alder24

That’s shortsighted. They wanted freedom, they have it, now you just need to treat them like people and not objects and negotiate with them. You need to show them that you’re not their enemy but their friend. That’s why you cannot piss them off by dismantling the Oathgate

The Oathgates are physical manifestations of spren. If you damage their physical manifestation (fabrial), they stop functioning, their link to the Physical Realm is disrupted and they can't send someone on the other side. But that's what happened. We haven't seen this happening, because Adolin at that time was fighting the Thunderclast with another Shardbearer, but Singers did destroy a section of the dome. The only reason Azish survived another day was because they used their oil trap and set the inside of the dome ablaze forcing Singers to retreat back to CR, and the Fused and Singers who left the dome through that breach before were mauled to death by Taln. At that time of the siege, more Fused joined Odium's army, so it's highly likely they used their Surges to collapse a part of the dome and they either ran out of Voidlight or were killed by Taln so they couldn't have done it again. Or they might have used some kind of conventional explosive device prepared specifically for this moment. We don't know how they did it, but they did it anyway. The ones in Thaylen City denied the passage to Shallan, despite the Oathgate being open properly on the other side. Yes, they can refuse. In that case it was because they were bound by the Sibling to close the access to CR. In RoW, some Oathgate spren decided to accept Stormfather in place of the absent Sibling, others decided to remain closed off following Sibling's final order - it was their decision to make. But in this case it's different. Azish spren were corrupted by Sja-Anat, they were released from some of the limitations that were chaining them. They had gained their freedom and now they could refuse anyone they wanted not only the access to CR, but also the access to the transportation between Oathgates in the Physical Realm. It was stated multiple times in the book that the Azish gate will soon stop working because of the spren and it didn't matter that the gate was opened on both sides. Because all of them are greenhorns and they are not Kaladin, who's the only one among them who has natural talent and actual expertise in fighting. All of them were former slaves who were just learning how to fight with a spear and how to use their Surges for the first time ever with no proper instructors, because none could have taught them how to fight in the air. Moreover, most of them have no Shardblade yet and they are regularly fighting Fused who has 7000 years of experience in battle and with Surges. That's enough for me to understand why they aren't as powerful as their Surges make them. But I agree, Fused are a disappointment. All of them should be on the level of Lezian in terms of their fighting prowess. It's hard for me to comprehend why Desolations were so devastating if Radiants are so op compared to Fused.

I really think this whole discussion about the wall/dome around the control room is pointless, so to hopefully give it a final nail in the coffin I’ll say this - the moment Singers finally took over the dome, they instantly blasted one side wide open. If they could do that to a structure that massive, they could do that to your puny wall inside. Making a door in it would require even less effort and they themselves constructed a wall around the center with doors in it. Building a wall would serve Singers more than it’d help defenders. RoW I-4: An Oathgate is on a level way above a Soulcaster. But there is another problem with this idea - we don't know how it affects the spren of the fabrial. If destroying the gate hurts spren, then you can forget about ever using it again, even if you manage to repair it correctly. The spren of Azish gate are corrupted and they want freedom more than anything. Dismantling their body would turn them into your enemies and they would deny you the use of the gate forever. Fixing that would be a monumental task that would take decades or centuries. Oathgates aren’t just magical buildings, they are living spren who decide who can pass through the gate, and who can’t, so don't make them any more angry than they already are.

Coppermind: Davar's soulcaster was easily fixed, but it still didn't work. Dismantelling Azish Oathgate without understanding why it works in the first place leaves you with no Oathgate afterwards.

