Jimmy

Maybe this has been covered somewhere else, I'm not sure, but to me the oaths look like the way that people deal with their "brokenness." Kaladin is the character I can relate to most in this, even to the point of having a Syl on the shoulder. "Why aren't you doing X when it could make you happy?" You just can't. It doesn't work. You can try to do the things that everyone else enjoys and if you try really hard it might take your mind off it for a while, but when its over you're back to remembering all the people who died because you screwed up. You shut down to the outside world and focus only on the people you care about to the exclusion of everything else. Ask any veteran what they'd do to protect their family and the answer will be a variation on "anything and everything." Us and them thinking, who is Us? Whoever you believe it is, really. Back to the point, because I do wander a bit when it gets dark, the Ideals seem to be a way of moving forward from this. "I will protect those who cannot protect themselves." Good, thats a way to cope. "I will protect even those I hate," is another step in the right direction. Recognising that just because you don't like someone doesn't make them your enemy and that you still have a duty to some of them. The fourth Ideal should be about letting go again. Understanding that if someone like you tried to save the world that you'd end up killing the rest of it. Because you can and you will feel driven to do it. "I will let others live their own journey and understand that I cannot protect everybody all the time." "I am the guardian in the storm and the spear against the void." Goes well for a fifth I reckon.

58% Windrunner 39% Skybreaker 33% Willshaper 29% Lightweaver 28% Dustbringer 28% Stoneward 24% Elsecaller 12% Edgedancer 12% Bondsmith 0% Truthwatcher

I was talking about deflecting a round from the main gun with magic. How much foresight do they have? If its an hour, then yes, they may understand that they aren't going to win this fight head on. If its anything under ten minutes then irrelevant. Tank rounds can explode. Over a large area. They are designed to hit targets that move at speed. Nobody can run 60+ kph that I've seen. A solid round is used against armour only, no gunner in their right or wrong mind is going to use it against infantry. An anti infantry shot wipes out everything up to 600 metres. Hells, the concussive force of just standing too close to the gun when its fired can be lethal. Modern tanks are also designed as anti air platforms. They can quite easily shoot down a helicopter. A push won't get you to the tank fast enough and you will not survive 1,098 3⁄8-inch (9.5 mm) tungsten balls or the three (or four, depending on the commander) machine guns that the tank carries. If they did get in close then they'd need a lot of explosives to take out a tank. More than you'd think, unless you've also got modern military gear. Most likely case is that you'd take out the tracks. Tank doesn't care, just replaces the track and keeps firing and the crew inside would only be irritated. If we're using soldiers as the shooters then no, rifles are not more accurate than machine guns. Effective range of an M4 is 300 metres. Effective range of a SAW is 400. If we're talking about civilian target shooters then they have no business being on a battlefield in the first place. Completely anecdotal evidence ahead: I'm a good shot. A very, very good shot. At 300 metres I can choose which eye I want to put a hole in with a standard service rifle (Australian), the F88 and it's not a very good rifle. I enjoy shooting rifles much more than guns. I find it relaxing and its hard to beat the feeling of putting a couple of hundred rounds into a target and seeing a single, small hole at the other end. But guns are more accurate. Its the way they're used that gives them the bad reputation. That and video games. Games are unrealistic. End anecdote. Accuracy isn't a matter of getting one, perfect round on target. Anyone can do that. Accuracy is a function of consistency, being able to land all 30 rounds in a space the size of a 50 cent coin is what you want from a shooter. Guns perform better at range because they are fired from a more stable platform, either a bipod or a fixed position and the gunner is also in a much more stable position. Rifles are not designed to do this and soldiers do not train to do it. Conversely, guns are, and soldiers do. The reason people think that rifles are more accurate is that guns and rifles are designed for different roles. The gun is a platoon level weapon, it isn't supposed to fire single rounds like a rifle. It is supposed to either perform killing bursts or suppressing fire on an enemy position. If you're basing the argument off things like civilian target shooting or long distance kill records using specialised weapons and rounds then I can understand. But snipers are rare and they don't appear on the battlefield very often. When they do it is for other things like high value target acquisition and commentary. Yes, snipers commentate on the battlefield and spend a lot of time directing the fire of... the machine gunners. Because guns can fire reliably at targets up to a kilometre away. Been there, done that. The famous 50.cal will punch through the engine block of an armoured vehicle. That is what its designed for, its literally written on the label. If you really want I'll go into a lecture about barrel harmonics, flight time, machine gun theory and small unit tactics. TLDR: Foresight is just going to show you all the fun ways a tank will kill you. Guns are seen as less accurate because of the way they're used. They're actually more accurate because of the stable firing platform.

