Rosharan Revolution (Any ideas for tecnological advanced Roshar?)

[Karger he/him]

Roshar's most important feature is the highstorm which are incredibly dangerous and drop crem.  Most Rosharans see crem as a nuisance although some use it as pottery, a building material or fertilizer but what if it could more with it?

When highstorms drop crem it is still mixed in with the water meaning that it is effectively a liquid until it hardens.  If you design a road as two long parallel bumps in the ground then the crem will move downhill depositing itself in the lower areas to the sides and in the center.  The crem will most likely do this in a uniform manner meaning that their are not going to be any potholes on Rosahr and the roads could be self maintaining.

 

Anyone else have ideas about turning Roshar's weirdness to human(or singer) advantage?

[earthexile]

I think you're thinking in Earth terms with that road idea. Couple of things- the ground on Roshar, other than in Shinovar, is bare stone. It would not be a simple matter to carve channels into it. The Highstorms also fling around boulders and other heavy stuff, which would make the maintenance of ceramic roads a real struggle. 

[Karger he/him]

40 minutes ago, earthexile said:

I think you're thinking in Earth terms with that road idea. Couple of things- the ground on Roshar, other than in Shinovar, is bare stone. It would not be a simple matter to carve channels into it. The Highstorms also fling around boulders and other heavy stuff, which would make the maintenance of ceramic roads a real struggle. 

With more Radiants it might be much easier considering the shear number of shardblades

[SwordNimiForPresident the sword/that sword]

Use fabrials to make a platform fly. Keep it over the Highstorm at all times so that it never runs out of Stormlight. Expand it until you have a flying city that moves with the Highstorm. New and improved headquarters of the Knights Radiant, where they always have access to their powers. It would pretty much be a Rosharan Elantris.

[+Invocation]

29 minutes ago, SwordNimiForPresident said:

Use fabrials to make a platform fly. Keep it over the Highstorm at all times so that it never runs out of Stormlight. Expand it until you have a flying city that moves with the Highstorm. New and improved headquarters of the Knights Radiant, where they always have access to their powers. It would pretty much be a Rosharan Elantris.

You're pretty screwed during the Weeping, though.

[SwordNimiForPresident the sword/that sword]

Just now, Invocation said:

You're pretty screwed during the Weeping, though.

I'm pretty sure you would just be on the other side of the world.

[HSuperLee]

34 minutes ago, SwordNimiForPresident said:

Use fabrials to make a platform fly. Keep it over the Highstorm at all times so that it never runs out of Stormlight. Expand it until you have a flying city that moves with the Highstorm. New and improved headquarters of the Knights Radiant, where they always have access to their powers. It would pretty much be a Rosharan Elantris.

I think the Stormfather would be rather upset about a bunch of people trying to ride his storm.

[+Invocation]

4 minutes ago, SwordNimiForPresident said:

I'm pretty sure you would just be on the other side of the world.

The other side of the world with perhaps no Stormlight available. 

[Bookish Ocelot she/her]

Infrastructure: 

Large walls built using wooden frames covered with crem- minimal effort required

Long-distance communication via telegraph-like devices using paired fabrials

Mag-lev trains using reversing fabrials like Navani's archer platform - minimized friction

Elevators - see above

Infinite water supply via soulcasters/rain - transported via soulcast aqueducts

 

Industry:

Once they invent the assembly line, they have impossibly cheap goods - theoretically unlimited material supply due to soulcasters

Anything can be soulcast into something else- think mass production of carbon fiber, titanium, copper, and so on. 

Limitless power supply using a nuclear reactor (very advanced- unlikely given existing energy stuff)

[Kramerfarve]

In terms of electricity, I’m sure investiture engines could be created using fabrials, and given they have near infinite amounts of investiture, they would grow in that regard rather quickly and without pollutants.

[SwordNimiForPresident the sword/that sword]

@Karger I don't know if Roshar will have a need for electricity. Most of what we do with electricity now could be achieved with fabrials instead.

Relevant WoB, spoilered for Mistborn and Whitesand

Quote

Spoiler

DrogaKrolow

Technological progress. So Scadrial is going all the way to cyberpunk.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

DrogaKrolow

But do you plan to do it anywhere else?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, with an asterisk, right? Roshar has a very different technological path but they have access to so much more Investiture in an easy to use format. Roshar is really heading toward what we call magicpunk, or things like this, magepunk, where you are using a magical power source and things like this. So their technology is going to go weird but it's going to go fast once they start figuring things out because they have easy access to Investiture resources.

Spoiler

Scadrial: slower for various reasons and things like that, but it's ahead.

And then there was Taldain, which was really far ahead but then froze when it got-- Offworld travel was stopped and it became isolationist.

So most everybody is kind of heading that direction but, yeah.

DrogaKrolow.pl interview (March 17, 2017)

 

14 hours ago, Invocation said:

The other side of the world with perhaps no Stormlight available. 

Seems like a good reason to keep a Bondsmith in residence.

 

Edited April 16, 2019 by SwordNimiForPresident

[Wander89 he/him]

I've always imagined Stormlight fuelled machines would be like the machinations from FF VII, powered by materia. 

Edited April 16, 2019 by Wander89
Materia, not material.

[Bigmikey357 he/him]

So in magical terms, places like Roshar and Nalthis are the high-mana worlds while Scadrial, Taldain and Threnody are low on the spectrum.  Elantris and FOTS are middle of the road. That probably says much about how they will employ technology in the future. Scadrial relies heavily on technology and manipulates Investiture IOT augment it, Roshar takes the opposite approach, manipulating technology to augment its magitech devices. Bottom line, they're both getting spaceflights one day. Roshar is faster sub-luminal, Scadrial looks faster with FTL.

Edited April 20, 2019 by Bigmikey357

[+Invocation]

12 minutes ago, Bigmikey357 said:

So in magical terms, places like Roshar and Nalthis are the high-mana worlds while Scadrial, Taldain and Threnody are low on the spectrum.  Elantris and FOTS are middle of the road. 

I don't know if I'd put Scadrial on the low side with the ettmetal stuff.

[Bigmikey357 he/him]

Ettmetal is what allows Scadrial or what will allow Scadrial to mechanize and industrialize the Metallic Arts in mass quantities. Otherwise we'd see its usages looking much like it does in Avatar: Adventures of Korra. However, the rarity of the metal and the difficulty of finding attributes to put into the metalis why I would classify Scadrial as a low-mana worlds. Compare it to Roshar where free Investiture sheets down in buckets from the sky averaging around twice a month or Nathis where anyone can become a magic user.

[Scion of the Mists]

On 4/20/2019 at 6:38 PM, Bigmikey357 said:

Scadrial, Taldain and Threnody are low on the spectrum.

Doesn't Taldain have Investiture beating down on the entire (half of the) planet 24/7 via the sun?