Oathgates can be destroyed. They are fabrials, damage them enough and they stop functioning. However, that's just stupid because by destroying them you would permanently sever the connection between the Azish empire (largest member of the coalition) and the rest of the coalition in Urithiru. The coalition would effectively cease to function properly and the economical and political backlash would be immense. Sure, the spren were corrupted and told them they will stop letting people through them, but as long as the gate is fine, you can negotiate with them. OB ch 117: Locking them wouldn't work, because it's spren who decides who can pass from CR to PR. Azish spren were more than willing to allow Singers to cross and that was enough. WaT ch 13: Their Soulcaster has limitations in what it can transform into bronze. It can't do air, so you would need to first build a solid, thick dome around the control building and then soulcast it into bronze. That alone seems too demanding for the time they had. WaT ch 37: Honestly, I disagree. If you can't seal off the entire control building, which seems to be the case, building a wall around it would only aid the attackers. You can't place many troops on it, you can't utilize your infantry, you can't use your archers on the dome as their sight would be obstructed by that wall and they would risk shooting their own allies on the wall and it would be quickly captured and then used by attackers as a cover and a safe retreat point. And Singers are also quite resilient against arrows so a wall defended with archers would not provide much advantage to the defenders. In fact, the archers would be quickly driven back by Heavenly Ones, Deepest Ones and Stormforms, they need infantry to cover them which is impossible with a wall. You already have a giant chokepoint which is the control building, Singers can't bring their entire force of 15k into the dome, they can only use limited numbers, you can outnumber them with your infantry, fully supported by all your archers on the dome. Instead of using massive fortifications, I would use small scale ones - small ditches, uneven ground, traps and caltrops. Anything that would make the area surrounding the dome irritating to march through without providing cover, would be more beneficial to defenders than a wall that would be instantly used against you. The walls of Urithiru were full of metal and they could go through them just fine. The problem was there weren't a lot of Fused in the army invading Azir. What I found irritating about defending Azir is that nobody knows the basic concept of the defense in depth. Sizgil knew it from the engineering standpoint and somehow lectured Dalinar's generals about it (which was stupid), but none in Azir did. They have a whole population of Azimir at their disposal and the city is full of resources, just use them. Give them axes, pickaxes and hammers and order them to construct barricades and walls all across the city. Level the area around the dome and erect another wall behind it. Turn the city into a giant maze, with hidden pathways through buildings for defenders to use to quickly fall back to deeper positions. Turn the palace itself into a fortified castle and the place of your last stand. Give weapons to any volunteer and assign them into defending those barricades, they can even drop rocks from houses. There are ten or hundreds of thousands of people living in this city, they are all free manpower for you to use, just order them to work. This wouldn't win the battle by killing all of the Singers, but it would delay them (which was the most important thing) with maximum casualties and turn your chaotic retreat into organized defense after the dome has fallen. But nope, the dome was all they used...

Coppermind: If they can sustain themselves on ash, they can survive on sand or stone just fine.

WaT only: The Stormfather being a liar. Kharbranth being destroyed by Taravangian as Odium. Dalinar Ascending to Honor. Odium is free and basically wins. The Stormfather killed, Stormlight and Highstorms disappearing and the permanent weeping covers the world (kind of, we have the night of sorrows with rain everywhere instead of storms). I don't remember more, but those are the main ones. Any predictions I made for books before WaT blends in with theories I read on forum so I have no idea what I was thinking back then (but at that time I was bad at noticing and predicting stuff).

There are certainly several agreements at play here. First one is the pact made at the Shattering between Shards, where they all made a promise (not an oath) to not interfere with each other. Hoid was a part of that agreement. However, during SA he's in a direct violation of this promise and that exposes him to full wrath of Odium, if he was ever found. This is the reason why he insisted on being included in the Dalinar's contract with Odium, which protected him for the whole 10 days. 1st OB letter: Odium also cannot act directly against those who didn't fully commit themselves to him, he can't kill anyone unless they're his. This is part of the restrictions placed on him by Honor. RoW I-4: RoW ch 112: WaT ch 113: But that and the contest agreement were broken by Honor, the pact made by Shards at the Shattering still remained but Hoid violated this one, which placed him entirely at Retribution's mercy without any protections. WaT ch 145: Cosmere spoilers:

A spren manifesting physically (like a Shardblade) is severely restricted and bound in its new form. The Stormfather is vastly more than a regular Honorspren. He's omnipresent on Roshar, he's Honor's Avatar, he controls Highstorms, provides Stormlight, he's bound to Roshar on a level that far surpasses regular spren. If he were to be manifested fully physically some things might break. Nobody really knows what would happen but it could be bad. Moreover, this puts a strain on his bond with Dalinar because things like this shouldn't be possible. It's against their Oaths. An act like this harms him and risks him becoming a deadeye, which would have been catastrophical.