Machine guns are more accurate than rifles. If a tank can see you, it can kill you. Shard plate or no, flying or not, speed doesn't matter and magic won't do anything to deflect, stop or even irritate a round from the main gun. The only foresight that matters is if you had enough to avoid annoying the tank. You either need another tank, preferably two, or grunts who know what they're doing.

Tanks can fire pretty fast, much faster than you'd think. Modern ones can fire accurately at targets 800-1000m away, while moving up to 60kph. An experienced crew can get first round hits at that range while moving in the complete opposite direction if they wanted to. And thats only taking into account the main gun, there are coaxial machine guns, 40mm grenade launchers, different ammunition types... Unless you've got grunts that REALLY know what they're doing, tanks win. I'd put my money on a single tank against a dozen shard bearers or more. Unless we're on the shattered plains, but what idiot would put his tank there in the first place? Bullets, yes maybe. Tanks... No. Not even slightly. Nobody in Hollywood knows what modern armour can do and so they don't show it. Pretty sure thats what turned me off the walking dead after the first episode (maybe second) where they showed the zombies killed a tank. Utterly implausible. I'm not too sure on how atium works exactly, but it should be impossible to avoid an explosion that has a hundred metre kill zone. If you see it coming and move the gunner would have ample time to aim at your new position. Paradox of potential explosions! Or the main gun could airburst an explosion while the coaxial tracks the target, while screening smoke and HE with separate launchers.

Then we're going to plan #6. Mutually assured destruction. Personally my least favourite as ideally it doesn't blow up, irradiate, enslave or otherwise destroy stuff. After sending millions and millions of my loyal, but mindless, lemming-like creations to their death, the BAM is lured to the strange world where they are being sent forth from. Once there, a treaty is proposed to their maker. Either the BAM's are shut down from the source or I send millions and millions more of my lemmings at them, forcing the BAM to replicate further and destroy all life on the BAM's creator's home world. All ways off the planet are the first on the list of things to be destroyed. I win by simple fact that if my people are all going to kick a great big cosmere-y shaped bucket, then I'm not too bothered if all yours go too. Once all the resources are gone through overproduction of BAM's anyway, we're back to an incredibly damaged square one. If they can't be shut down, well, we need to use scorched earth plan #5 and build our own self replicating nano tech abominations. Simply awaken a dust storm and give it a cleverly worded (and un loopholeable) command to destroy the BAM. I'm not sure how world hopping works precisely, but they're the first things that are destroyed by my incredibly expendable minions when the BAM goes looking for them. As an aside, I looked up an Orion pulse drive and think it is an awesome idea. The fact that these scientists combined huge explosions with feasible space flight is like a dream come true.

Deprive it of its goal. If its "follow this group's orders" - Kill the group. If its "Replicate" then we need to think bigger. Destroy the planet. Evacuate what you want to keep to another world while beginning scorched earth plan #3. Shattered plains were shattered somehow. Do it again, but bigger. Over and over again until the BAM is dropped right into the core of the world. This may take time but thats what vast numbers of koloss are for, to soak up the punishment in the meantime. Don't watch it burn because that has a side effect of death. But you'll know it works because there is a lack of planet there any more. Failing that we're going to need some sort of Exterminatus, or scorched earth plan #1. Dirty nukes, millions of them, dropped from orbit. Pretty sure Jashah can figure how how to make unstable soul castings of uranium and then its just a matter of maths - Navani - and controlled explosions to build a nuke. Go bigger and dirtier. #You don't want to meet scorched earth plan #2. Its nasty.

"You get a bullet, and you get a bullet, EVERYBODY GETS A BULLET!" But seriously, Alethkar is where the action is going to happen. Why go to a place like this to sit it out somewhere? Plus I've got light eyes, excel in small unit tactics with years of training to back it up and with the lighter gravity on Roshar would set some sort of strength record, increasing chances of getting shards. Because killing the enemy indiscriminately before they know they're your enemy is probably dishonourable in some circles. Looking at you Syl... Hanging out with this guy because engineers are awesome.

