Oudeis

Explanation Did you hear the one about the joke that got funnier the more times it was explained?

Jasnah and Ed having a transmutation contest... she's got something of an advantage in speed, I think, but he can transmute more things. Or for that matter, Jasnah and Ed trying to out-research each other. Obviously this would start with them both trying to collaborate to research the same thing but being entirely unable to agree on how to go about researching. Lots of screaming from him, lots of snark from her, both channeling their rage into the most INTENSE RESEARCH EVER.

This is kinda my point... Goku can, and always will, do something so that no matter how apparent his defeat, "oh there's another layer of death you didn't know about" and then he comes back. There's no way to have a sane "who would win" conversation when one half of the equation simply doesn't obey rules. The question is basically, "Who would win in a sport, someone who has to follow the rules, or someone allowed to cheat however they want?". In point of fact, he lived for quite a while without his bracers. The extreme old age would have killed him before too long, but she ripped his bracers away, fell semi-unconscious, and snapped to when Sazed arrived. We can't know how long that was, but several minutes at least, could easily be a quarter hour or more. Particularly apt, since most Dragonball character's name is a Japanese word for food...

Would the Everstorm not, from all projections be SIGNIFICANTLY WORSE than Katrina? Resident meteorologist?

Cadmium: Went to donate blood today (double-red, so the process took about 45 minutes). Left Well of Ascension at home. It occurred to me that, even though I was simply waiting for something and wanted time to pass, the thing I was waiting for was my own body's blood, so I couldn't even have used cadmium to skip it. =(

Wow I do not usually get words like that wrong... I blame "No More Mutants" where I believe I got the faulty definition for decimate from... Yeah, clearly there are many ways to "guess" how sturdy structures in Shinovar are, or to look at the various examples of storms and try to gauge the power of the Everstorm when it makes landfall. I'm sticking to my guns; I realize, from a sociological standpoint, that only 20% casualty would be devastating. I still expect it'll be no less than 70%. (Unless forcefield or some such).

Fine then. Goku does get killed by an Aonic equation, travels to the afterlife... where Kelsier is waiting in ambush and uppercuts him as soon as he arrives.

As Sir Terry Pratchett himself once said, "...unless the characters get totally beyond the author’s control. They might." Mr. Sanderson has repeated similar sentiments before. You can't always just write, "I want this to happen" and then have it happen no matter what. He's already built up the Everstorm to be incredibly powerful. He's made a huge point that the Shin simply do not have the structures to protect themselves from this disaster. Several of the points you mention are valid. Especially if the Shin actually listen to Dalinar's warning. However, we should certainly consider a minimum casualty rating. I personally would not be surprised if the Shin were literally decimated; 90% fatalities. I don't think this would prevent the scenario you describe above, with the lies coming out and all that. And for a formerly prosperous nation, surely even just 10% of the population is enough to rekindle a nation, though it might look very different from the one that came before; I suspect that will be true of most nations on Roshar by the end of the 10th book. I agree with you; not only does it not make sense to actually exterminate the Shin, it would make for a more boring story. That said, I find a 20% casualty rate to be optimistic beyond reason, given the factors we already know. Still, perhaps the Shin have been hiding some secret Fabrial forcefield all this time we never knew about, and they'll weather the Everstorm without losing a blade of grass. After all, the Everstorm is "old of design". Perhaps it was an arms race; one side was crafting the Everstorm, so as part of their preparations, the other side build something in Shin Kak Nish that could weather an Everstorm. I would be surprised if it's the case, but I make the example just to point out that... there's always another secret.

The only rules Goku obeys are narrative causality; whatever the writers think will make a better story is what will happen, come Braize or highwater. If this were taking place from the context of an episode of DragonBallZ, Goku would win. If this were taking place from the context of a Sanderson novel, neither side would win. Something unpredicted yet foreshadowed and incredibly awesome would happen instead.

...and if Hoid ever was human, or if he still is, physically.

