Oltux72

Well, that makes the implicit assumption that scientific concepts have to be developed in the same order. This is unlikely to be true. For example I am pretty sure that Roshar will have interplanetary travel before they understand plate tectonics. Some discoveries are largely driven by accident. For example the discovery of superconductivity.

So he could not attack Urithiru because of a promise to harm nobody, but he could kill the Spren of all Knights Radiant? This is very hard to bring into agreement.

Then Navani would not have had to errect the barrier protecting Urithiru. Now, we may assume that she did so by mistake, but still why could Retribution attempt to annihilate all Spren and kill the Stormfather without Honor balking at that?

Then why did he not annihilate all of Urithiru?

What makes you think that Adonalsium was benevolent? Isn't that an assumption that is just drawn from the obvious issues that arise from the Shattering? What would allow the conclusion that the Shattering was unjustified? This looks suspiciously like wishful thinking to me. Not necessarily. If you destroy a competitor you usually look at the material left behind very closely because You may want to copy what they had The creator of the competitor may have had a very good reason to create the competitor

Is that because she thinks technology is good or because technology grants power in form of advanced weapons? Autonomy has to face a contradiction. How do you enforce rules and still maintain atonomy? Likewise, the strategic situation now calls for alliances among the Shards. Autonomy has an obvious problem with that. Her solution of creating avatars is actually quite clever.

Everything. Respectively for whatever Adonalsum wanted mankind in the Cosmere. Population replacement.

Yes. They obviously are. And that is kind of the point. They are too dissimilar to mankind to replace it. A Singer? Not so clear. Yes, but you need plausibility for a conspiracy. Lets say somebody suggested preparations for a coup in the USA in 1990. Laughable. Today? Still unlikely. Totally laughable? Hence if you really were to organize such an undertaking, today it would be easier, whatever be your personal agenda.

Let me present the likely facts: Roshar is artificial and looks like an experiment of Adonalsium. In particular he (for short I will use he) created a humanoid race even reproductively compatible with humans. That must have been intentional. But why did he create another humanoid species? One may assume that he wanted to add another species to his domain. But what if it was not an addition but a replacement in the works? Do you think it likely that the conspiracy against Adonalsium was started by people who did not want to be obsoleted and replaced?

You probably can have freedom. But that is not the only part of enlightenment. Arguably not even the central part. Enlightenment rests on rationalism equality Or to be historical, rationalism enabled people to recognise that the divine right of kings and aristocrats is based on a phantasy. In the Cosmere rationalism is undermined by the existence of the Shards. You can hardly argue that the world should be ruled by reason alone if a deity of passion unambiguously exists. Nor can you argue that ordinary people and immortal creatures that literally can hear your prayers are equal. It is obviously false. Hence the intellectual underpinning of enlightenment cannot exist.

We now have confirmation that Wind and Truth predates Era 2 of Mistborn. This means that Autonomy attacked Scadrial knowing that Roshar had fallen to Retribution. Can we conclude that Autonomy and Retribution have allied? Or did she just continue older plans? If so, does that mean that she does not care about the balance of power?

To an extent. I do believe that the end game of the Cosmere will be a battle between the "splitters" and the "reuniters", for lack of a better wording. However, does this solve the whole issue? I am afraid it does not. The arcane arts add a number of ugly implications powers can be hereditary. Aristocracy has a basis in undeniable facts. You can breed superior humans. wealth is far better than in a world without magic. You can literally buy immortality and it is a zero sum game. you can make magical slaves. Look at Nightblood. In addition you have multiple species. Are they really going to say that a human vote and a dragon vote should be equal? How about the aetherbound? Or Elantrians, for that matter?

But the government of Scadrial is in part the aristocracy. He could buy some noble houses.

