Oltux72

Yes. Now. Always? When? Since settlement or since the calmity that forced the exodus to Roshar and the rest into the floating cities? Bacteria and viruses are physical entities. Aviars, aethers and Taldainian sand can be brought offworld, even to another solar system. The sand is confirmed to still work. Breaths can be brought offworld and keep working. Shades can be taken offworld. And the bacteria would be moved within a solar system whose planets all are under the influence of the same Shards. Indeed. Yet Ashyn's current magic does not involve oaths. So why did the people coming from Ashyn give up their magic unanimously?

Indeed. Yes. I am afraid ethics is necessary to bring up, as the oaths are partially ethical (most for the Skybreakers). It seems to me that up to now Kaladin convinced himself that the other side was the enemy because they deserved to die. And not that they deserved to die because they were the enemy. And I think the direction of causation is important here. Note that I am not saying that he was right. In fact he discovered that he was wrong. Just that he used to think so. Right. And the oaths of the Windrunners are designed to remove obstacles, in increasing order of difficulty (to a spren close to Honor) 2nd - cowardice 3rd - personal relationship to the mission We know that the 4th ideal (by implication also the 5th) are about whom not to protect. Hence we need to think about what could stop a warrior. And here I think we disagree. Or rather you are right, but I think you have found what the 5th oath is about. The thing is, why would he love the Queen's Guard, for example? He had never ever seen them and they served a queen who opprosed and killed people like him and his family. He talked about deserving death. Not about loving everybody. Because he didn't. He loved some of the people fighting each other. That left him in a conundrum. And it made him think. But that is the trigger and only the trigger. It destroyed an illusion. After that he saw a truth he could not handle and it made him stop fighting. And when he saw the truth his qualms were ethical. Let me give an example: A group of rangers is hiding observing the enemy. A couple of young lovers in search of a secluded place stumbles upon them. Do you slit their throats to silence them? What would stop you is not love. You have never seen them before. It would be pity and on a higher level ethics. They do not deserve to die. You love your comrades. Following love would mean killing them. As opposed to another example: You are commanding a retreat and pass a narrow gap in a valley. You order a small section of your men to hold that place for as long as possible so that the rest can get away. I would say that Kaladin faced the former example, not the latter. And they are distinct situations. No I think I get you, and I am sorry for being unclear.

But why would they give that up? That part is hard to explain. Some people giving up powers can be explained, but not all. The recreance was not complete. And in that case we are talking about a far smaller number already selected to care about oaths. There must be something about Ashyn we don't know. It seems like they originally bonded with something else and found a replacement that could be used in the new floating cities. Something that could not just be taken to Roshar. Trees?

I do not disagree with anything of this. I disagree with this. The Skybreakers know that no empirical standard (well no codified law at least) is inherently superior. They just don't care. They pick one. Nale is very clear on this. The Windrunners are not about ethics. They are about honor. Which includes doing what is wrong, if you promised it, even if you know it is wrong. Exactly. And it rendered him ineffective. But that is what the fourth ideal deals with. I absolutely agree about Ender. Good example. But a Windrunner of higher rank is essentially a military officer. He doesn't set goals. He executes them. That is more than a semantic difference. Because the Windrunners are in the end a military force. A military force is supposed to follow legal orders. Partially. The basic idea behind the fourth ideal is shared among all Windrunners. We can discuss why Kaladin has a problem with it. That far we are talking about Kaladin. We are also talking about what the fourth ideal is. In that regard we are no longer talking about Kaladin. As I said the Windrunners are a military force. They were on Honor's side. Military forces are not law enforcement. Their actions are not to be justified by ethics. They fight for their side because it is their side, whether it is right or not. Hence this is what I think the fourth ideal is about: Doing your duties even if ethics demand the opposite.

