[OB] Voidbringers knowledge and non-magical capabilities

[Hyarmenatan]

Hi,

As we can see from what happens in Thaylenah, and also from the previous chapters, Voidbringers are not a mindless beasts some of us expected them to be. They are smart, trained, and have a bigger goal in mind rather than slaughtering every non-Parshendi in their vicinity. Likely, what they will try to do is to overwhelm Roshar and humans in a deliberated, strategically planned manner, taking advantage of their superior communication and organizing skills.

If it seriously is the case, what aces do they have in their sleve? What are they able to do?

From the transformation of Eshonai and others into Stormform we can see that besides getting a boost in 'magical' capabilities and changing into hatefull people, their level of knowledge and abilities did not increase on their own. However, we know that Eshonai does remember her previous life, she only no longer cares about what was previously important to her. 

My theory is that all the Parshmen, now transformed into Voidbringers, also remember their previous lives. Knowledge they had is retained. Parshmen from forges can forge weapon. Parsh-sailors steal or build ships. Parsh-farmers know how to grow food to feed their own. Basically, whenever there was an activity on Roshar where Parshmen was involved and taught how to do something, he still knows and potentially could be doing it. And Parshmen were everywhere, and were doing every basic tasks. Storms, could there be some jobs that no human was doing and humans might not know now how to to something? What could be the potential consequences of that knowledge and what can Voidbringers actually do from an industry / manufacturing perspective?

[Knight Oblivion]

Makes sense. Now that the Parshmen are no longer in slaveform, they'd most likely would be able to put their experiences to use.

[ChazBolt]

4 hours ago, Hyarmenatan said:

Storms, could there be some jobs that no human was doing and humans might not know now how to to something? What could be the potential consequences of that knowledge and what can Voidbringers actually do from an industry / manufacturing perspective?

I think they had to be taught their job by someone at somepoint. If it was so complicated that humans didnt know how to do it, then they wouldnt have been able to figure it out themselves while in slaveform. 

[DiamondMind he/him]

53 minutes ago, ChazBolt said:

I think they had to be taught their job by someone at somepoint. If it was so complicated that humans didnt know how to do it, then they wouldnt have been able to figure it out themselves while in slaveform. 

There's a difference between theoretically knowing how to do something and the institutional knowledge of how to do so. Even if they were doing just menial jobs, which I don't believe is the case, others will have to be trained to do it properly and quickly. It's going to throw Roshar into chaos.

[ChazBolt]

14 hours ago, DiamondMind said:

There's a difference between theoretically knowing how to do something and the institutional knowledge of how to do so. Even if they were doing just menial jobs, which I don't believe is the case, others will have to be trained to do it properly and quickly. It's going to throw Roshar into chaos.

Agreed. I was arguing against the claim that people didn't know how to do certain tasks at all, not that the lack of so many workers would/wouldn't hav an effect.