Rich2244

Wars are a huge strain but they also add incentive, in peace time there is no need to advance so people tend to stagnate, look at the progress we made in WWII compared to before and after, technology made a huge jump because we needed it to.

Surely a sliver of Adonalsium, if that is possible, would be something else entirely? Not a shard it's the whole?

I disagree with the point about war slowing technological advance, if anything it does the opposite, countries are competing to gain any sort of advantage, peace delays gain as there is no real incentive.

Ah right, must admit Sanderson does let heroes find impossible solutions quite often, and considering Alkatraz is supposed to be a young-adult/ teenager book...... Let's just say I have my suspicions on what the outcome might be. Must admit it's not a series I've had much interest in though, I've read the blurbs and it doesn't really grab me. Sixth of Dusk however sound very interesting, might have to start that after I've done my current reading of Stormlight

Ah fair enough, I misinterpreted Sixth of Dusk, as I understand it Alkatraz is still mid series? But fair enough that's at least one example.

Which is the reason 'happy ending' was in asterisks, refers to evil being defeated, prosperity to come after the instance. Mistborn for example has a decimated population but also gets to start again in the Elendel Basin. Which is pretty much as close to Eutopia as you can get. I would hardly call that worse than the final empire. if you are being literal then obviously immediately after an event that is worth writing about its gonna be worse.

I'm not sure if this has been asked before or of I'm using the right terminology or even if this is possible, but could Hoid be a Sliver of Adonalsium? As in held the power once but doesn't any more.

Hi, I've been around for a while posting but this is my first actual thread. So we know from WoB that the Magic systems that we know about will interact with each other in future books, thought I'd ask what people thought cool/interesting/powerful combinations of the different Magic types could be and also how do we think Brendon will introduce them to each other, past what we have seen with world hoppers. I've seen this alluded to in other threads but not a thread specifically about it yet. Ill start with a fairly obvious one, harder steel pushing/ Iron pulling due to the weight of shardplate.

Kind of a pointless comment, we know there is a second series and so far Sanderson has always written 'happy endings' to his books.

Ah right, in that case, I was talking about the Roughs not being part of Elendel, if you read back 5 or 10 comments someone had a comment that implied the Roughs were a part of Elendel, which I disagree with. The reasoning wasn't originally to do with the conflict but simply stating that the two were seperate factions.

But that was the OPs scenario that we were given, Elendel vs Alethkar, not Elendel and the Roughs and the Southerners just Elendel. Im not saying that a war wouldn't unite them just we were given some limits, which some people seem to be ignoring.

I think the main problem with this discussion at the moment and the reason that without theorising wild scenarios Scadrial comes out on top is that we have had 6 books worth of character and world development plus novellas vs only 2, when the first 5 Stormlight books are done I have no doubt that it will be a much more even playing field. You only have to look at the technology increase in the first two books to see where it's going. Living shardblades Navani's fabrials ect

Why does it matter where the armies are? My point about the Roughs isn't that they are outside the basin its that they don't want to be affiliated or controlled by Elendel, they aren't part of Elendel. It would be like saying that Alethkar gets the army from Jar Keved because it's nearby. I think you are hugely overestimating Wax and Wayne there as well, that shotgun could definitely do some damage but it's a 2 shot weapon, and I can't imagine Wax carries many additional slugs considering their size. If a shardbearer gets close to Wayne he is gonna die, gold healing won't last long when he gets a shardblade to the face, and he has no way of avoiding or blocking it. Wax could avoid a shardbearer while he had steel but I don't think he is a good enough marksman to do that and shoot through an eyeslit on a fast moving target, he is good he's not burning atium. Again one mistake and he is dead.

Could it just be that it is constantly degenerating from whatever lerasium gives to zero but not nessicarily linearly. So for example if a generation of people were generally around 80% then the next generation would be around 79% but as a distribution so the 'purest' person in the second generation could be 100% but there would be more people with a lower percentage to compensate. I'm not discounting the roughs because of any sort of limit, just stating that they are a seperate faction to Elendel, the reason many of the people are out there is that they don't want to be affiliated or controlled by Elendel.