I am not sure. We obviously differ in the proposed conclusion. I am unsure about whether we diagnose the problem in the same way. Maybe we see the facts as the same, but the causation differently. At the first attempt against his live or during the battle Elhokar perished? Yes they were fighting each other. He could not stop that fight. He could at most pick a side. Yet his inability to safe everybody is not new. It started with Tien. The reason may be new. But I am not sure about that. He did not love Elhokar when he defended him against Moash. It was the right thing to do for a Windrunner. He already fought people he loved: Moash So I cannot see this as a new development which caused him to freeze. Granted you may say that the scale was new or that the problem finally caught up with him. I don't think so. I think that the critical difference was that when he protected Elhokar against Moash, Moash asked him to act in a manner inappropriate for a Windrunner. That motivation was missing in the battle at the palace. How so? It seemed to me that his stay with the Parshendi caused him to lose the ability to put people in "us vs. them" categories. But he already knows that. He is a trained medic. He knows triage. He does not like it, but he knows it. And he has lost people in battle before. It should be. However: "Kaladin's will to fight evaporated. He'd been stoked with energy, ready to enter the battle and protect his men. But ..." ... "In that moment, Kaladin lost something precious. He'd always been able to trick himself into seeing a battle as us against them." ... "... but they didn't deserve death." And that is the point. This is not about accepting losses and failure. This is about a failure to know whom to protect (or fight). Kaladin saw battles as ethically justified. He was wrong. Obviously people who just fight to escape slavery don't do wrong. If you go by pure ethics Kaladin should switch sides and defend the Parshendi. This is not about letting die. This is about duty demanding actively killing the innocent. People who just fight to save their children from slavery. Us vs. them. To accept that you are still bound by honor to fight for your side even thouigh you are the monsters. In fact it felt a little bit like Sanderson chanelling the Mahabharata about doing your duty even if that means killing your relatives.

They had Surges (and "Voids"?) on Ashyn. They ruined that world with them. So why did they lose them? That is the missing piece. A magic based on disease seems quite portable. So they had something else that those who stayed at home eventually replaced. What was that? And was it the reason the proto-Heralds made the deal? That they regained lost surges?

Do that and all other High Princes have to unite against the crown. It would be a Kholin power grab to abrogate the deal uniting the Alethi.

OK, looking at Szeth or the Skybreakers as such, a question opens up. What would Szeth do if Dalinar dies? A dead Dalinar obviously cannot agree to anything. Is his quest to clean up Shinovar dead on arrival? Can he ever fulfill his goals? Can he proceed? What if Shinovar were to slide into the sea? And what would all the Skybreakers sworn to Nale do, if Nale met that evil dagger or Nightblood?

But his job is not to help. He is a Windrunner. He is supposed to protect. Not avenge or judge, that is a thing for Skybreakers. Nor to help, that is a thing for Edgedancers. Nor is he supposed to help only those he loves. Though it is the obvious trigger for him to notice the contradictions in his oaths. Indeed, what if people fight each other. Indeed. And he needs to regain the us vs. them mentality. Well, no. This really does not help him or us. Whom does he need to protect against whom? Yes, he loved both sides, sort of. But if you take his oaths literally, that should not matter. In fact the 3rd oath is about exactly that. That mixes triggers and reasons in a manner that leads to an error. The Windrunners are close to Honor, who is about promises and duty. Hence this is not about callousness or choosing the lesser evil. The 4th ideal is going to be a version of "right or wrong - my country" Premature. There has to be something left for the 5th ideal.

At most partially. The Kandra do not sexually reproduce to make new Kandra.

You are right. There is no point in talking to you.

Only if they are fools. They will have a team working on gathering information on all Radiants. They know the story about Moash grandparents. They will look into the affair and wonder why Kaladin agreed to murder Elhokhar. They know who had the silversmiths killed. The have the capitol, they have had the queen. Sure. They have a group of Parshendi cooperating with a human. They punish them. Of course they know where they met Kaladin. Not exact, but they have maps. They will look at them and see, among other things, which route a man travelling from Roshone's place to the capitol would take. Even worse. So people there will talk about meeting a Radiant. He has laid a trail pointing home. You send people into the bars traders frequent and tell them to listen. Shallan told you and demonstrated how to do that. They just ask who could save them? Maybe the new Radiants? Bang. It will take a few weeks for news to travel by caravan. So Kaladin has time. But act he must.

The Fused are not stupid. That is ample clue.

These are Alethi. They have legends about Darkeyes winning Shard Blades. And now you have one who even became a Radiant. Of course they will talk about the local hero. Moash knows that Kaladin is a Radiant. That he was trained as a surgeon. That he was in conflict with Roshone. Any decent agency knows where Roshone rules. Kaladin's parents are practically dead if they stay there.

They have Moash. They know which troop of Parshendi he joined. Hence they know where he came from approximately. And Kaladin displayed a shard blade. Rumors do travel. He told the people in his village that he is a Radiant. They will talk to people in neighboring villages. The Parshendi will hire agents. Spy agencies predate computers by several millenia.

