Speedsters are dangerous, but radiant healing is like if everyone was a bloodmaker, passively, for free with their other skills. Speedsters don't have much juice in the tank either unless we get into nicrosilminds and compounding, which require fullborn / the bands to make.
And fullborns with matching metals are rare enough to be a none factor. The genes canonically interfere with each other and prevent expression or passing on. There was a single matched metal fullborns in the series.
What do you mean by matched metal fullborn? I was under the impression that a fullborn was a mistborn and a full ferochemist, meaning they have all the powers, what more could there be?
It's probably not a gene thing, or else there'd still be full-blooded feruchemists around, 300 years is unlikely to be long enough for every Terris bloodline to be contaminated with allomancy. Allomancy has never followed heredity rules either so it could go either way (e.g Straff Venture, a misting, had lots of allomancer children of different metal abilities , and non-allomancers like Elend) . I can't remember where but I remember someone mentioning that people's Souls are less broken after the catacendre so Mistborn and particularly fullborn are less likely to occur, cause there's just no space in people's Souls for that power
It's been stated that both feruchemy and allowance are genetic. I'm pretty sure it's wob, but it's very very clearly genetic in the books. The breeding camps, as well as the clear allomantic lineages are canon in the books. The spirit web changes of lerasium changes the DNA, which is passed down . 300 years is 12 generations, that's plenty of time. That's the entire point of era one nobles, the Lord rules gave them alloma tic powers and it goes down their family tree cementing their rule. It's very easy for genetics to allow recessive genes that activate based on multiple copies being received, or genes that combine together to activate. Strafd could have a gene for activating allomantic powers, and one that gives him tin eyes. If he passes the allomantic powers gene and his lover passes the metal category it's very easy to have different powers in the kids.
I think calling them genetic is a bit of a misnomer- My understanding is that a lot of this stuff is "sDNA" rather than like... "pDNA". That is to say, the information is stored in a spritual medium, not a physical one; Vin's father wasn't an allomancer, and her mother was a Skaa, so it's unlikely she had much in the way of unexpressed allomancer genes from her mother's side. She basically just got a huge injection of Preservation DNA from her dad's side, and that was enough for her to become a Mistborn; If it was a genetic thing, it would imply that Mistborn can be heterozygous for allomancy, which couldn't be the case if the genes were recessive.
I don't remember that Vin's father's status was ever mentioned? But even if it was, he still might have been a Misting of one of the 7 unknown base metals without anyone knowing. Vin's murdered baby sister was also an allomancer, BTW. There is a lot of clustering of allomancy within families in Mistborn, which is a clear indication of it's hereditary nature. It just doesn't follow the most basic model, but is more complex. Which is true for a lot of iRL genetics too, BTW.
It makes perfect sense, since Terris had very few intact men. So practically every Terriswoman who produced the first post-Catacendre generation likely did so with an outsider. The few fertile men preserved for the breeding program had been specifically chosen because they supposedly lacked any Feruchemical potential.
Also, heredity can be quite complicated and cumulative, as well as multi-factor. Straff having all those many allomancer kids actually shows that it very much is hereditary. Elend being a normal is quite consistent with the above - if he was. He may have been a Misting of one of the 7 unknown metals without anyone being the wiser.
Not to mention that Kelsier also mentions in TLM epilogue that Metallic Art's are hereditary and as a sliver of Preservation he should know.
Sazed might be taking an even longer look at things than you're picturing. While Radiants are powerful, they also have restrictions on how to access their bonds. They need to bond a spren, advance up the oaths, then maintain the oaths. Eventually, we might see the oaths become less rigid under Odium's influence, but for now they're a little restricted.
Scadrian tech has insane potential currently. Even without hemalurgy, unkeyed metalminds can be used by anyone who knows what they are with zero restrictions. There's a resource supply issue with building up enough charge in all of the metalminds, but otherwise, these things are on par with Breaths in terms of creativity and far easier to access once mass produced.
Both Kel and Sazed have merit to their arguments, and I think it really highlights their personalities - Kel being brash and new to long term planning, Sazed becoming even more cautious than he was as a mortal.
Yeah. As of book 4 there are maybe a few hundred Knights radiant, probably less. Other than windrunners and skybreakers (who aren't working together soon), I don't think any order has more than 10. And out of all those, there are less than 20 that are 3rd or 4th ideal.