asterion137, you replied in quote and I'm not sure how to quote a quote, if you even can but I do take issue with a couple of the things you said. Ill take your word for the broadsheets, I read on a kindle and the broadsheets are generally too small for me to read. So that clarifies that, are there any mentions of an actual Military though, armed police aren't soldiers. I can't check your maths, you used a bastardisation of units, metric newtons but imperial for the rest, and you used speed not acceleration, you also compared it to a longsword, another weapon that is similarly ineffective against shardplate, if you compare that to the impact of a mace or warhammer, something that we know will eventually break through plate, though will take an exceptionally long time you get different results that back bullets being ineffective. A mace for example weighed around 3kg with the vast majority of that centered at the end, a swing with the arm moving around from behind or to the side including stepping into the strike from a trained soldier or parshendi maybe 0.5 seconds for the whole swing, a arm of maybe 1m length with a mace around 1m long the speed of that mace is the diameter of an arc approx 180 degrees, about 6.5m plus the length of a step in from a soldier about 1.5m. Which does indeed give 16mps. Assuming that the user is trained we would have an impact of around 0.1s then a rebound at half the speed of the swing, that gives us a deceleration of 240mpsps multiplied by the mass of 3kg we have a 720N strike. Compared to your arrow, 2.3 ounces 150fps, converted that's about 0.065 kg and 50 mps or the bullet 1.6 ounces 900fps converted again gives 0.045 kg and 300mps. This time it's a bit harder we can use a single impact, with maybe a 10% rebound if we are generous to simplify. That will give 35.75N for the arrow or 145N for the bullet. We know a single strike from a mace does relatively little damage but a large number eventually wears shardplate down given that a bullet is around 1/5 the force of a mace. But just because it is 1/5 of the force does not mean it will do 1/5 the damage, it will do far less that that. So yes a bullet is more powerful than an arrow but o still don't see it being a significant threat. And lastly yes Elendel controls the basin, kind of, the outer cities were about to rebel in BoM and that never got dealt with, only the set were weakened. The revolt they were setting in motion wasn't pacified though I will concede that with the southerners appearing that might become less of an issue. But the roughs are outside of the basin, away from Elendels control.

All fair points, my reasoning for war being Ruin was that in the original series Ruin seems to grasp at any ongoing conflicts be they war or even just arguments, anything that it can get an agent involved with and uses that to attempt to spiral out of control. An interstellar war is certainly something that could spiral out of control rapidly especially when you consider that the Thrill seems to be an exaggerated form of berserk. I suppose their could be Preservation aligned reasoning for a war, in this situation I just can't see it. Roshar doesn't really have anything Scadrial needs, they could want shards I suppose but that's hardly a need, so their would be no point in invading to gain resources, barring something we don't yet know about. If Roshar invaded then obviously it's in Preservations interest to protect Scadrial but at that point wouldn't Ruin want to allow the invasion? I think I said an invasion was Ruin aligned not war in general, I just think that Sazed would be unable to act in a large scale conflict of any kind because due to their nature Ruin and Preservation are nearly always opposed, I was just using a single example.

I didn't say bullets were equal to arrows I said I thought that they would both be ineffective against shardplate unless the hit a crack. The rough a have absolutely nothing to do with an Elendel vs Alethkar conflict Giving everyone a gun is just plain stupid, chances are a large proportion of the population would end up injuring themselves or someone nearby rather than doing anything constructive. Where does it mention that they have cannons The airship is Southerner technology, the point in time being used is directly after BoM, Elendel don't have airships or Southerner weapons, medallions ect Not 16% of the population 16% of those exposed to the mists that were killing people and every normal person was terrified of. The army was exposed not the population. Second era mistborn is 350 years after first era give or take, that's about 17 generations with allomancy getting weaker every generation, that's a significant drop. Enough for mistborn and feruchemists to become extinct is certainly enough to drop a large proportion of misting/Ferrings births. Where did you get the population of Elendel to be 50 million? And how did you get to the 1 in 50 figure? I explained why I guessed at around 800 mistings you seem to have just plucked a number out of the air.

Apologies I think you may have misunderstood my meaning, when I said 100% preservation aligned I meant he had no qualms that the course preservation wanted was also the course he found preferable. Of course he can act, my point is just that he can't directly intervene, he has to act through others. Only providing guidance and indirect sort of hints and pushes in the right direction. He can't go all Vin at the end of HoA.

