StanLemon

Also, to put into perspective just how stupidly powerful AonDor potentially can be. An Elantrian was able to create a ward powerful enough to prevent Shards from seeing past. While certainly Surgebinding is the more powerful combat ability, especially for impromptu combat and an obscenely powerful tactical ability. AonDor and potentially Dakhor are stupidly advantageous strategically.

Sel is the most Cosmere aware world True bit this favors a surprise attack from Roshar. If Sel knows they are coming then they can set up counter strategies. Sel could dismiss all Lightweaving. Dakhor can for sure as we've seen it and I'm positive that AonDor can as well Yeah, they will probably be Roshar's biggest tactical advantage AonDor can do just about anything Surgebinding can An Elantrian could destroy that fort in as much time as it took to set it up True I wish we could see more of Dustbrinngers. Or at least some use of the Division Surge Whereas Windrunners and Skybreakers are probably Roshar's best tactical advantage, Bondsmiths are their best strategic advantage AonDor could make Shardblades of their own Those healings in those books used up almost all the Stormlight those two had. While advantageous for survival it is important to remember healing is Stormlight intensive. All in all, I could easily see Roshar winning if they push really hard at the beginning of the conflict and if Sel is mostly unaware. But the more time Sel has, the more things shift towards them. Sel has the power and versatility to emulate and counter just about anything Roshar has to offer. There is a reason Brandon has called Elantrians the Batman of the Cosmere.

Most likely the reason Honorblades are inferior now is because Honor is dead. They very likely were superior back when Honor was supplying them directly

I'm aware of this WoB. Context is important in this regard. In this quote he's clearly referring to Intent. Whereas the conversation on this thread had to do with the nature of their Investiture. One could argue that that is just semantics but I'd argue otherwise. The Mists reacted to Hemalurgy a lot more like Stormlight trying to avoid Voidlight than how we saw a sphere of Anti-Voidlight freely take in Voidlight. In fact all interactions of Ruin and Preservation's Investiture we saw before Sazed took them up required forcefully making them interact. For example Vin and Kelsier had to forcefully push against Ruin to the point of breaking and neither Shard was damaged by it, only the Vessels. From what we've seen of Light and Anti-Light, they freely interact and destroy each other

The Intents were in conflict but as is pointed out in Hero of Ages and Secret History, they are able to interact quite nicely when they are wielded with a singular mind. Sazed even implies in Rhythms of War that he just isn't ideal at embodying both Intents. Another implication that they aren't truly opposite is that in Era 2 the Mists don't pull away from Hemalurgy

That might not be the case. The Anti-Investiture might not work on mixed Investiture. The Pure Tones have to change to accommodate each other so they are not truly the same as the Tones they were made from. Also we actually don't know if Harmony's Investiture is like Towerlight or Warlight. It might have its on Pure Tone. There is still a lot we don't know unfortunately.

Is this the one you were thinking of? Also, I wonder if separating Ettmetal into Lerasium and Atium is even simpler, what if Intent is the primary factor

I now imagine old man Marsh "these darn kids and their funny way of talking!"

I mean, there is a reason I said by Final Empire standards.

Great analysis!

And how many people could say they knew an Allomancer? Brandon has said that by Era two that almost everyone would at least know an Allomancer which means percentage of the population of Allomancers was much higher in Era 2 and although Feruchemists are rarer than Allomancers it can be inferred that they are more common than they were in Era 1. Even if they are now only Ferrings due to interbreeding with Allomancy Do you understand what the basis of Eugenics even is? It's the controlled breeding of a population to increase the propensity of specific traits. It's literally what nobles in the Final Empire were doing. It's what Straff was doing breeding Allomancers, and it worked. Personally I'm against Eugenics for a great many reasons, even if it can have a tangible advantage like with Allomancy and Feruchemy but we have several reasons to believe from the books themselves that while not ethical and probably not useful for physical genetics, it's still viable when it comes to Allomancy and Feruchemy

By Final Empire standards? Yes, they are plentiful in Era 2 and we don't know how many there were before TLR turned the entire population into mistrwraiths. The big difference about it being a Spiritually inherited trait vs a genetic trait is that there seems to be little rhyme or reason for why some people have the power and others don't. Sure the potential for it gets inherited even without having the power itself. But several comments about pure Allomantic lines, that the Kandra believe it's inevitable that there will be another Full Feruchemist and Brandon talking about it being spiritual genetics that are inheritable means that Eugenics should be a viable way to decrease scarcity.