The majority of invested people for now is Allomancers. Population size and relative rarity of abilities makes sure of that. For now. In a few decades the normal case will be medaillions. It is certainly a valid way to look at it. Very well, so in high level overview we have: genetics: Scadrial bonds: Roshar, First of the Sun, (Ashyn) everybody: (Nalthis), Sel, Threnody, [hemalurgy], (Ashyn) chance: Elantris rare natural resources: (Nalthis) Missing: contagion (Ashyn) rare natural resources (Nalthis) magic There are corner cases. Ashyn would technically be bonds, but there is no concrete entity to bond. The practical consequences are enormous. You cannot have more Knights Radiant than there are spren. This limit does not exist for disease. The only method that has not been seen is the magic ability to turn others capable of magic. Infection may sort of be the same in terms of consequences, but the mechanism is not the same.

Hemalurgy as a major or sole method of initiation would not work. Spikes would get weaker or even be destroyed or lost. At least not independently. TLR could keep making steel inquisitor. But that was because he made them out of allomancers and feruchemists who reproduced sexually. If you consider it from a highly abstract level hemalurgy and lerasium actually work under the same constraints. You need an external resource which you need to tap in once per mage. Technically that is the same way as Heightenings work.

Two issues It conflates how to hit the "on" switch and what determines whether you have an "on"-switch It talks about the common case That is fine for an encyclopedia. But Krisella has a scientific approach. For example how many ways are known to get an allomantic ability Get the right parents and snap Swallow and burn a bead of Lerasium hemalurgy don a medaillon have been present and be lucky when Preservation used the mists [and if you go for the ability to cause an allomantic act rather than perform it yourself] use a charged starter cube So what was she referring to when she wrote about a new method?

A very limited form of telekinesis with a pretty light show is a bit thin for a world with a Shard in residence, isn't it? And if there is anything on the Dark Side it has to be rare, or else Khrisella would not be so confident that magic does not exist. Taildaine seems a bit underwhelming, well undermagiced even with slatrification..

I think Odium tested Amaram. I suppose the answer to the question would be whoever can bond Yelig-Nar without turning into a pretty rock. That in turn means that mankind's champion better have at least similar powers or can fight under unique circumstances: Lift or whoever bonds Sja-Anat.

Actually, isn't slatrification effectively what can be seen in other systems? The interesting things is rather that other conversions are not possible. Like sand to sand stone. However, it is possible that they are possible, but they haven't yet figured out how to do it or forgotten it.

IIRC the language of Elantris could be shown to be related to neighboring languages with the words fror the Aons forming an unrelated subsection of the language. If you just speak the Aons, there will be no effect. And you would have to have rules for how and in which order to pronounce modifiers. Given that the Aons form a subsection of loan words in Elantrian, it looks to me as if they were in fact words of a Yolish language, which Dominion and Devotion spoke.

So I am going to make a list of how you become magical in the Cosmere: Bonds - Knights Radiant, Aviars, Ashyn, Singers Descent - Allomancy, Feruchemy, (Sandmastery ?), Royal Locks Chance - Elantrians [partially] Divine choice - Returned, Heralds, (Unmade ?), Nightwatcher, Kandra, the Mists Magic items - medallions of Southern Scadrial, hemalurgy, honorblades, shard plate Magic substances or technology - Lerasium Knowledge - Forgery, Some other Selish systems Human sacrifice - Dakhor Cooperation - Biochroma Death - Threnody Geography: Sel, Nalthis The list is longer than I thought, but it includes some of the odd examples. It can be broken down into broader categories Links to entities or machines inheritance religion knowledge universal magic (of a place) chance death Is something missing? Yes, some of the classics. Mages are made by magic - basically the way vampires make vampires special circumstances - dive into a shard pool during a solar eclipse wearing a silver head band, that kind of stuff the fuel creates the mage So which will Vax explore? I think number 3.

Sixth of the Dusk Harmony's ear rings Spren reacting to emotions EDIT: The Stormfather !!! [the best known example of all of them - Dalinar's visions] Unclear. Sel has magical poisons. A love potion is close. Kandra Sheod Picking up a Shard The Surge of Divison (Dustbringers, Skybreakers, Fused, Yelig-Nar) Emotional allomancy on hemalurgical constructs Fused (Parshendi - not individual Horcruxes though), Heralds (in a sense)

Consider how mice, squirrels and other small animals outnumber people in a forest. Hence animal Shades don't last long.