From the epigraphs of Hero of Ages, what I personally believe is this: The "power" of the Shards are their spiritual aspect. The "minds" of the Gods are the cognitive aspects. Without the minds, the power will still act instinctively, but cannot be consciously directed. Leras gave up some of his power to make humanity, meaning his power (the Spiritual aspect) was weaker than Ruin's. However, his mind, the Cognitive aspect, was still the equal to Ati's. Because their nature is anathema, unlike most other Shards, as we saw when Vin attacked Ati they were incapable of surviving touch with each other. So that was Leras's prison. He sacrificed most of his own mind to wrap it around Ati's mind like a cage. The Power of Ruin still exists in the world (the Spiritual Aspect) but unguided by the mind of Ruin, the Cognitive Aspect. This, combined with the atium trick, balanced the unguided powers of Preservation and Ruin, forestalling the end of the world. I personally suspect that Leras did not commit his full mind, leaving the Mist Spirit to try to guide humanity. I think this little bit he kept back was part of why Ruin was still able to influence the world in tiny, subtle ways. If Leras had committed more to the prison, perhaps he'd have held Ati in stronger check. This may or may not have been a good thing; Ati eventually had to be defeated. This is pointed out in a WoB I will try to find. The Millenial Power was meant to be taken once every thousand (or so) years, used to make the world a better place, and incidentally to shore up Ruin's prison. (Edit: See my post below for this WoB) Apparently the act of dispelling the power instead undid the prison, killing the last of Leras's mind, freeing Ruin's. Ruin's mind, now free, still found itself with only power equal to Preservation's, due to the atium trick. He could not destroy the world in one go, but he was able to accelerate it a lot, because the opposing power was fully undirected. Ati was able to find bits of wiggle room, able to discern ways he could push that would cause the unthinking power of Preservation to react in a manner that worked to Ruin's design, in however minor a fashion (the way he encouraged the Mists, Leras's own invention, rather than opposing it, making it something deadly).

He expressly says that he will Bond Dalinar, but not in a way that will allow Dalinar to kill him. Which, it seems, is possible. What this entails or how it was accomplished, that's anyone's guess. Also, we have no way to know that the Stormfather was Bonded to a Bondsmith in the past. Perhaps this is his first Bond, ever.

King of Nowhere... perhaps I'm mistaken, but I believe you are downplaying the force of an Everstorm. By several orders of magnitude. I invite you to re-read any part of either book where a Highstorm is experienced, especially either of the ones Kaladin gets caught out in. Or when Eshonai goes out into one.

Well... technically I don't think any of this has happened YET. But yes, considering that the Shin have had no reasons to build strong structures, and they will be getting the absolute worst of the Everstorm, and all the stuff you mentioned, I came up with the phrase "EverThis post has been reported for attempting to skirt the rulesed" to describe what's about to happen to the Shin. I mean, even in a Highstorm, it's theoretically possible to survive. Surely there are banks, or jails, or maybe a cave formation, root cellar, whatever. I don't see the entire literal population dying apart from a few hundred in one location. I think they will literally be decimated, if 10% of them are still alive it'll be a miracle. With our relatively small sample set, it's difficult to determine, but I gathered that the Everstorm is both more powerful but also slower moving than the Highstorm, yes? (So Fleet could outpace it, no problem.) More destruction, but also that much longer for people in the village to see it coming and get to whatever safe place there might be. Also, the island of Aimia might draw down a bit of the energy of the storm, but the stretch of water between it and Shin will more than replenish that.

The crux of the problem has been brought up and is going to remain a sticking point... Goku wasn't designed to make sense, he was designed to just win everything. Since he doesn't follow any rules and never will, this is like asking who would win in a fight, an apple or the emotion of anxiety.

Sidenote: the Lord Ruler could have Worldhopped, and chose not to. We've only seen Goku fight in the Physical Realm. I think most of these people would, at least, be able to delay Goku. Some of them might die, but if Goku's not familiar with Stormlight or feruchemical gold, a few of the people who can recover from almost anything might be able to "sacrifice" themselves in ways they will recover from. Meantime, as someone pointed out, there is some Aonic equation that will simply circumvent Goku's defenses and kill him in some unpreventable way. All that aside, Hoid surely has some way to enter the Cognitive Realm, if not the Spiritual, and do something to Goku's Spiritual or Cognitive aspect that would kill all three aspects of his being.

A long-extinct worm called Hallucigenia.

I really think that apart from the initial shocking adjustment period, her control was simply that good. Whether anyone would have noticed her or not is irrelevant.

We call it the cadmium blues.

1. We have no way to know that other countries have, in fact, stunted BioChromatic research. For all we know, countries just over the mountains have figured out how to make Lifeless butlers capable of snarky color commentary and flying Awakened carpets. 2. The idea that Returned might be the most instinctive Awakeners is... well, the first compelling argument I've heard since. I still don't think it would explain a complete and utter lack of progress for three centuries, though.

Eh... except that everyone knows a princess just came to T'Telir, and every time she does the trick it's a big deal. EDIT: ...and there are already rumors that another Idrian princess is wandering around T'Telir.

