Kurkistan

^807 "I don't like him," Syl's voice said suddenly, coming from behind. "He's strange."

I don't think that suppression would cause a lack of crossbows. Remember that the Alethkar and Jah Kaved have the vast majority of Blades/Plate, so basically every other country would have an incentive to develop a means to counter them. This applies equally well on the micro-scale: any Highprince or other noble facing an imbalance of shards would have an incentive to develop a counter-measure. Crossbows are also useful in and of themselves, both as a low-skill replacement to bows and as anti-armor weaponry, not to mention the benefits of artillery and siege weaponry in war (EDIT: As applies to ballistae, I mean). As to greatbows, perhaps. We know that it's relatively rare to run into a Parshendi Shardbearer, and that, even without the Blade, someone in Plate is immensely effective on the frontlines. On the other hand, we know that Sadeas has broken off encounters with enemy Shardbearers several times; either he did not have the time to retreat and fetch a greatbow (or he didn't bring it to the battle, or the Parshendi Shardbearer retreated before he could get it), or greatbows are not, in fact, designed to counter Plate.

A quote that you quoted, nonetheless!

Nice work. Very thorough. Small note, though. We have a quote from Brandon that Vin avoided Hoid in HoA for reasons other than Ruin being all ruinous:

Somewhat necropost-y, I suppose, but I go by Kurkistan on Steam as well. I've been taking a bit of a break from online gaming for the last few months, but in the past I've been pretty into TF2 and Shogun 2: Total War.

Curses! I sail note left mai toner tee unfiltered!

Fun fact about archery: You mostly use the muscles in your back for the pull. Crossbows are either cranked or rely on your legs. So a bit more than a gauntlet would be necessary. Also: You can't get much paste past me, Odium. *Taps side of nose knowingly*

It's really not a question of "mimicking" forces. Crossbows deliver a very large amount of energy, more so than a swing of a warhammer. Ballistae are siege weapons. That armor will crack. It's simply a question of getting a dozen or so of the things pointed in the right direction and pulling the trigger, to the point where the cracks add up to shattering adds up to no more Shardbearer. As to the "half-Shards" point: from what I understand of what you're saying, you're proposing essentially a grandbow that can be used by an ordinary man. If that's the case, the power of that bow could be easily mimicked with any kind of crank mechanism to store incremental amounts of energy. EDIT: I just noticed that the forum shortens your name down to just "Odium" when I quote you. So this is your gambit, eh, Shard of Hatred? Trying to distract the forces of Honor by casting doubt on our weapons development? EDIT 2: On the point that I have so far failed to find actual evidence to support my belief that crossbows deliver more energy than warhammers: Even if, historically, Earth crossbows were less powerful than warhammers, Rosharian(?) crossbows could simply be designed with a greater power output. The only limit is how long it takes to pull back the string and how strong the material of the crossbow is. Throw in some insta-soulcast metal and the ability to strengthen bows with gemstones, and you have solved the problem of material-strength. This makes it eminently feasible to produce high-energy crossbows for use against Shardbearers, with a slightly longer reload time than their Earth counterparts, at very worst.

Five minutes? The only reference I can find right now has a Parshendi using a hammer to cause "a few tiny weblike lines" with a single hit. While that isn't impressive in and of itself, I imagine that a dozen of them with a few seconds of uninterrupted work could cause something a bit more painful. Crossbows deal a lot of force to a small area, as well. While a hammer might diffuse its force over a few square inches, a bolt would put all of its force into less than one square inch, maximizing its effectiveness. The power behind such a bolt is also greater than what a strong man with a hammer can generate in the first place (I'm fairly sure, although the internet has betrayed me and left me without definite proof), so crossbows have both more power and deliver it into a smaller area for a greater effect. Consider grandbows (AKA Shardbows). Unless they were designed specifically to hunt chasmfiends, they are most likely meant to be used against men in Shardplate. So "ballistic pressure" has some efficacy, while the force generated by a grandbow could be mimicked by a sufficiently strong crossbow (or crossbows) or ballistae.

While I am always tempted to bow to the wisdom of the ancients, I must reiterate that I believe any crossbow/ballista style weapon would be highly effective against Shardbearers.

So it should be pronounced realm-atic instead of the automatic (for me, at least) real-matic, I guess.