Koloss use 12 foot long swords, correct? To swing these things they'd need twelve feet of clearance on either side or they'd hit each other in a fight. I don't recall them ever half swording or having the brains to even consider it. Then when they did hit the shield wall that force is divided by the amount of shields it hit. So yes, they could hit very hard, but I don't think they're strong enough to rip apart a good shield wall. Using your example, World War Two soldiers fought in places like Kokoda and the Pacific and did very well there despite having trained for WW1 conditions. They also fought in trenches on the western front, bitter cold on the eastern front, the desert in places like Tobruk, urban war in France and Germany and guerrilla war in India and China. They'd have done better if they were trained for those environments, but the 2AIF went from the middle east to Papua New Guinea and routed the Japanese there without having been trained for either of those environments. Back to the point though. Ahem. Concentration of force is more important than total numbers on the field. You can have all the hundreds of thousands you want but if they cannot fight together as a cohesive unit then numbers will always be against them. The main advantage Scadrial has is that huge number of koloss. Roshar can counter that quite effectively without having to adapt overly much. That brings it back to magic, which Scadrial has the advantage in so far. Give Roshar until the end of the first series and I think that'll be reversed though. Wind runners alone are disturbingly overpowered. Kaladin tanks an entire army without even really knowing what he was doing or how he was doing it. Granted he might be the main character and a bit OP because of that, but he's the only one we have to measure so far.

My money goes to Roshar in this one. "I'd rather fight against an army of lions led by a sheep, than an army of sheep led by a lion." - Someone who knew what they were talking about. Scadrial spent too long pacified under TLR. Without constant training and experience in fighting these skills atrophy. Badly. Horribly. Humorously even. On the other hand, veterans who know what they're doing will butcher anything they're thrown against. Look up the 3rd Battalion in Maryang San and Kapyong during the Korean war for a timely example. Goes to show what veterans with a plan can do against a far stronger enemy. I think its easy to get distracted by massive numbers and maths, especially when we're talking about hundreds of thousands. You simply cannot have that many anythings involved in a single battle. Roshar would be cheering if Scadrial even tried. The Greeks, then the Romans, dominated the ancient world through discipline and formations. Hoplites fought as a tight unit. It doesn't matter how strong a koloss is, they can't use their weapons effectively if they're standing close to one another. They'd hit each other with each swing. But a tight formation of disciplined men? Each can use his weapon perfectly. Koloss are as strong as four men? A hoplite is as strong as thirty men and they take up the same space, with thirty sharp pointy things to the koloss' one. Now apply that to large scale warfare. Koloss are straightforward and simple. They'd charge and continue charging until the enemy was dead. I cannot stress enough how stupid it is to charge blindly like that. The Romans found that out the hard way at Canae. The Alethi stood up to freaking lightning being thrown at them and I'm pretty sure they hadn't trained for that. That's about as close to fearless as it gets.

Cheers mate, I enjoy a good argument and never thought to take offence even if it had been implied. Which is wasn't, so all good. Same goes in return. Too many points to answer without starting a new topic. A copper mind would be better for a marksman because, unless you're blind, vision doesn't count for that much. Its all about maths at range. Machine guns naturally fire in a pattern. The extra coin shot wouldn't make any difference compared to a rifle. The rifles are there to keep the enemy off the guns, sticking them close enough to coin shot would just make them even more of a target to the enemy without providing much more firepower. You'd also have to have some amazingly awesome reflexes to get all those casings coming out and aim them all properly. They all spit out differently. The main problem with water is that it takes up room and its heavy. Depending on the heat and workload, eight litres will last one and three days for one man. Give or take. In the tropics you can go through that much in a single morning and still be thirsty. Given that a normal load for a light infantryman is about 50 kilograms, that extra 8-16 is really going to hurt if he's carrying it for someone else. Coming back to topic though, it all depends on numbers. One on one I think a shard bearer should take it. One against ten the soldiers should win. Ten against ten it goes back to the shards. Any larger numbers become a bit silly because who has that many shard bearers?