Vasher has specifically said he's been out of Hallandren since the Manywar...

a. Why isn't there? Why in 300 years has absolutely no one thought to start up a new institute? Why has the Court of Gods not started one? As I've pointed out several times, there's no indication that Hallandren would want to stop research and every indication that they would want to actively pursue it. b. Researchers have to reinvent the wheel... but if they were starting from absolute scratch (which they aren't) it only took 100 years to go from "Awakening exists" to Nightblood. Why, in three times as long, has there been not a bit of advancement whatsoever? Even if they had to reinvent the wheel, the first wheel presumably took a decade, and after a century they had the equivalent of aeronautics. I responded to a similar comment above. If you'd like to send me a PM and discuss this tangent personally (or since it now looks like people are interested in it, maybe it warrants its own thread) I'd be happy to. However, for the reasons I give above, I believe addressing this topic would derail the actual topic of the thread; I'm talking about research and innovation, which by its nature is rarely a case of, "I want to use Awakening to fly." It's more, "I will study known facts of BioChroma, discover underlying principles, and see what conclusions naturally arise from them." Trying to guess beforehand what those conclusions might be distracts. Mistborn Basically, in Sanderson novels, what people believe and what we the readers are told by in-universe people isn't always true. Especially when they do not make sense. The four "types", which apparently make sense, are broken into two binary categories. Animated human, or not animated human. Sentient, or non-sentient. However, we already see this isn't the case. First of all, what exactly then is Vivenna? She has a fraction of a Divine Breath that she was born with. Second, per the Annotations (I believe) both Clod and the objects Vasher Awakens aren't as free of self-awareness as we think. It seems these things aren't clear delineations, but a sliding scale. The discovery that things aren't as cut-and-dried as people assume might, for example, be an excellent advancement someone could have made in the past 300 years. I question this premise. What proof do we have that the discovery of each new entity is what kicked off anything? Almost nothing is really known about the Returned, and no one even knows entities like Nightblood exist, so that's half the entities already. Your assumption seems to be that now that people know you can make a scarf bring you a cup of water, there's nothing more to learn about Type III entities. First, I disagree with that premise. Second, in a hundred years mankind was able to figure out Nightblood. Why has no one in 300 years replicated this feat? I know people like to talk about how Einstein was a genius, and I've responded many times with the two counter-arguments. First, how in 300 years have we not had another genius, and two, that's hollywood science. Sure, we love to make heroes and say that this one guy's theorem revolutionizes all of science, but it's not the case that nothing ever progresses until we have a hero show up and slay a dragon. Most science, most advancements, most innovations in real life come about from the patient and careful work of very very boring, maybe not even all that smart people in labs working on problems. It might not be as spectacular but in three hundred years those people should have made it so that present-day Awakening compared to BioChroma of 300 years ago should look like a stealth bomber put next to a catapult. Instead they are identical. The toothbrush... THE TOOTHBRUSH... is a marvel of revolutionary innovation compared to a mere hundred years ago. While I'm tempted to ignore this question for the same reason given above, I am going to point out that a lot of BioChroma has nothing to do with Breath. You even mention the objects yourself. Presumably, there's some benefit to using Ichor-Alcohol that outweighs the fact that it's no longer quite as human-like as blood. What about the colors? Does one dye work better than another? What if you drain a hankerchief gray through Awakening, then dye it. Does it work better, or worse? Is there an advantage or disadvantage to Awakening an object drained of color? Lastly, I'm going to point out that apparently Yesteel not only has invented a better form of ichor-alcohol, but he also, per the annotations, apparently figured out how to make another Type IV entity. Vasher has figured out how to alter your own memories in a process that causes your Breath to flicker. There clearly is a lot more to discover. How completely implausible is it to believe that in 100 years, five different geniuses happened to pop up with the unique ability to actually innovate which apparently on Nalthis normal people simply cannot do, yet in a further three hundred years, not one single other genius has also been born? In a society which we not only never see try to squash advancement in any way, but has shown themselves to constantly desire to have superiority via BioChroma? Finally, I'm starting to resent the fact that most people are straw-manning my arguments. Almost everyone has said, "It's not weird that there have been no major advancements," implying that I'm confused as to why there are no major advancements. There has been no progress. None, whatsoever. Not major, not minor. Not anything. That's my point. If anyone would like to point out an advancement, even a tiny little minor subtle one, that's been made in 300 years, I am all ears. Until then, please stop characterizing my argument as, "Why has no one come up with an entire new type of BioChromatic entity?".

We know that the Divine Breath can be used to Awaken. What would a Lifeless, animated by a single Divine Breath, be like?

Somewhat tangential... Vasher comments that what we think of as "awakened objects" are type III entities, and Lifeless are type II. Does this mean Lifeless were invented first?