CaptainRyan

Is there a WoB on the equivalence of pewter vs shardplate? Dalinar caught the downward swiping claw of a chasmfiend with shardplate and I cannot imagine a pewter enhanced individual, even flaring pewter, managing the same. Otoh, there might have been some Radiant stuff going on there so perhaps a normal shardbearer would not have been able to catch the claw. Either way, what objective reference do we have for saying pewter and shardplate confer nearly equivalent strength/speed boosts?

All very valid points but it comes back to scale. On Roshar there is exactly one Elsecaller and one Lightweaver that we know of. Two people (unless they are Fullborns - maybe) cannot stop an army of hundreds of thousands. If there were (a lot) more Elsecallers and Lightweavers then I think Roshar would have a fighting chance using your tactic.

Obviously because Kelsier conned him into doing it!

Oh good! Saved by a new page! Seriously? They had F Steel? Ugh! Brandon is making this soooo hard. He probably did this on purpose - I can see him now gleefully writing in these little bits that ruin (see what I did there?!) any potential fan-fic multi-world fight! Ok ok, last try! What if we took the Final Empire Scadrial versus pre-Recreance Roshar? There are hundreds, if not thousands, of Knight Radiants plus a standing, trained army on Roshar to battle the ~20 Inquisitors and all of the Mistings/Mistborn nobles! Eh? That sounds like it has potential no? And remember, TLR is too focused on the Well to waste time fighting Rosharans!

I do not know the canon answer to that but, barring a WoB or an in-book scenario contradicting me, I would say that yes, F Gold could heal a shardblade wound if you had enough stored. edit: Apologies for the double post. I wrote the first one in response to Voidus before I saw IndigoAjah's ( I JUST REALIZED YOUR NAME IS A WOT REFERENCE AHHHH I AM SO SLOW) post.

True, except this is based on my made-up scenario of the Final Empire Inquisitors. They do not have F Steel so they cannot move super fast. Atium they *might* have which would be super disappointing unless, magically, Shardplate was immune to Atium? Ah well, I guess there just is not a way to make this a good match up.

Inquisitors certainly have range but they would not have duralumin so I do not think they could break Plate from a distance. If the Shardbearer carried a big wooden shield to protect themselves from coin shots etc then the Inquisitor would, hopefully, be forced to engage at close range and then it would be a good fight eh?

I have been of the opinion that the most interesting possible fight that we have evidence to argue either way for Scadrial and Roshar would be the Final Empire Scadrial against Roshar at the end of tWoK but before the Everstorm of WoR. The combat tech would be pretty similar and I think Shardbearers and Inquisitors would be pretty evenly matched. Also, Shardbearers fighting Koloss sounds AWESOME! The one issue is that the TLR is a Fullborn of epic power. I submit that he should be too disinterested in invading Roshar to participate as he knows the Well of Ascension will soon be full.

