calderis he/him]

1 hour ago, Cosmere Savant said:

To be honest I don't think that the Sleepless and the Aimians are related whatsoever I've always imagined the Aimians as being a very strange and very different type of human or even a crossbreed between humans and kandra/mistwraiths somehow. The Sleepless aren't even really a person they are many many creatures nesteled together to form a hive they are no more people that a beehive is.

Except the sleepless are literally named "Dysian Aimians."  they are obviously different than Siah Aimians, and "Aimian" may just mean they are from Aimia but you can't say they aren't Aimians. 

And they are a person in the context we're speaking of. An anthill or beehive is a lot of individual creatures, but they function as cells of a larger entity. The Sleepless just carry the concept to a higher level. The Dysian in Edgedancer is a distinct character. It is an individual entity made of numerous parts. A hive mind functions as a single being regardless of the number of bodies. It's why individuals ants and bees are expendable in protecting the colony. Self preservation regards the whole, not the individual. 

[Farnsworth]

Who says they even fought back? Now they are violent, but a culture as physically powerful as that probably didn't develop war strategies, simply because a way between Amians wouldn't really be very productive if they're so hard to kill. If they didn't fight back, they could have been scoured fairly easily.

[thegatorgirl00 she/her]

On January 22, 2017 at 9:17 PM, cometaryorbit said:

How they managed that I'm not sure; Aimia looks pretty big on the map. We don't have a scale, but given that the Reshi Isles at the north edge of the Roshar continent are pretty tropical and the southernmost part is called 'Frostlands', the scale of the map must be fairly large.

Plus Brandon's called Roshar a supercontinent; if it's the size of Eurasia, Aimia would be at least as big as New Guinea (which is ~300,000 square miles - larger than Texas). If it's the size of Pangaea, Aimia would be more than twice as big, maybe roughly Greenland- or Mexico-sized. I really can't see any Rosharan nation or even alliance of nations having the ability to totally burn down or devastate an area that big*.

AU says Roshar is .9 cosmere standard, aka Earth, so I suspect it is smaller than your estimates. 

[cometaryorbit]

On 3/20/2017 at 3:04 PM, Figberts said:

Who says they even fought back? Now they are violent, but a culture as physically powerful as that probably didn't develop war strategies, simply because a way between Amians wouldn't really be very productive if they're so hard to kill. If they didn't fight back, they could have been scoured fairly easily.

I'm not so sure. All they'd have to do is disperse, hide, then go somewhere else. You just couldn't have people watching even a significant fraction of the area, not without satellite surveillance or something.

And even without war strategies, they ought to have been capable of picking off isolated scouts. Alethkar is by far the most warlike nation on Roshar, and they can mobilize something like 150,000 troops for the Shattered Plains, which are relatively close by. The nations near Aimia are much less militant, but even 150k wouldn't be anywhere near enough to closely control a large area.

On 3/20/2017 at 8:06 PM, thegatorgirl00 said:

AU says Roshar is .9 cosmere standard, aka Earth, so I suspect it is smaller than your estimates. 

A 10% difference isn't terribly significant on this scale. A degree of latitude is ~69 miles on Earth; on Roshar, 90% of the size, it'd be ~62 miles.

Even if I'm way wrong, and Roshar only gets considered a 'supercontinent' because it's the only significant landmass on the planet and not because it's particularly huge, it must be at least continent-sized due to the very different climates (Frostlands in the south to tropical islands in the north). Even if it's a smallish continent, Aimia should still be somewhat larger than Great Britain.

And it's really hard to closely control large areas with ancient/medieval technology. Empires and large monarchies back then generally had to rely far more on local administration.

[ZenBossanova]

On 3/22/2017 at 0:12 AM, cometaryorbit said:

A 10% difference isn't terribly significant on this scale. A degree of latitude is ~69 miles on Earth; on Roshar, 90% of the size, it'd be ~62 miles.

So, if we compare the Reshi Isles to Recife, Brazil (5 degrees South, latitude) and Thaylenah to the Falkland Islands (52 degrees South, latitude), then on that would be a N/S distance of (52 - 5)*69 = 3243 miles. If Roshar is 90% the linear dimensions, then we are looking at 2918.7 miles, N/S for Roshar geography. Depending on where the actual equator and poles are, could change my calculator significantly. 

Taking a ruler to my book, I get that same distance as 14 cm. Aimia is roughly 1 cm x 4 cm. This gives us a rough upper limit on the size of Aimia as 173770 square miles. That would make it just slightly larger than California (163,696 square miles).

 

On 2/19/2017 at 5:51 PM, king of nowhere said:

You just gave me a mental image of a rosharan army advancing in a line equipped with mops, scrubbing the ground clean and shiny at its passage...

Shardmops? 

 

On a more serious note, I think it is interesting just how merciless the Aimian was against the Skybreakers. He didn't even give them a chance. Perhaps he holds a grudge because it was the Skybreakers who scoured Aimia, using the surges of Division and Gravitation. Perhaps the Skybreakers attacked Aimia, for the same reason they have been killing proto-Radiants. 

Attacking enmass, they are the only group I can think of, that exists after Recreance, who would have a chance of killing them.
One quote from the Aimian in favor "Ancient Radiants called me friend and ally before everything went wrong". 
One quote in possible opposition "[Nale] knows to stay way from me and my kind".

[DrakeMarshall he/him]

You alls mention the possibility of a weapon like napalm being used against the sleepless to burn the hordelings.

I somewhat doubt that Roshar had the technology to make incendiary weapons like napalm... But on the other hand, isn't the order of dustbringers capable of making loads and loads of fire?

Thing is, I'm not so sure about the timelines. The scouring might have happened post-recreance, not sure.

[king of nowhere]

greek fire was an incendiary weapon developed well over a milllennia ago. even before that, more rudimentary fire weapons based on pitch and resins were available. doesn't take that much tech to develop a flammable sticky mixture.

[Calderis he/him]

8 minutes ago, king of nowhere said:

greek fire was an incendiary weapon developed well over a milllennia ago. even before that, more rudimentary fire weapons based on pitch and resins were available. doesn't take that much tech to develop a flammable sticky mixture.

Yep. Roshar's higher oxygen levels are going to make it even easier. Everything is going to burn hotter, and faster. It will be harder to extinguish too. 

Edited June 13, 2017 by Calderis

[iamstick]

I'm totally shipping Rysn's and Nale's larkins. Someone has to think of the crustaceans. (I also hope that Shallan sets up chasmfiend farming)