@Odium's_Shard Yeah, my bad there. Roshar. Also, it is true that there is a completely open eyeslit. Recall how Kaladin killed the Shardbearer attacking Amaram.

If you're close enough and have enough time to tightly secure the bag to their head, I think some warhammer-action might be more appropriate. The gloves are quite dexterous, as well as transmitting touch sensations--barring that, a Shardbearer can disengage their gauntlets at will to use their bare hands (forcing them to drop a gauntlet would be a victory of sorts, I suppose). If the Shardbearer had any non-soul-shearing weapons handy, he could also scrape a sword or a spearpoint along his own face to cut up the bag. This also besides the point that they don't have plastic available to them. Chemistry doesn't exactly appear to be a strong suit on Nalthis Roshar.

I know that the protagonist for the second trilogy is supposed to be a nicrosil misting, but I have yet to hear that he would be a twinborn. Is there some new interview, or am I just forgetting something?

^The visor eyeslit is also completely open.

^clearly it truly is impossible, the admins are our friends, they would never spike us to enslave us to their wills

Ah. That makes much more sense. Sorry for misunderstanding you. I agree with your point, then.

Since most of it was conjecture, I'd be a bit surprised if you knew it all for a fact. As far as High Imperial actually being a living language in AoL's time, I got the distinct impression that it was basically the Latin of Scadrial: scholars know enough of it so that they can quote pithy phrases at each other, but no one actually speaks it. Of particular note is how it is described as something only used for old ceremonies and such. As to why the gunsmith would engrave his plea for help in High Imperial rather than Common, I imagine it was so that any criminal scum who happened to see the engraving would simply assume it was one of those aforementioned pithy phrases--just decorative--rather than a call for help.

As for High Imperial, that seems to have always been a "formal" language reserved exclusively for, well, High Imperial matters. We all know that High Imperial was a bit of a joke language for us loyal readers, Spook's street-slang elevated to a formal language learned scholars study, so it might be a bit hard to conceptualize how or why Spook would sacrifice his hard-won intelligibility and force everyone else to learn his "language" post-ascension. My personal theory is that Spook also used High Imperial as a joke, a joke that just about everyone was in on. Something like opening speeches with his unintelligibility as a way to break the tension and get some laughs, as opposed to "I demand that you all learn my nonsensical language!" As for a "real" language diversifying, the entire population (barring those as-yet-uncontacted Southerners) live in an incredibly small area and spoke the same language for ~1000 years under TLR, so I don't see much diversification happening in just 300 years. Just so you know, the original intent of that image is more so "shame on you <insert name here> for reviving this long dead thread" than an announcement of intent, although I think I can roll with the new usage.

Ah.

^As to the "Obscurities from The Well of Ascension" section on that page, wasn't Sazed exiled by the Sinod? So he is "He who is not of his people, yet fulfils all of their wishes." So it is simply a misinterpretation to say that the HoA won't be Terris. If I'm even reading that section right, that is. EDIT: Also, you may want to note exactly how the dot differentiates I/E, although we still aren't sure of how the dot differentiates O/U.

Ah, sorry I missed this part: with my "perhaps" just now. I was a bit focused on the I/E at that moment.

If I had to bet, it would be because the Terris symbols say something about the Feruchemical properties of the metals (which TLR didn't want anyone to even know about) while the Allomantic symbols are related to the Allomantic properties of the metals. EDIT: New answer! Grabbed this off of Isaac's site: So we're actually watching a regression from the height of refinement in the first book to the crudest, most Terris-like in the last. So TLR did use the Terris symbols initially, they just morphed. Perhaps the Terris symbols in the RPG are yet another "modern" version of the source symbols for the Steel Alphabet, just developed separately.

Curse those Scadralians and their lack of a partially redundant alphabet!

Ah, so the dots signal Pulling (dots outside the crescent) versus Pushing (dots inside) metals. Clever, I must say. Thanks for clearing that up. It's nice to know that you've put so much thought into all of this. EDIT: And that means that we can still claim that the Elendel Daily is using the Tin symbol for both "sharpness of sight" and for the letter 'e', given that it's likely deliberately archaic. Or "capitalized," perhaps. EDIT 2: Also, it could be Base/Alloy for dot outside/inside, since they are the same sets.