Now, are we looking at this from a human perspective or a political one? If Dalinar were to tell Adolin that he was disappointed in him from a human perspective he would need to say that avenging all the soldiers that died due to Sadeas' betrayal was wrong. That is impossible to Dalinar. Adolin killed somebody who betrayed them to the people who killed his brother. Saying that killing Sadeas was wrong from a human perspective is something that no Alethi man could say. He could say that this is not like a high prince acts. But that would be a very rough card to play for Dalinar was letting Sadeas get away with treason. Hence it seems to me that Dalinar was considering this affair strictly politically and professionally. My apologies. I should have been clearer. The point is that Kaladin's reasoning is in the end quite simplistic. They owe it to Dalinar. Kaladin gives no reason why Dalinar is more important than Moash's grandparents. Again my apologies for the assumption. I am afraid I have to disagree. The Stormlight Archive is a story about war. Now, I absolutely admit that the first two book create a different impression, but still it seems to me that the SA is the first part of the story about the great war between the Shards. I think you are raising an important point. The SA is a part of a stoty arc about a war, but it is not a military story. Many of the actors are not military people. From one angle it is about politicians during a war. From another, frightening angle, it is about people who have no idea about war or strategy fighting an interstellar war with weapons of mass destruction while suffereing from the magical equivalent of brain damage. If we wish to equate holding a shard with some form of mental impairment. This opens a very big can of worms. Can you have enlightenment in the Cosmere? I would tentatively say: no. Secularism won't work. The Shards obviously exist and they do not leave the interpretation of their will to people. Mages and muggles are not equal. You do not really have the justification of democracy if some people are immortal magicians and the others are muggles.

The Ghostbloods can (Nalthis) promise you hemalurgic spikes travel to other worlds And if they really want you dead, you will end up dead. Hence my question: Is the politics in most of the Elendel Basin a charade and are the Ghostbloods the true government?

It seems to me that at least northern Scadrial still sees allomantic powers as a gift from their god. That means that regulating their use is a very dicey issue, so the answer is likely that the won't do that. Registring the mages also means registring the muggles. Even if the powers are evenly distributed through the populace, I am sure that the nobles are not eager to admit that and more specifically that they themselves are muggles. So I think the answer to that question will also be negative.

I hesitate to answer this, as I am not familiar with Hamlet. That said I have a hard time imagining that an author writing in the 17th century had any issues with avenging a relative.

He turns only Wit into red mist. He does not reduce Urithiru to hot plasma. That strongly suggests that his power is limited to Wit and arose only after the encounter he restrained himself to messing with Wit's Breaths in. Hence it looks like Wit by giving himself a role in the agreement removed the protection normal people have from himself. Renouncing his oaths Dalinar in turn removed the protection the contract gave Wit.

I see Dan Wells at being better than Brandon Sanderson in writing grimdark and horror. The obvious association would be Threnody or the desolations on Roshar. Or maybe even the rise of The Lord Ruler. But will he do something obvious? On the podcast they seemed to discuss an as yet unknown world for Dan to write in. But will it stay there? What do you think?

Brandon once described them as closed. Also Alethi does not seem to have a reduction to schwa. Frankly there is also no indication that Alethi has /æ/ either. So I'd propose /sa'deas/ and /xo'lin/

That leads us back to the logic of war, which Dalinar, as a general officer, has internalized to the point that he does not have to think about it. As such there is one thing that he instinctively knows: Compromise is bad and you always do the most extreme thing you can get away with. That is a statement that may be revolting to you and most likely illogical. Hence I need to explain it. Allow me to approach it from an extremely abstract angle. A competent officer will propose a solution that allows for resources used in an undertaking to have more than linear effect. That is not the case that you do the better the more resources you use, but you do even better. That is why, for example, you always attack with as overwhelming a nummerical superiority as you can achieve. That has consequences. It means that - among competent officers - there is a good chance that even the third best option fully committed to will perform better than a compromise between the best and the second best option. Why do we value compromise in civillian life? Because most problems are not that important. It is more important to preserve unity and avoid collateral damage than solve a problem. Hence to Dalinar there were exactly two options: Either do absolutely nothing or kill Adolin. You do not weaken your relationship with one of your officers and a high prince at any cost, if you can avoid it. Now I am not saying that you have to like this logic. But I am saying that this is the way a good general, especially one not trained with any democratic or liberal ideas in his background, will look at things. It was handled well. Brandon Sanderson may not have the capability to write grimdark stories, but he does understand military logic and war. Well, that is kind of the point. Do you think Kaladin could be an effective leader of an army if he takes weeks to make a decision? No, the difference you deplore is the result of handling the subject in the way different people would approach the topic. I am afraid I have to restate my suspicion that your issue is that at the core you don't like stories about wars. No, we are shown that not everything can be seen as a moral question. Respectively that there is no universal morals. Allow me an excurse. It seems to me that the Stormlight Archive holds the stance that actions can have objective ethical content (the Shards evaluate their Intent), but are not universal. That is we see that Jasnah had no other sensible options but we still can condemn her actions. That is really the same issue that Queen Fen faced, abstractly speaking. What? Raboniel? Navani thinking about the issues with collaboration? The Mink? A whole discussion about the philosophy of government? I am sorry, but I just cannot factually agree.