Jah Keved or Alethkar. Become a despotic warlord (by deposing the previous one) and fortify the blazes out of the place. Make a fabrial that explodes (is nuclearspren too much overkill or should I settle for bazookaspren?) and dare the voidbringers to come at me. Then sit back and enjoy the desolation. Maybe have my engineers work on a fabrial that can increase the draw weight on a longbow without needing powerlifters to use it = Shardbow free for all! Spears tipped with firespren for those pesky non rock voidbringers. Shields that had the repulsion field like Navani was playing around with to make that floating fort. Crazy thought, was that how they made half shards? Could get some seriously pimped out darkeye cannon fodder going if we mass produce this madness. Soulcast a loose cotton weave shirt into steel for instant tailored chainmail. Add in a pain blocking and rage inducing fabrial and you've got the closest thing to berserkers around, the perfect shock troops for when those ten foot tall baddies come knocking. Maybe for this to work I'd have to kidnap Navani. There's a lot of engineering to be done. Don't see how this plan could backfire at all, it is clearly foolproof... But anyway, we rescue enough people and the Radiants are going to have to show up to help out eventually. Convince said Radiants that saving people is the honourable path I've burdened myself with to avoid developing a case of "burnt out eyes." EDIT: There is no such thing as overkill. There is only "open fire" and "I need to reload."

Shard blades cut through anything non organic. They'd do very well against bullets. Not sure how they'd go about actually hitting one though.

I stand corrected, thought pewter only gave strength. For modern weapons I assumed a modern battlefield, which includes any terrain you can think of and urban. At the same time. It isn't unheard of for the fight to start well outside a town and then move into one as you push forward then go back to open fields and forest after that when you've gone through the place. Soldiers carry their own food and water regardless of any other supply plan you have in progress. Couple of reasons; the grunts don't trust officers, officers don't trust grunts, supply clerks think their job is not to issue supplies and all the good stuff usually stays with the bloke driving the truck anyway. The issue with water is not that you aren't strong enough to carry it, but that there isn't any room to. To use a gun properly you almost have to be lying down so you can't put too much on your chest. You don't need pewter to shrug off the damage, just a bad attitude is sometimes enough, but the gun is stuffed after that. I'd hate to be the bloke taking a club to a shard bearer...

The problem isn't so much strength as it is how to carry it. Ammunition for guns needs to be linked together and these links are actually quite fragile. If they come loose then the gunner needs to stop firing to reconnect them all and make sure that all the rounds are lined up properly or the gun will jam. Sometimes it's not so bad and you can get by with cocking it a few times. Other times you can't pull the cocking handle back and you need to bash it against something. Sometimes the round gets stuck in the barrel and you can't get it out without the entire thing blowing up in your face. Had it happen. It sucks. Guns are far from perfect weapons. They're just better than any alternative so far. You can't keep it all those bullets in a backpack because how are you going to get at it when you need it? Where are you going to carry your water and food if you do that? You might be able to fit four pouches on your chest and six more around your waist but that leaves you with around 1000 -1500 rounds. Or about 3 minutes of continuous fire. The traditional solution is to have a crew to operate the gun. One to carry and fire it, another to carry extra ammunition, reload and check the link as it goes in. Preferably a third for when one of those two gets killed and to spot for fire support. Every other soldier also carries as much spare ammunition as they can for their gunners, maybe 400 rounds each if you're lucky. Also relevant is that modern infantry carry about 40-60 kilograms of equipment as it is, depending on the mission type. Strength alone won't cut it, you need serious endurance. An 8 kilometre fast march, 2 day fight then 8 k's back was a regular occurrence. That might involve a lot of pewter.

