Shaggai

Go meet up with Taravangian. Explain to him that the Diagram is doomed due to Honor's constraints on Investiture and the possibility of a champion. Then advise him to go meet up with the Kholins, because they've got all the Surgebinders and information. They also have Hoid, of course, at least some of the time.

That's... mildly disturbing, to say the least. Oh Almighty, and now I'm remembering the Syl/Pattern thread. Let's not have that happen again.

We don't know how much Gavilar shared, or how far he had gotten in the visions before he was assassinated. For all we know Gavilar was halfway through, or only told Taravangian about the general idea of the coming Desolation. The Diagram is not the only way by which humanity will survive. But it's the way with the highest probability, according to the information he had on the day of the Diagram. And he's no longer smart enough to analyze all the information he has. He can't come up with another plan that has the reliability of the Diagram. If Taravangian does anything less than his utmost to save humanity, he will be guilty of all the deaths that happen during the Desolation to come.

Ah, that makes sense.

But he doesn't have certain vital information. Odium has never appointed a champion in the past, so he has no way of knowing that it's possible. Only Dalinar does, because of his visions. And the best way to fight Odium, from what we've seen, is probably to get him to appoint a champion, then have a Radiant fight the champion. That way there's no need to go through all the dangers and deaths of a full Desolation. Mr. T's calculations are based on weathering the Desolation, not preventing it.

Nah. It just means that you're going to be more. . . creative with your Hemalurgy. Manage to replicate the effect you need through different methods. You might need to use more spikes, but hey, if you're spiking out all the bad memories from the kids, you'll have lots of people willing to let you babysit. You just have to remember to also spike out the parents' memories of the kids you use as test subjects.

I expect that the plot-twist with the Diagram is that it's going to be incompatible with Honor (journey before destination and all that), and thus with Surgebinding. Since there's no way they can defeat Odium without Surgebinding, the Diagram is thus doomed from the start.

The Lord Ruler never managed to find new Hemalurgic bind points after a thousand years of experimentation. Unless you have Harmony helping you, you're probably not going to get anything that the Inquisitors didn't have. And I'm pretty sure they never got Feruchemical tin. No need when you have super-Allomantic steel.

He has, like I said, two choices. Work with it, and not work with it. Diagram-T calculated that the Diagram was the method of saving humanity that had the highest probability of succeeding. Current-T isn't smart enough to redo the Diagram. If he cares about saving people, the only thing he can do is to follow it. It might not succeed. If he doesn't follow it, there's a chance of humanity surviving anyway. But it's a lower chance. He has to make the chance as high as possible.

Spike out their memories and replace them with memories of a happy, nice time.

1. But Taravangian at Diagram-level does, in fact, have the ability to predict people. He's reached the point where he doesn't need specialized neural structures to predict people. 2. To do anything less than the absolute best that you can do to save people is to be responsible for their deaths. Taravangian has two choices: follow the Diagram or don't follow the Diagram. He has other choices if he chooses not to follow it, but as regards the Diagram he has only two choices. It's impossible for him to have more The Diagram is the best thing he has. If he did anything else, that would indicate a willingness to kill everyone on Roshar in order to preserve his own peace of mind, or in order to preserve his honor. If he was willing to do that, if he rated his honor or his peace of mind above the lives of all humanity, he would, in fact, be evil. Honorable, but evil in the only way that counts.

Both of the people I was responding to said that the ends didn't justify the means, so I don't think that lack of effectiveness is the main objection. It's my main objection to the Diagram, certainly. 1. How does Q stand for Intelligence? Anyway, from what you described, that's basically the ability to predict how people will react. I already explained why that's irrelevant in the case of the Diagram. 2. Taravangian has two choices, murdering lots of people for the Diagram and murdering literally everyone on Roshar. He's trying to save as many lives as possible. Also, you're misusing the word sociopath. 3. Certainly. I doubt that the good things he did outweighed the bad things he's doing for the Diagram. 4. Nothing justifies the murder of innocents, certainly. That's why Mr. T has to follow the Diagram. If he doesn't, he's choosing to murder everyone on Roshar. The people he kills in the name of the Diagram would have died anyway. There was no saving them. But the Diagram represents his only chance to save everyone else. If he chooses not to, he will be guilty of all of their deaths. And that's not justified. Anyway, EQ is irrelevant. 5. The Diagram is the only way Taravangian knows of to save humanity. How would he "make a leap of faith and join a just cause" when he doesn't even know that another group attempting to save humanity exists?

Perhaps he could predict it because Windrunners are the order most likely to crop up in an army camp? I mean, most people in a battle are trying to protect someone, whether it's themselves or the soldiers under their command. Or the bridgemen, if you're Kaladin.

I'd prefer not to have my magic unstoppable soul-slicing uberweapon come flying back at me if I miss, thank you very much.