How would the Thaylens have reacted to that? And, if I may broaden the question, did Queen Fen do the right thing?

The ships still run and they depend on the oceans being filled with beads.

I am trying. I must confess that I am better at reacting to actualwords than the intent behind them. I am sorry, but they do come up earlier. For example Adolin murdering Torol Sadeas but Dalinar Kholin sweeping it under a rug. He has to do it to maintain unity among the Alethi. Or indeed when Dalinar burns his wife and a city. People are horrified thereby, but nobody comes right out and says that he did wrong. A case can be made under Alethi mores that he did what was within his rights. In hindsight I think this was a case of Sanderson telling us that pure honor can be horrible. Again he is right to do so. The books would be much worse if Taravangian and Jasnah had no points supporting their attitude. Hence those who oppose them must be shown to do what is necessary, morals be damned, on occasion and Jasnah must be shown to succeed with her methods from time to time. Nor are simple answers limited to the last two books. In fact that is the very type of answer Kaladin gives Moash on why not to kill Elhokar. The key difference, I think, is that before a war such answer can be seen as lapses of people who should know better or outright villainy. Now, I suspect I may still be answering a point you think you haven't made. In that case, please state your point with extreme expliciteness. Yet, in the eyes of many what Fen did then was treason. Again Sanderson refuses a clear answer or at least presents both sides fairly. Now, at the risk of repeating myself, defeat and hopelessness are not identical. In fact you can demonstrate hope by snatching at least a small success out from the jaws of defeat. That does not mean that defeat has to be averted in the last second. Now, in Mistborn the tone and the content are radically at odds. Yes, it is a story of hope in tone. In content it is a story of a deity conducting a genocide. And here I must question why Jasnah getting away with a few political killings is worse than Kelsier inadvertedly killing tens of millions. He has Dan now. At least I hope he can fill that gap. Yes. There is a reason most people's favorite book of the Stormlight Archive is among the first three. I suppose for the future of the Cosmere as a whole this ending has been necessary. We will see. But they won't. He was just more coy about showing it. Mistborn still ended with horrendous numbers of casualties. > 95% of the people died. We just don't see it. Secret History is Mistborn's equivalent of the last two books of the Stormlight Archive. Kelsier killed most of Scadrial's people. He certainly did not mean to. He almost doomed his world out of ignorance. Yet he did not despair. He diagnosed his own failure and resolved to not let it repeat. Arguably that makes him even more of a hero. And he has understood that this cannot be had while being nice. Or honest. No. He is the same man who has to be prevented from a certain senseless death by fighting a whole army by himself and who was ready to send Vin away with a boxload of money. And he stays the man who makes clear that Marasi is not to be harmed. The core of Kelsier is preserved. He may be in for his ego, but not his personal wealth or power. Kelsier will kill gods to not be defeated, not for money. That is an important difference.

Suppose you have a sender A and a responder B, as well as a listener C. B is closer to C than A is to C. If A sends a message to B via FTL, then C will see B reply before C will see A sending the message. The issue with FTL is not between is not in transmission speed. It is in the sequence of events. If you have FTL, you will have frames of reference in which causality is violated.