We did it fairly often, both going into the fight and away from it. Getting to within grenade range, while not easy, happened a few times. I don't know how to hyperlink thinks but look up the Charge of the Light Horse in Beersheba. The short version is on www.badassoftheweek.com/lighthorse.html The main reason this worked was through shock, speed and massive brutality. All things that a shard bearer has in spades. Also the fact that most of the Turks fired wildly over the heads of the charging cavalry due to their rapidly closing range. Without getting too technical, bullets travel in an arc and not a straight line. Hitting a target at four hundred metres involves aiming above the target itself. If its moving at even a jogging speed most trained soldiers will miss. If its sprinting faster than a horse and moving erratically, dodging, taking cover, diving to the ground... Then you have to compensate for the wind, both at the barrel and at the target. At anything further than one hundred metres this will make you miss if you don't adjust for it. The machine gun was designed to compensate for this by putting out a huge amount of firepower. But not every soldier carries a machine gun. You'd find maybe 6-8 in a platoon. Those barrels should be changed every 200 rounds or they will overheat and have a good chance of ruining your day. From memory thats about four seconds of trigger pulling. A machine gun cannot just blindly fill the air with bullets forever and nobody can even carry enough ammunition to even try. All the same things as above still have to be taken into account as well. Add to that is that studies show that most modern firefights happen at 100 metres or less. Probably because a lot of people can't reliably hit moving targets at range. That's why snipers are so feared/hated. If we're going with "real life" situations then I don't think its fair to have both teams on an open field mindlessly charging at each other. No soldier in his right or wrong mind is going to set up on a place that looks like a football field. If the shard bearer also lacks complete stupidity then I don't see them doing the same. I don't disagree with you though. In theory it should be laughably easy. If we're talking about hardened soldiers who know what they're doing then it might be different. But most people don't want to kill people and they hesitate or flinch when it matters. It takes either a lot of training or serious personality issues to want to go out and murder folks without hesitation. At that close range, with the speed of a shard bearer and the shock and awe factor I think a shard bearer should be able to manage. Especially if there is more than one of them or they have their own supporting soldiers. Completely agree on the second point. Shard bearers supported by modern infantry would be unbeatable by anything short of nuclear warfare.

Having worn kevlar, lots of it, this wouldn't work. Plate armour allows mobility because the solid plates are sectioned. Kevlar only works because it is a huge thick slab, thereby dividing the impact force over a larger area and increasing the force over distance ratio to stop the projectile. The lightweight kevlar vests you see on tv aren't strong enough to stop anything other than a pistol round. Even then they're pushing it. You could either try to section the kevlar, which would reduce its effectiveness to almost zero, or pile on standard plates to give total coverage and be unable to move properly. In the first case its a waste of time and in the second you'd lose all benefits to wearing shard plate in the first place. It doesn't matter if you can easily carry the weight, you still wouldn't be able to move. Kevlar plates are also quite fragile. Dropping one from a standing height is enough to crack it and render the whole plate useless. If you're strong enough it is possible to similarly damage it. Trying to force it to bend at all would break it. They can also only take three or four hits before they give way regardless. My main argument for shard plate is the mobility it provides. At the range of most modern firefights a shard bearer should be able to close the distance without getting shot at all. In a melee they'd dominate, especially if they had supporting troops.

Broadly speaking, in testing a modern military grade bullet should punch right through. I think it would vary in "real life" combat though. Kevlar stops bullets by drawing out the kinetic energy of the round over a distance. A thin sheet of kevlar won't stop anything but a couple of centimetres will happily stop a couple of bullets. Interestingly enough so will a standard box of A4 paper through the same principle. Bullets penetrate steel armour because it is too thin to lengthen the time period over which the kinetic energy is imparted from bullet to plate. That and steel is brittle. Shards tend to damage differently than steel though. Anyway, thicker armour = less dead. In a real life situation though you've got to take into account the everything though. German tanks in WW2 had the roughly same thickness (sorry it's late here) to their armour as the American ones. Same German tanks routinely destroyed the Americans with ease. This is (partly) because the German armour was slanted and caused the American shells to bounce off. The other part was tactics and training but thats irrelevant here. Modern shooters are trained to lean forward to slant their armour so that incoming rounds have a good chance of bouncing away from the head and chest by the same theory. Bullets bounce at every chance they get. Its annoying as hell. The other thing to consider is that studies show that most firefights happen at one hundred meters or less. At this range, moving at speed, it would be difficult to hit a shard bearer. Even more so if they just happened to fall out of the sky on top of you. Even if you did hit one there is a good chance the bullet would simply bounce off the "graceful curves" of the plate. Even bullets aren't a magic bullet when it comes to killing things. Everything comes down to the operator at the time and the conditions he's placed under. TLDR - Yes in theory. Your mileage may vary in action.