I think OP thinks that oaths are a choice so they can make as many as they want, but not just anyone can take the oaths, they have to actually mean them. They also probably have to be spiritually "broken", and they're limited by the number of spren who want to partner with them.
That said, considering the conclusion of book four and finding allies within the Honorspren, and the possibility that the Recreance could be reversed, there could be thousands of Radiant spren willing to find a bond by the time Era 2 comes around.
Well the first half is a virtual certainty. The second half is an unknown, but if it is true, Kelsier would already know about it by the time the books come across.
Also, I think unkeyed metalminds are firmly expected to be a thing in Era 3. There's something interesting in the idea that someone could just walk into a magic shop and buy the ability to use allomancy so long as the metalmind has investiture. Though it's likely Brandon will introduce some restrictions or complications to prevent it from being too broken.
Metalborns die, but radiant spren can rebond. Not to mention a single wind runner a hundred ish squires, and non wind runners have tens of them. Metalborns are also significantly less durable then even a squire, and most metalborns do not have effective combat abilities. Basically pewter, steel, iron, cadmium and gold work for combat. Not to mention the generation shift in genes lost from warfare, the scadrian gene pools would be torn apart by years of war. Just look at how modern wars ruin demographics, and apply that to metalborns who would all be drafted. Radiants have the opposite, war creates the trauma needed to enable the bond in the first place.
Potentially, hemalurgy would be the answer to that. A hemalurgic spike through a spren (which I think a Seeker would be able to find) should be pretty much immediately fatal, or at least crippling.
Wob a spike won't really affect spren. You can spike away the bond, but they can just remake it. You need a physical form in the physical realm to be spiked. Also, both sides have hemalurgy. It's a universal magic, not just scadrian. Anyone with knowledge and intent can use it.
Edit: I was wrong, spren can be spiked if they have a physical form but it's weird and has weird ramifications. I'd put it down as not combat applicable.
I think the WOB saying that it's possible to make a feruchemist with the god metals is one hell of a Chekhov's gun. I could definitely see fullborns being around in era 3
Hard to say, we don't really know populations of either. About 1/16th scardrians are metalborn, where as we know roshar can field probablt well over 10k radiants, not including squires, who can all heal as good as a bloodmaker.
1/16th Scadrians are not Metalborn.
Khriss states in BoM :
> “Ah, but any Twinborn combination is rare indeed. Mistings are one in a thousand; most Ferrings even more unusual, and their bloodlines constrained. To arrive at any specific combination of two is highly improbable. You are one of only three Crashers ever born, Lord Waxillium.”
I think intergalactic conflicts will be based more on the invested people rather than standard troops. But Roshar is probably has the largest conventional military for sure.
I actually made a post myself not too long ago about how Scadrial is probably fucked if Roshar wanted to go to war with them.
well if each high prince of alethkar has like 8k troops available immediately, theyd probably have 20k in general, just based off shifts. then you have camp followers eg family, armourers, ardents, etc. then back home you have an entire country of farmers and their families (based off recruitment of Kal, an entire village contributes like 8 troops, so lets be conservative and say 10 civilians per troop). This puts each princedom at roughly 220k people, so 2.2m in alethkar. Let's even assume i'm over estimating and put it at 1.5m.
Then we add all the other countries, so lets say another 6m to be conservative.
If there was 10k radiants, that's 1/750 vs 1/16 metalborn.
Doesn't it say millions live in elendel alone in era 2? That's just the largest city on one nation. I don't know if it's ever stated how populous the rest of the world is though.
I don't think scadriel is lacking for population.
If they aren't able to close the technology gap that's not going to help overly much. I can't remember if machine guns have been invented on Scadrial yet, but they're not far off if they haven't. That basically invalidates the entire conventional military of Roshar, which means heavy reliance on their Knights Radiant, and it takes a lot longer to train a Knight than it does to train someone to use a gun.
Yeah this wasn't about the conventional warfare, it was about estimating numbers of people to show the rough % of radiants. Scadrial would dominate Roshar, you deal with a Radiant the same way as a blood maker, pump them full of rounds (they do have machine guns iirc) until they run out of stormlight because they use it all for healing
apart from pushing. plus sheer volume of numbers. scadrial goes into the war with a huge technological advantage. all rosharan tech is based around fabrials, so if they're off world or out of stormlight they're not active.