I haven't read every post yet so please let me know if this has already been covered. I don't have a book to reference right now but I remember it being said that Wax is only the third crasher in history to survive to adulthood/ get noticed, following that there are 16 metals so 16 squared types of twinborn including compounders assuming every combination is equally likely, using the atium mistings snapping from mistborn era 1 to back that up, exactly 1/16 of the population that snapped, that makes 768 twinborn. Of which 48 are compounders of various forms. In living history of Elendel, judging by that I think maybe 50 being in combat worthy condition would be generous. If you add Marsh, I'm not gonna count the bands as they are SPOILERS As of the end of BoM in the possession of Harmony who in my mind would be unable to intervene according to the situation specified by OP, he is not of Elendel, more of a planetary God. Then add any Mistings / Ferrings I'm guessing 16 times as many of each as twinborn in living memory then 1/15 combat worthy at present would be around 1600 total. If we compare that to Alethkar in terms of magic who have, correct me if I'm wrong about 25-40 blades and sets of Plate. Plus Navani's new era of fabrials and then several Knights Radiant. Remembering that these are industrial era guns, basic low calibre revolvers, low calibre bolt action rifles and double barrelled shotguns essentially, I saw no mention of artillery, or any explosives past dynamite in Elendel, Ettmetal and airships were Southerner tech. Gatling guns I assume we're around but I didn't see them mentioned. Guns generally at that point in history weren't exactly reliable or accurate, if we assume Ranette hasn't been mass producing Sterrions or similar weapons then the firearms only advantage over longbows/ crossbows is the lack of training required to be proficient. Training which Alethkar has in Abundance. If we then add Elendel having no evidence of a professional army I think end of era 2 Scadrial is actually one of the weakest points in its history in terms of military strength. While end of WoR Alethkar is ramping up rapidly. Honestly I think this is fairly heavily in Roshars favour. Assuming shardplate is as strong as I believe it to be, I know I've spoken to a few of you about that in other threads and while I've argued my case for its strength many others have argued that it's significantly weaker than I think and honestly without more material or clarification from WoB I'm not sure it's possible to decide one way or the other with certainty. My thoughts on shardplate against normal Scadrial calibre bullets is that they would be almost negligible unless they hit a crack similar to arrows in WoK and WoR.

Could you please explain what you define entropy as? My definition of it would be sort of like undisciplined and unruly which doesn't really fit with your statement. I think I might have said earlier surely an invasion is 100% aligned with Ruin and opposed to preservation, so surely that would mean harmony is at his highest possible level of internal conflict, difficulty to act whatever you want to call it. My interpretation of the WoB that you referenced was that Sazed was originally 100% preservation alighned before becoming Harmony and he is gradually becoming TRUE HARMONY, caps for emphasis not shouting, which would be exactly 50/50. Forgive me for a mathematical reference but I see it as him tending towards what I have called true harmony, always every year for example he progresses halfway from his current point towards true harmony. Please ask for more detailed explanation of that doesn't make sense. So he is always going to be more Preservation but often in such a minute way that it is impossible for him to act in any significant way. What ive called true Harmony would be unable to act at all unless somehow Ruin and Preservation were Aligned e.g if someone directly threatened Sazed. I realise a lot of that is my interpretation though, not nessicarily proven canon, though I believe it does fit quite nicely with what we do know to be canon.

Very interested by the ruining Roshar idea, my thought is that since Ruin created humans on Scadrial not Roshar he (it?) would be more concerned with Ruining Scadrial and would therefore 'support' a Rosharan invasion while Preservation would try to preserve Scadrial opposing each other.

Being biologically engineered to survive in an atmosphere full of ash is very different to surviving a storm of apocalyptic scale. Though I do agree that the humans on Scadrial are very quick to adapt and are much hardier than humans on earth. Why would they be fighting with the Alethi? My comment was solely about the parshendi. The original question wasn't The Final Empire vs Alethkar or any iteration of that it was Roshar vs Scadrial that encompasses everything on both worlds regardless of alignment. Yes at the current point in the timeline pretty much any situation which takes alignment of forces into account massively favours Scadrial, I was just suggesting another possiblilty, scenario whatever you want to call it because I thought it was a cool idea. Lastly as we know from second iteration mistborn Harmony struggle to directly intervene with anything because he is the holder of two opposing shards.

Could someone link the WoB that relates Wyndle to Cultivation, I've gotta admit I was more of the opinion that the radiants in their entirety were of Honour and that we would see some other thing later on that is of Cultivation much like we saw the effects of Hemalurgy early on in mistborn but we didn't see the actual system or understand it at all.

Ah right, thanks

Could someone tell me why we think Nightwatcher is of Cultivation OR aligned with cultivation, I don't remember reading anywhere that they were affiliated. Or is this just an assumption the community has made?