This makes a lot more sense now. My assumptions were very much based around European development and the difference between the Medieval period and the Renaissance. Again, mainly in weaponry because that is where my background is. That'll teach me to assume things. I completely agree that mass production is a good demarkation line between the industrial revolution and the late Renaissance. It's the fuzzy line between the Renaissance and the Late Medieval ages that confuses the issue for me. In many ways the Alethi are in their own Renaissance period in story, fitting for a Chinese oriented (see what I did there) culture. But in others they are most definitely feudal in nature. My knowledge of that time period is too fuzzy to offer better analogies. The Alethi seem to be handicapping themselves in the way that only half the population, with the exception of a very few storm wardens, are even trying to build progress. This is tied into Vorinism which dictates that it is unmanly to read, study or create. Which makes me wonder... Considering that Earth's issue of having few educated women historically is the reverse of Roshar's, was Vorinism written specifically to create this handicap in a society that didn't follow a similar path to ours, i.e. they had relative male and female equality? Female Heralds seems to support this theory prima facie. Only male or only female education means that a lot of productivity and great minds are potentially lost. Did Vorinism do this on purpose and if so, how has that contributed to their society staying in the place it has for what seems like a very long time?

I think that they could certainly make crossbows if they had a mind to. My point was never that they're stupid, just that shards and magic have altered their way of thinking along different paths to ours and kept them in a feudal state. Would crossbows be effective though? Depends on the tactics. I try not to get caught up with how strong shard plate is and think about how fast it makes them. F=MA after all. A shard bearer screened by light cavalry and supported by his own archers and infantry would easily overwhelm a massive amount of crossbowmen until it became no more of a threat than a regular bowman. A longbow has a much greater range than even a very good crossbow and both were historically terrible against cavalry. I guess it comes back to tactics on how to bring down a shard bearer and his army which seems to reinforce that what they're doing works. I don't think that gunpowder would be useful to the Rosharans even without the hassle of storing it as mentioned above.

By the way, ingredients for gunpowder are: Potassium Nitrate, which can be distilled from manure, charcoal (or interestingly enough, bone) and sulphur. It's on wikipedia for all those federal agents reading this. None of these things are hard to come by so I don't think it can be said that "gunpowder" doesn't exist on Roshar.

I disagree. Have an up vote though. Having fired both modern and older artillery pieces, I can tell you that aiming a cannon is not easy. At its most basic, aiming a cannon requires that you adjust left or right for accuracy. Then lock that in place or the force of the shot will ruin your next one. Then you need to adjust for range, up and down. The only way to do that is to guess, then fire the cannon and see where the shot lands. Modern armies use spotters for this. Again, having done this, it takes a few minutes for even a well practiced spotter and artillery crew to get rounds on target. Then you've got the bloke in shard plate who is no longer where your shot just landed and just cut through your entire army in that time and is busily hacking your crew apart. Did I mention that for a modern shell, each one weighs about 20 - 40 kilograms? Takes time to load that shell and you don't want to store it too close to the cannon just in case one cooks off and kills everything. I can't see how an older cannon would survive long enough to hit a shard bearer with solid shot. You'd need grapeshot to even come close and that wouldn't carry enough force over sufficient range to penetrate a shard plate. At the range required to pack that kind of punch the shard bearer is already on top of you. Bear with me on this rant, it'll probably make sense at the end. Any shot fired, even from the most high powered modern rifle, is effected by wind. Enough that aiming straight at a target at 150 meters with a strong breeze will make that bullet miss. It's easy for a trained rifleman to compensate, but a cannon crew of (at least) 4 men? A cannonball has more surface area to catch the wind too so it would move further off. How is a cannon going to hit an extremely fast moving target at close or long range when it takes minutes to adjust each time, then flight time for the shot? How good is the average steel made on Roshar? High quality steel wasn't common until 1856 by Sir Henry Bessemer. Until then steel was of low quality and quite likely to fracture after extended use, meaning a supply of parts would be needed. This is a common failing of the Alethi army at least, it is specifically mentioned that their army relies extensively on soul casters to provision their army. Cannons cannot be made by blacksmiths in camp and a damaged barrel must be completely reconstructed because it would never have the requisite strength otherwise. The Alethi could not maintain firearms or artillery without a direct supply line to Alethkar. Modern artillery kills by the explosive force it delivers. Older models used blunt force trauma with a much smaller explosion. Grapeshot, the stuff you use to kill infantry, doesn't explode at all. Unless you hit directly, which is difficult, the explosive force of gunpowder isn't enough to put out a big enough blast wave to kill a shard bearer. The fire from an explosion is just an afterthought, the real damage comes from the shockwave which precedes this. That does more damage to the internal organs than you see on the outside. Shard plate would take that force and neutralise it before it got the soft squishy stuff inside. What is the incentive to make these things? They won't kill shard bearers, who would have to be university level stupid to get hit by something the size of a cannon. To defeat an army? Your own shard bearers can do that with no expense and far faster. To intimidate? The Alethi charged into freaking lightning. If that doesn't break them then an old school cannon is a cakewalk. To look cool? Shard. Plate. tl;dr - The Alethi don't have the capability or incentive to make gunpowder weapons. In place of that they'll stick with what works, like every other people on Earth did until they were shown something different by the British.