Not to be rude but there are incredible amount of wild assumptions in here that, upon further scrutiny, do not hold true (to me). I will try and address the most egregious examples one-by-one in the order they appear (note: I added bold to what I consider to be the most extreme assumptions). As a side note, Kevino36 seems to be assuming that the full power of each world is available (as in, the world is at whatever point in history is the strongest militarily) for the first part. 1) If [the Scadrians] started at the Horneater Peaks, they would be stuck there because of the extreme cold and would likely die without a ton of heat Medallions Any military would scout their invasion point in some manner so the Scadrians would not be surprised by the cold. They would definitely prepare, in some manner, to appear in cold, mountainous heights. 2) If a TLR Mk II showed up, the KR would have a hard time dealing with him, but the Heralds would be able to take him down after an extended fight There is literally no way to know the full power of a Herald and there is even less of a way to know how that unknowable Herald power compares to a Fullborn. We saw Wax's power when holding the Bands of Mourning and it was definitely over 9000. I do not think it is possible to speculate on whether a Herald could handle a Fullborn or vice versa. I think it is pretty fair to say, however, that if the Fullborn (or Marsh) has access to Atium then things could go pretty poorly pretty quickly for a Herald. 3) Nightblood, since it's on Roshar, would utterly destroy TLR Mk II We have not seen how Nightblood interacts with non-Nalthis magic systems. We have no way of knowing if Nightblood would negate Allomantic powers; especially the Allomantic powers of a Fullborn. Claiming Nightblood would "destroy" a Fullborn is a claim that I do not think there is evidence to support. Feel free to WoB me though if there is something out there about this. - - - - - At this point, the speculation switches to a current Scadrial compared to a possible-future Roshar that is chronologically matched to Era 2 MB. - - - - - 4) If Scadrial was invading Alethkar, there would be no existing infrastructure for those technologies [railroad, telegraph], and it would take far too long to set up new ones I think this point *might* be valid but some of it depends on what the Scadrians can bring through a Worldhop. We have already assumed they brought a massive army so I do not think it is that crazy to think they could bring through equipment and supplies to build a rail line and a telegraph line from wherever they establish their initial foothold to wherever they start their conquest. I imagine many people would be surprised at how quickly railroad track can be laid even if a lot of the work is done by manual labor. 5) They wouldn't take long to make rudimentary guns, especially with ones scavenged from Scadrian corpses to study I find it interesting that the OP is convinced Scadrians, who know how to make railroads, would be unable to duplicate that feat on Roshar whereas the OP is similarly convinced that Rosharans, without any knowledge of guns, would be able to quickly reverse engineer and begin making guns. Especially when you have to consider that firearms are not only precision engineered devices in and of themselves but that gunpowder is a precisely mixed and produced chemical substance. 6) by the end of book 5, there will probably already be a lot of reform in the Vorin social structure Absolute speculation that I do not think has evidence to support it. 7) Also, with current fabrial technology, the Alethi could build viable hovercraft by using Navani's archer platform, but by stacking the counterweight on top of the floating platform. Add a pressure fabrial, and you can fly over the Scadrial army and drop glass shards, or even Shardblades, on them. A metal Repeller fabrial would keep any bullets away. Fabrials can duplicate all the powers of Allomancy, as we've seen fabrials that can affect emotions, sensations, warn of nearby Investiture (I assume that the Warning fabrials work by detecting the inherent Investiture in humans), push or pull objects (and not just metal!), increase strength (Shardplate also does this, but it is more limited) and they can even affect objects and people that don't have inherent powers There is a lot in these few sentences. Navani's platforms are very new and consume Stormlight fairly quickly. Turning those prototype towers into hovercraft is a huge stretch imo. A metal repelling fabrial might keep bullets away while it has Stormlight but that Stormlight would, rather quickly if not instantaneously, evaporate when trying to repel tens of thousands of bullets/coins. If a metal repelling fabrial was as powerful as you imagine then why do the Alethi not use them against arrows? While fabrials seem able to mimic certain forms of Investiture I do not think they can, necessarily, mimic all forms of Allomancy - allomantic gold, atium, lerasium, bendalloy and cadium do not seem to be anything that fabrials have mimicked or even been hinted at. 8) Scadrial is limited by the amount of Allomancers or Feruchemists it has Mistings and Ferrings are fairly common on Scadrial. If I remember correctly, I believe 16% of people are Allomancers. If Elendel Basin has a population in the millions then that means there would literally be hundreds of thousands of Allomancers. There would be more Allomancers than soldiers in the entire Alethi army on the Shattered Plains. Some of them would be useless (duralumin misting, aluminum misting etc.) but that still leaves multiple tens of thousands of thugs, coinshots, lurchers, tin eyes, soothers, rioters, nicrosil mistings etc. Even if Roshar had "thousands" of Radiants there is just no way to fight off that many Allomancers, especially if they have Southern tech that allows for all sorts of Twinborns. Roshar, unless it is given equivalent, or near equivalent tech, just does not have the might to stand up to an industrial military with modern weapons and hundreds of thousands of magic users. They would simply, in time, be overwhelmed imo.

Keep in mind that if a Windrunner is moving fast enough than an impact with even a tiny bit of material will cause enough instantaneous damage to completely obliterate said Windrunner in a highly spectacular nuclear fashion.

I am not sure if there is a canon answer to this but, off the cuff, I would say that yes, a magic user from another world (not just Scadrial) could also bond with a spren (without need for hacks) if the conditions were right.

Good point, I did not realize the scale WWI level tech was able to accomplish. Building on your point, another reason the Alethi army was as self-sustaining as they were for 6 years is because they were encamped in a place where gemhearts (soul-casting fuel) was readily available. If they had to carry or import gemhearts/foodstuffs then the advantage of soulcasters would be severely handicapped. Current Roshar/Alethkar vs Era 2 Scadrial/Elendel Basin is just not a fair match-up.

Sorry, what I meant was not that it is impossible for the Basin folk to hack a magic system but rather that no one currently knows how. So, even if they captured a span reed I think it would take a long time for them to hack a new one using Allomancy/Feruchemy.

Defense does not win wars! I think the issue, at least from my perspective, is that the problems you list (highstorms, unfamiliarity of the environment and lack of discipline) are all temporary situations for Scadrians but the disadvantages for Roshar are more long term. Scadrians, if they were invading Alethkar, would definitely be at a disadvantage initially in terms of local knowledge but within a few weeks (maybe months at most) they would know highstorms are a thing, that rockbuds have weird grain in them and, over the course of the war, discipline is learned by veterans. On the long term front, Scadrians (from the Basin) already have a huge technological advantage (guns, railroads, radio etc.) not to mention a very strong agricultural and industrial base. Also, in terms of sheer numbers, I do believe the Basin is more populated than Roshar? Also, Scadrians have a MUCH higher proportion of magic users and their magic can be very devastating in war (pewter for warriors, tin for scouts, coinshots, soothers/rioters to lower enemy morale/bolster allied morale etc.). Alethkar has a trained army but it is laughably underequipped to fight an early 1900s tech army that also has Allomantic and Feruchemical support. Shardbearers would be powerful but there are only so many of them - I believe the entire kingdom of Alethkar only has 30-ish full shardbearers [read that on the coppermind]. A powerful force indeed but 30ish men in full shards does not, in my opinion, outweigh the possibility of thousands of battle-mistings supported by tens of thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) of rifle armed infantry. Can you imagine even a shardbearer withstanding hundreds upon hundreds of bullet/coin impacts when the mere impact of a sword or mace can (slowly) crack plate? Not entirely sure the Basin folk can hack the magic system. Also, there is no telling if Scardian magic (unhacked) can replicate Alethkar magic (unhacked). I think Alethkar would, eventually, be doomed if battling era 2 Scadrians. Now, if we, instead, pit the Final Empire from era 1 against Alethkar... well, I bet you would see some AWESOME battles with Koloss, Inquisitors, noble mistings and skaa footsoldiers lined up opposite spearmen, shardbearers and the odd proto-Radiant or three. That would be an epic war indeed!

