ScadrianTank

I don't know if it directly applies to the discussion of freedoms on a national level, but Roshar specifically would benefit from a strong presence of Honor/Cultivation oriented philosophies and religions simply because they increase the pool of potential Radiants. On a larger scale, the dominance or at least a stable presence of Vorinism would most likely encourage the presence of Windrunners, Skybreakers, and maybe Stonewards.

Assuming that God is a real presence in the cosmere, distinct from Adonalsium, we should also assume that God operates separately from Adonalsium and the Shards. Then it's up to him( or them?) to give away souls to entities that need one. Practically speaking, it seems easier to assume that if God Beyond is God - then Adonalsium is either his spren or a spren of the cosmere Big Bang. Then, they would act with the same Intent as God while still being God's lesser. This way, God Beyond remains true a religious God while staying within all the known cosmere rules.

Personally, I dislike and disagree with the idea that any program good enough running on fast enough hardware is functionally indistinguishable from a person. Humans are fundamentally irrational due to the biology and chemistry involved, while AIs are fundamentally rational because the mathematics that make up the software are. It's one of my gripes with the Skyward series. But spren are not like that, in fact, where their divine attributes are concerned, they are even more "human" than actual humans are. A good place to start would be to compare Cryptics to a standard fictional AI. Cryptics are a personification of mathematics and fields associated. They perceive the world through that lens, and it affects the way they understand things. Pattern repeatedly shows that he is more comfortable with things and concepts that are fully material and are not abstract - locks, roads, maps, etc. He struggles with products of humanity and society that don't follow consistent patterns and logic - humor, social norms, etiquette, and so on. While this is my personal read, which is greatly affected by the fact that I had a course on the topic in uni, it seems that he excels in things that can be clearly described with either a straightforward set of equations or a good mathematical model. Social norms and humor he has to learn by collecting data and using it to react accordingly, but never fully understanding the meaning behind them. So far - very similar to something like a machine from the Matrix. Where they differ is in the fact that they have emotions, feelings, and fears. And those make bring them a lot closer to us because emotions and feelings are fundamentally irrational, or they would be to any big computer regardless of how complicated and detailed its software is.

I feel like I'm saying that they have bad working conditions and you're saying that they can just quit. I'm not saying that Radiants can't break their Oaths if they feel like they have to. I am saying that Radiants, by the nature of the bond and restriction of their Oaths, don't have the same freedom as a regular person. And since they have to follow those Oaths all the time, not just when working, they get warped by those restrictions. In Dalinar's conversation with Taravangian in RoW, he says that a person can't be moral and break a promise. While this is his personal philosophy - that I don't have anything against - it's a choice he can't make as a Radiant Because, unlike humans, spren of Honor and Cultivation are practically incapable of going against their nature. Considering that Radiants were created to fight the Desolations, I don't see it as that separate.

Like a person retains their freedom to choose when being rioted or soothed. That I find it funny that people who died because of those inflexible moral codes would probably do it again if they had to - because they are literally a personification of the virtues that cost them their lives. And refusing those powers would cost them their lives. For example, Kaladin would die in Sadeas' camp as a Bridgeman. Makes me wonder how Moash would change as a character if he bonded an Honrspren in WOK, even if he made the same choices.

It's also the restriction on personal freedom to choose. First of all, "now that the radiants are well known again". None of our main characters knew, Shallan in particular, but I guess they're all special cases, and it's not fair to use them as examples. Second, that's kind of true, but not really. It might be the case for those who joined through one of the "Urithiru branches" if they openly share the Oaths you'll have to swear. But if some Honor spren decided to bond a human after Adolin's trial, found their candidate from a village in the middle of nowhere - they wouldn't be as informed. The spren are able - they just don't. Not one of the spren we've seen in the books so far explained to the budding Radiant what the bond entails and requires. It would be a better argument if our Radiants entered that relationship consciously, by Intent, and in a situation where refusal wouldn't mean almost certain death. But honestly, the Oaths don't bother me as much as Honor allowing this to happen at all. The bond encourages you to grow, but only in a certain way, like one of those cube watermelons. Makes me want to join team Odium even more. I find it funny that none of the deadeyes who died in the Recreance would disagree with that statement. Having the freedom to chose to break a promise is better than not having it.