Oh? Were Feruchemists plentiful in TFE? No they weren't. They had to get Feruchemists like Tindwyl into the breeding pool to continue their lines. Plus Inquisitors were clearly not trying to fully wipe out them, they were useful for Spikes. But population control was very much successful.

It's still an inherited trait and it's repeatedly been implied that breeding affects it. After all, the reverse was what they were doing in The Final Empire

Petition to change name from Stormlight Archive to Boulder Archive

In BoM, the Kandra make reference that Blessings have to be made in a very specific way and thus are difficult to recreate even without the...you know...murdering aspect. My guess is that each pair of Blessings need to be made simultaneously

This is where I disagree. The higher the base level of education is, the greater the stock of people who can contribute to higher level fields becomes. A lot of potential people in the real world often have to choose between working and spending years studying. I'm one of them, I don't have the time or funds to spend getting the degree in the scientific fields I want to get into and instead have had to devote my time towards working and making an income to live. Not saying that I'd be revolutionary in any regards. However if learning becomes a simple matter of tapping a metalmind, someone could quickly bypass much of the learning process and potentially come up with ideas and solutions where because of real world constraints would never have the opportunity before.

On the talk of learning and development of scientific research. If the theory that compounded memory duplicates memories is correct, Scadrial could theoretically advance very quickly as teaching would be massively simplify and accelerate learning on Scadrial

Wow, I've been away from this thread for a while. Moving on, first of all from the recent posts, just to clarify Brandon has said the Stormlight timeskip will only be about a decade. Which frankly makes sense with the 10 importance. During this time the approximate 2 years of Wax and Wayne will take place. Now as has been proven here on Earth, 10 years is a lot of time for technological revolution. However, we still don't know the limits of Southern Scadrial's technology. For all we know we haven't even seen the best they have to offer. For instance, their obsolete technology from the Hunter ship was still more advanced than anything else we've seen in the Cosmere. Secondly, while it is true that Roshar has a much better history of warfare with military events. They are still old fashioned styles and we only have to look at WW1 to see how well those old fashioned military mindsets handle advanced technology, absolutely terribly. There is a reason Hoid is concerned about it in RoW. Adapting to such fundamental changes is difficult and not something that's just done. Otherwise we would have abandoned the methods being used in WW1 well before it was over, but we didn't. We can also see that even Roshar's best generals haven't fully adapted to having Radiants either and aren't utilizing those abilities to their fullest as of RoW as some threads back when the preview chapters were being released pointed out. Now, if we set this conflict at the time that WaW ends, then they may have adapted enough by then to fully tactically use Surgebinders. However I think it's disingenuous to this conversation to compare Roshar as it could be 10 years from now to Scadrial. The first reason is we still don't know what will happen in book 5 of Stormlight or book 4 of Era 2. The second reason is because while we know that Era 2 takes place between Stormlight 5 & 6, we don't know when. It's entirely possible that Era 2 starts only months after book 5 ends rather than several years after.

Maybe, I personally doubt there are still two on Roshar if there truly ever were more than one. Although if there is a second on Roshar, it's probably at the Shattered Plains

While I don't know if what Leras was pointing to was a Dawnshard, it seems both plausible and even likely there is one on Scadrial. Brandon has pointed out that multiple Shards have taken an interest in Scadrial even before the events of the books and narratively as Scadrial is one of the most important worlds alongside Roshar which does have one it wouldn’t be surprising at all.

So magic systems form because of interactions of Shards and the system itself. As has been pointed out, there is a Void version of Adhesion. This speaks to me that Surges are to Roshar as metals are to Scadrial. Universal to all magic systems on Roshar but utilize different expressions. I find it much easier to believe Odium lied to them

One important thing is that Shards don't create the magic systems. They can tweak it but they don't out and out create it. Meaning Adhesion is just as natural as any other Surge. And frankly the argument from the Fused that it is wholly of Honor and not a part of the natural world doesn't make any sense either as we know Connection is a natural aspect of the Cosmere and its physical aspects include pressure and vacuum.

An important thing to remember with Oaths is there is flexibility with the exact wording as long as the core tenant is observed. It's not just the words but the mentality behind them as well. For Dalinar, being better involves taking responsibility. I mean he wrote a book just to showcase that.

Cadmium most likely, or Bendalloy