Archery is a pretty ancient invention that is effective against the majority of people the Alethi fight against. A spear isn't much use against shard plate either, but the common soldiers have to be armed with something. What I was getting at is that it is a huge leap from archery to gunpowder. Even with gunpowder it is difficult to build a reliable firearm that only blows up in your face four times out of ten. Then add in the manufacturing process and we have one of the seeds for the industrial revolution. With a more effective weapon already in place, why would anyone change it for a weapon that, to use properly, must completely change your entire society?

I agree that Roshar doesn't fit neatly into our understanding of the European Middle Ages. But I think the main argument from me towards the Alethi being feudal in nature is the organisation of their leadership. The King may call the country to war but it is the local lords who must raise an army, train and equip it and then lead it. In a nation state this responsibility goes solely to the ruler. The lord has near total rule over his domain and responsibility for its management. We see this with the Alethi too, nobody recruits and fights for the King directly, just Amaram or Sadeas or Dalinar who in turn pledge their armies to the King's service. Classic feudalism. The eventual downfall of the monarchy in England was due to the fact that these lords had too much power to raise and equip armies. So much so that they became stronger than the King and didn't see the point in keeping him around any more. This is a very real threat to Elokhar and the reason why he encourages his lords to bicker amongst each other, it keeps them too weak and disorganised to get any ideas about challenging him for the throne. This leads to inefficiency, paranoia and a fracturing Kingdom. This is feudalism's main weakness as well. It is built on the lords following through with their pledges of fealty to the King. If the King called for a war and the lords suddenly developed deafness, there would be no army to fight for the King. Taxes are another matter in which the two are similar. In our society we pay tax and it goes either to state or federal government, depending on the type. In a feudal system it all goes to the local lord, who then passes it up the chain until it eventually reaches the King. Typically with each layer keeping a little extra for themselves, which leads to higher taxes just to get what the King thinks he deserves, then more corruption etc. I believe that the middle ages were more of a time period than a system of government. The early dark age after the fall of Rome was aptly named, but there was scientific progress in Europe until eventually we came to the later medieval age and then the Renaissance. I think that Shardblades are responsible for the lack of gunpowder and development in weaponry. A musket slug would bounce right off Shardplate and make the firer a target for the angry man with a lightsaber Shardblade. People will go for the easiest option that leads to the most reward. Shards may be difficult to get a hold of but everyone knows how powerful they are and how to go about getting them. Kind of like why it makes sense for fantasy settings to stick to a certain level of technology. What's the point in inventing all these things when you can simply use magic to do something similar? And with that I've strayed completely off topic. But I think somewhere in that confused rambling I made a point. Probably.

Two men struggling to lift the hammer means that it is very heavy. Consider that these porters would be the kind who do physical labour just about every day and are conditioned to it. Also take into account that the hammer was designed to be lifted and used, this isn't some awkward or clumsy weight. My average bench press is one hundred kilograms - 220 pounds. I'll do that fifteen times without pause before I can't lift it again for a minute, then repeat that four times, twice a day. Once you bring the legs into use, a deadlift, then we're talking about 330 pounds or 150 kilograms. This isn't to brag, but to show the kinds of weights we're talking about, a frame of reference. That hammer would have to weight at least two or three hundred kilograms for two men to almost not be able to lift it. Then Dalinar does it easily with one arm. Bit of tin foil hat maths and some gross guesstimation... Average bicep curl is 40kg, Dalinar's seems to be about 300kg. 300 x 2.5 = 750kg at an average level of exertion. So far, for Dalinar I wouldn't say that being in the 1 ton total strength range is out of the question or more with adrenaline. Which isn't that unrealistic when you think about it. That's about the strength range of a male silverback gorilla. I'd have to put that down as my final theory, an average shard plater is on the same strength level as an average male silverback. Adrenaline throws everything out of the window though. Like, right through that window, across the street, through the walls of next building, collecting the sheets and $200 along the way and streaking out through the next window.