Ditto. I like the idea that the Intent of the Shards is reflected in the cultures of the world the Shard is Invested in and I dislike the random libel against capitalism.

Soulcasting allowed for a pre-industrial army of over 100,000 people to encamp in a single location with little-to-no agriculture/hunting for over six years. I am fairly sure that Rosharan armies are easier to keep supplied in the field thanks to soulcasting. Point to Roshar. Spanreeds allow for instantaneous communication that only requires a pen and a surface to write on. Telegraphs require a very large investment in infrastructure and are easily sabotaged. Point to Roshar. Trains are definitely an advantage to Scadrial. Point to Scadrial. That being said, guns are a huge force multiplier and, depending on the scenario, it would be extremely difficult for a Rosharan army equipped mainly with spears and arrows to win against a line of rifleman backed by Gatling guns and, possibly, artillery. If, however, Alethkar discovered how to worldhop and was able to invade the Basin in a surprise attack then I think it is quite possible they could overcome the loosely organized Basin (do they even have a standing army? Is it very large?) and then Navani could reverse-engineer guns. At that point I think it is pretty safe to say the Alethi could subdue the Basin. Most likely scenario, to me, is that the Basin would be able to defeat the spear armies of Alethkar due to superior tech and better access to magic (mistings/twinborn).

The question "Which of these truths would you readily accept?" did not, to me, have any good answers. Is it possible to add a "none of the above" or other answers to that one? Otherwise, I feel like I am just making up a response. Other than that complaint, I felt like it was a fun quiz! Great job! Results: 63%: Windrunner 33%: Truthwatcher 33%: Stoneward 28%: Dustbringer 28%: Willshaper 24%: Lightweaver 22%: Skybreaker 18%: Edgedancer 12%: Elsecaller 06%: Bondsmith I am totes excited to be a Windrunner!

I guess that depends on how strongly you are using the word verified. On the other hand, let's say, for the sake of the argument, that Nightblood is what "voidbringer" refers to. As far as we know, Nightblood is unique. Also, as far as we know, Nightblood was created, and stayed, on Nalthis for most of its life. How could every Desolation have involved Nightblood? How could Nightblood, single-swordedly, pose a challenge for 10 Heralds, their assorted Knights Radiant and the combined armies of Roshar? How did Nightblood keep moving back and forth between Nalthis and Roshar? What are voidspren (Odium's spren) and how do they relate to Desolations if Voidbringers are actually just Nightblood? I, personally, do not think Nightblood == the Voidbringers is a theory that would hold up under scrutiny but I am always willing to listen. If you have any further thoughts on why you think this connection exists then please share them with us.

This is also how I assumed storing F Identity worked - you simply lose the unique "identifying" characteristics that mark your sDNA as "yours" and it instead can be used to "identify" anyone.

@Luciellav I love that this is why you picked Mistborn haha! Now you are stuck in the same trap as the rest of us - hungrily waiting for the conclusion of the massive Cosmere story Sanderson is telling. Welcome to the club! It is a bit tough waiting for each new book but, as I think you have come to understand, it is totally worth it! Be sure to read the Stormlight Archive books (Way of Kings and Words of Radiance) as they are sooooooooooo good.

Very clever theory! Have an upvote!

I am fairly sure Brandon has stated that there are limits on how much of certain attributes can be stored at a time. E.g. If you store 100% of your mental quickness (or whatever Zinc is for Feruchemists) then wouldn't you just drop dead from brain inactivity or something? Therefore only X% can be stored. Someone help a fellow out with the relevant WoB link please and thank you.

Not to be nitpicky but is it confirmed that this "weight-changing machinery" and the cubes are the same thing? Perhaps the cubes operate on one principle that interacts with Allomancy and the "weight-changing machinery" of the larger ship operates on a different principle that interacts with Feruchemy.

Taken from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organ_transplantation#History It is not unlikely Scadrians had attempted transplants of different kinds throughout the years and noticed the "rejection" problem without fully understanding why. Most likely, this was Brandon's attempt to counter any "Hey! What about rejection!" complaints by having Wax bring up that scenario.

Without either a WoB or, as Pathfinder suggested, a scene from Lessie's PoV during the AoL prequel we will never know. While I, personally, do not think Sazed controlled Paalm in that instance it would not be too big of a stretch for Brandon to use that as an example of the influence Shards have on their Vessel (shardholder).