No. Sharp edges cut, flat surfaces smash and it's not something you can change because that's the nature of those objects. We've seen Shardhammers being used several times and none did any damage to the soul (but apparently per WoB I can't find, a one that would get inside the body would damage the soul). Even if you know why Shardblades cut, I doubt you would be able to change it - a sword knows what it itself is and knows that sharp things cut, while blunt don't.

Yes, one of the fundamental tenets of Einstein's special theory of relativity is that the speed of light in a vacuum is not relative, it's absolute. This means that no matter where you are, how fast you're moving, or how much time dilation affects you, you will always measure the speed of light to be 300,000 km/s. Always. And because of that we have time dilation - if the speed of light cannot change, time and distance must change to account for discrepancies. However, that's for speed of light in a vacuum. In a medium, like air or water, the speed of light is slower due to interactions between light and that medium and thus is relative and dependent on the frame of reference of the observer. If you move fast or experience time dilation relative to the air through which light is traveling, you will see that light moving at different speeds. So an observer in a time bubble should get a different value for the speed of light in the air outside of the time bubble from the observer outside of the bubble. The consequences of this elude me, but it seems Wayne did experienced them at the end of TLM with his supercharged time bubble, TLM ch 71: But the absolute speed of light in a vacuum is still the same in and out of the time bubble.

Oh yes, the Stormfaker theory. It feels nostalgic now. Keep reading, you'll find out eventually.

The hilt is part of Nightblood in the same way his blade is, It's all him and the hilt is not blocked by aluminum. His hilt is not a blade so it doesn't cut anything or consume anything, because that's what hilts are. Nightblood is so invested that he manifests in all three realms simultaneously, when he's physically in the Physical Realm he manifests as a black smoke in the Cognitive Realm. Visions created by Honor and Odium are kind of in between the Cognitive and the Spiritual Realm and because Nightblood is so invested, he was pulled into Odium's vision as well. That's why Taravangian could have seen it and used it.

Cosmere: I don't think Yumi needed Nikaro to survive at all, she already was a hyper invested CS, she could do it on her own. The problem is, she thought she had to die and because of that perception she started to fade. Nikaro made her realize that she can stay and live her life as she wants. At least that's my interpretation. The spirits like TV dramas and decided to still manifest Hion, so it's still there. But true, the ending kind of ignores the consequences of the end of the Shroud.

You do make a great point about their mobility, but as you clearly said they're ridiculously, stupidly expensive. You won't be able to muster 1000 Phantoms, 100 at best. Losing just a few Phantoms will cost you a fortune and you won't be able to replace them. It also takes a lot of time to create them, because preparing bones and stone/metal bodies is a very time consuming process. Still, they are nearly indestructible and have superior mobility, but you don't need to break them to stop them, you just need to stop them. Tress has shown us how to deal with those types of units - immobilize them. Use ropes, chains, wires or mud - anything that binds, ties or sticks will slow them down or stop them fully. So they do have a weakness, and when there are only a few Phantoms and tens of thousands or enemy troops, they can quickly prepare a trap and remove them entirely from the battlefield - if they're smart enough to figure this out. And while they can always sprint, that doesn't change the fact that they can only be at one place at the time. Take an army of 20000 strong and divide them into units of 500 men each, then send them everywhere and use your cavalry to distract Phantoms. While the Phantoms are on a wild goose chase, your entire countryside is on fire, your crops are burning, villages are destroyed, towns are deserted and castles are falling. Your invincible army can't protect anything even though they eventually will catch up to all enemy units, by that time the damage has been done. That or your Phantoms were so distracted that most of the enemy troops escaped them (Phantoms still have to find them to kill them). This looks even worse if there are several large armies that can attack your country from many directions at once. Even sprinting, it would take Phantoms days or weeks to travel the distance from one enemy army to the other, in that time your entire nation is wide open and defenseless. If one army engages in delay tactics and tries to trap Phantoms and bind them, then you will lose the war. Phantoms are awesome, I really do love them, but they do have weaknesses and those can be exploited by someone smart. If your entire army is just a few Phantoms then you are playing a very, very risky game. It's not about weight, it's about speed and psychological impact. Horses are much faster and a 20 ft Koloss on a Koloss-horse is way more terrifying than a 12 ft Koloss alone. I do agree that Koloss or Phantoms alone can replace cavalry, but putting them on hoses will make them even better.