I've been stuck with these thoughts for a few weeks now but had no idea how to put them properly into words, so I'll just throw it out there. The main concern here is that a person with a crack in a soul being hitched to a literal personification of a (portion of) platonic quality/concept isn't really moral. While the whole idea of a Journey and self-improvement is entirely positive in a vacuum, Honor and Ishar created ten groups of people, who as a consequence of that bond will have to adopt a more extreme view of the world in all matters related to their Order, Oaths, and Spern. Who would have thought that they wouldn't get along with each other very well? What's even better is that the concept a spren represents isn't just a platonic absolute - it's filtered by societies' global view of that concept. So the interpretation of a Radiant Journey as a person getting closer to God by exhibiting divine virtues gets thrown out of the window because Radiant has to follow a simplified mortal interpretation of said virtue. The bond straight up forbids certain actions and declares them as unacceptable under any circumstance. Have to lie? Nope, can't do that - it's not honorable™. Break a promise? No, can't do that either. (Yes, I remember what Shallan said in part one of RoW, but all this tells us is that some Orders are better than others. That's assuming other Orders don't have their own caveats.) Can we truly say that forbidding a person to ever make a certain kind of choice based on anything is right? That whole train of thought sort of recontextualized a line from Frost's letter in WoR. I suppose that BIG HONOR™ and BIG GROWTH™ aren't that much better than BIG HATE™.

That's a matter of perspective because I can just as well describe Wax as JC Denton from the original Deus Ex. He's fighting thugs and secret societies conspiring to get power and control over society. Because the Set is closer to magical Illuminati (as presented in popular culture) than a revolutionary organization.

Invested embalming by soulcasting air to flesh with actual corpses as models. I wish I hadn't thought of that.

Not a physics person, but isn't energy more of a property of a thing than an actual thing? If you want to call opposite intent - anti-intent, then sure. I don't think it works that way. A Shard is a piece of a being or force that created everything, so far as people in the cosmere know. Basically, a lower case g-d with a case for capital g, depending on your religious and spiritual views. So Shards Intent encompasses a lot more than what is traditionally associated with them. Honor, for example, also represents the natural laws of the cosmere, so if his anti-Investiture just inverted all the Shard represented - reality itself would unravel around it.

So messed up that it might as well be encrypted with RSA. I approve.

Makes me wonder about Taravodium going forward. The Singers would like to have their land back, but I don't think Mr.T would empathize with the people he considered the enemy just yesterday. He won't feel obligated to the Singers at large or even the Fused, but he would still consider himself the savior of humanity. While any result Dalinar thought of while setting up the terms of the contest would be beneficial to Roshar as a whole, Taravangian's selfishness might result in his brilliant plan to go free to cause another catastrophe on Roshar.

Wasn't ice merchanting a thing until the early 1900s? I was under the impression that early refrigerators still used ice for cooling. And it's not like everyone can afford electricity - a lot of people would still use old tech because it's cheaper and familiar.

Why you shouldn't try to Soulcast missiles.

I agree with what you said here, but those quotes don't really confirm it. The fused got the first ideas for anti-Light from Shards telling about antimatter. From RoW Chapter 65:

A big problem here is that the CEO changed from a man with eons of experience to a new guy. When Navani and Raboniel discovered anti-Light, Rayse didn't do much - but Taravangian did. Taravangian might not have gotten the knowledge Rayse had access to at that point.

I always assumed that the reason Shards don't give away technology was to prevent people from killing their planets Ashyn-style and becoming disinterested in research and science, like Sazed inadvertently did to the people of the Basin. In Odium's case specifically, he already pushed humans to experiment with magic they already had - and they nuked their planet. Not the best approach to raising an army for galactic conquest, especially when your forces are mentally fragile.

I assume you mean that the news of mortals having anti-Light is what surprised Odium, not the anti-Light itself. It would be weird if a Shard didn't know something about the fundamentals of the cosmere and Investiture.

Is it an actual object, or is it some sort of unreachable backdrop thing? Is it a star or some natural Invested lightbulb that provides illumination? Could you go to it on a plane or a rocket?

Ash and smoke are exactly what you get in an early industrial revolution - there's just not enough people in the Basin for it to really show. Not really Neuromancery, yes, but I doubt that a bunch of regular old humans could pollute so badly that the sky will change color.

RoW Chapter Two:

Elendel factories are doing that already. Shadows of Self Chapter 3:

Most likely, I think. Maybe a conjoiner made out of musicspren or something like that. There is a chance that Roshar might be stuck with Spanreeds for some time, but fabrials should allow for some form of voice communication.

I always assumed that she was talking to her spren. Modern fabrials are a new thing, so I doubt it's anything technological.

It seems that it's one of those religious themes Brandon wants to explore. Like the Bible being a retelling of real events that got changed and mistified more and more with each retelling/revision.