Ah, okay. Thank you.

Gauge the truth of a theory by incorporating it into a Brandon stamp and seeing how long the effects last.

Alright. Allow me to address some of the stuff in this thread. Not the OP, because I totally agree with that. But some of the posts in the thread. Note: I may or may not insert paragraph breaks into overly long blocks of text, so that I can handle them better. 1. And kindness is relevant how? Taravangian's entire goal is to preserve humanity as a species. Also, Moogle's post. 2. What in Damnation is EQ? Does "EQ" stand for something along the lines of "empathy quotient"? Because if so, that's absolutely irrelevant. Much of the human brain is devoted to predicting how people will behave. This specialization of brain circuits is extremely useful in society, but also results in irrationality. Taravangian gets brain circuits that work better for other things, thereby losing out on empathy. But when he reaches Diagram level, he doesn't need the specialization to be able to predict how people will behave. So yes, he is actually truly smart. 3. Whether or not Taravangian is a good person is irrelevant. 4. Again with the EQ. Assuming I'm right about what EQ is, it's pointless, irrelevant, and as a concept is basically a load of chull dung especially when it comes to the Diagram. Second, the Diagram isn't perfect. Of course it isn't. He didn't have all the information. However, it's vastly better than you're rating it. The future is, in fact, significantly more predictable than you seem to believe. 1. Not choosing is still a choice. Not acting is still an action. Anything that happens that you could have prevented is your fault. If you stand by as someone is killed, and you could have stopped that, you are responsible for that person's death. Likewise, if you have the potential to save humanity, and you don't do it, you are responsible for the deaths of everyone. Everyone. So Taravangian is facing two choices, and only two. 1. Kill thousands in the name of the Diagram. 2. Murder all of humanity. Which one is worse? 2. Except that Mr. T's goal is "follow the Diagram". If the Diagram tells him to do something, he'll do it. If it doesn't tell him to do something (well, on a major scale. Obviously it won't specifically tell him to eat his food every day or that sort of minor thing), he won't. He's not doing things because he, personally, on that day, thinks they are good ideas. He is doing what the Diagram says. And so he won't end up committing atrocities for no reason. 3. And, again, that is irrelevant. The Diagram is doomed anyway, of course, for one simple reason: the presence of Honor. There's no way they'll beat Odium without Investiture, and Investiture on Roshar is bound by the constraints of Honor. Therefore, the Diagram is incompatible with the tools they'll need to win. But Taravangian doesn't know that, and he's doing the best he can. We can't really blame him.

Alright, thanks.

Could you do mine?

Hemalurgically give them Feruchemical aluminum, so they can access your metalminds. Then give them copperminds filled with memories of major unsolved physics problems and zincminds so they can understand what it means. Then give them back to the parents and watch the hilarity. Basically, this, but it works with younger children: http://xkcd.com/1145/

I think Honor would help contain Odium, but what resulted would still be scary as Damnation. Honor isn't necessarily the same as righteousness. Szeth has an extremely strict code of honor, and he would certainly not be a good thing to unleash on the Cosmere. If Honor and Odium fused, what would result would probably be something along the lines of Vengeance. Better than just Odium, certainly, but personally I would stay as far away from it as possible.

I think what happens is that the Nightwatcher's magic changes the structure of the analytic part of his brain to be more rational, efficient, etc. However, much of the analytic part of our brains is evolved specifically to predict how people will react, because that's how you survive and reproduce when societies exist. The enhanced rationality and processing power has to overwrite that, so he's not as empathetic and worse at predicting how people will react. Once he reaches Diagram-level, though, he can account for all variables, and can successfully model human action. The reason that he failed to predict Kaladin is because the Diagram wasn't intended to be perfect forever in every way. It was meant to provide the path that, given the information he had on that day, had the highest probability of success. He didn't know who would become Radiants, or what Orders they would be. He did what he could, on that day. His failure will come about because he's not updating it based on new information.

Nah, there's no need to bring them Mexican and claim you invented it. What you do is you make food they know about, with ingredients they don't. Make Herdazian food with carne asada.

Professor Quirrell burst into the dining hall one night, started shouting about a Thunderclast in the dungeons, then passed out. The students were all evacuated to their House common rooms. Shallan, unfortunately, had been in the bathroom, and didn't hear about the Thunderclast. Kaladin and Adolin ended up sneaking away from the main group to find her. She was in the bathroom, cowering from the massive stone abomination, trying to Soulcast it. Kaladin ended up Lashing it to the ceiling, which confused it long enough for Adolin to slice its arms off. Shallan then finally got up the concentration to Soulcast the rest of it into air. She would have taken the blame for them not being with their groups, but Syl forced Kaladin to admit that he and Adolin had sneaked away to find her.

I'm sorry, but could you clarify your point? I don't quite see how this applies to my post.