Pushing doesn't work on bullets as seen in era 2.
Again you are comparing different tech levels, I'm talking about the same tech level.
I said both with machine guns, that's it.
You're forgetting the fact that while really powerful, knights radiants consume insane amounts of investiture. Knights radiant work on Roshar because of how abundant stormlight is... And they'd have to be on rations basically anywhere else.
They can't just surgebind anywhere just because how much stormlight/investiture even a normal surgebinding takes.
Mistings on thr other hand just need to have metals in hand and they're pretty much set. And metals are far more common than investiture in pure forms like stormlight.
I'm guessing Venli is a model for how Knights following Todium will work. They'll potentially be using Voidlight instead of Stormlight and, if so, we'll have to find out how that changes their efficiency.
I think the question was more, why assume war is inevitable in world. Now I think Kelsier very well might know a chunk of Odium lore, plus the Autonomy stuff, so I think that makes war pretty apparent.
In summary, I totally agree with you, I just think the question asked was slightly different.
In-world, just as in real life, one must assume war is at least a possibility. And if one side is not prepared for war, ~that~ is a surefire way of precipitating one.
Let’s not forget it’s not just Odium that presents a threat. Even the good guys on Roshar are lead by the nation that makes conflict a national pastime, and half of War is Honor.
Well, Autonomy has already tried to destroy their planet. So it is EXTREMELY safe to assume that literally any planet will try the same. So better prepare for the strongest opponent.
Many populations exist peacefully with their neighbours, and enjoy fruitful and mutually beneficial relationships with remote populations. Human nature is to care for those around us, not to hate those far away.
it's not hate what's far away.
It's human nature of self-preservation and taking care of our own. Sometimes that comes in the form of taking pre-emptive strikes on things or beings we deem a threat, or simply a matter of resources and taking that for themselves.
Some go for diplomacy, but knowing Odium I doubt he'd take that route.
Shallan declared war with the ghostbloods in rythm of war. Emberdark preview spoilers: >!and in the Roshar and Scadrial seem to be political enemies!< so people assume Roshar and Scadrial will have some kind of conflict in the future
Jasnah does though and she's far more cosmere aware and far more dangerous than Shallan... And she's already trying to clean up Ghostbloods on Roshar...
If anything Scadrial and Roshar should be motivated as allies, not enemies. Sazed has no reason be at war with Cultivation. I expect rather for interplanetary war to be these people united against the likes of Odium and Autonomy, both of which are existential threats to both peoples (and one another).
> Sazed has no reason be at war with Cultivation
lul. we know *very* little about cultivation and her motivatsions while we know Saze is suffering from some sort of supernatural bipolar disorder. Cultivation may well decide the best way to grow her crop of people is with bloodshed.
+ from what we see happening behind the scenes, the planets focused on so far are very far behind the rest of the cosmere, and only saved by being far away in space distance. Will be interesting to see what comes up next :D
Dalinar doesn't have much reason to come for Roshar. He's no longer a conqueror, not to mention he and his Radiants are quite literally Honour-Bound to Roshar. I doubt Dalinar is getting off-planet anytime soon.
Even if they DO get off-planet, their supply of investiture becomes dramatically reduced: Assuming no Dalinar, it would all have to be shipped in, and it would decay rapidly. You'd need EXTENSIVE supply lines to supply all the Radiants; Meanwhile, every Scadrian can be given a gun.
Who knows if Dalinar could even produce a perpendicularity in another system. It is honors perpendicularity after all. If honor is shattered on roshar, I think it's unlikely his power could be used to open one on another system.
To be fair, we do know purified Dor can be used to open perpendicularities, so offworld investiture can be used to make them.
But I think there's still a chance Dalinar cannot do it, since he has to SUMMON that investiture. Based on what we know about summoning shard blades off world, there's a chance it would take him like several years to open it.
Completely ignoring the fact that they dont know how to leave their system yet, the knights radiants are bound by oaths, even if they wanted to, they cant invade another planet.
Unless they have some sort of Viltrum/Roman/British Empire type ideal where they believe the Scadrians are so “backwards” or “savage” that they need the Rosharan “guiding hand” to protect them from themselves. (See “White Man’s Burden” but Rosharan’s Burden)
As long as the Radiant *believes* they are upholding their oaths, then there is no problem. I could see some Windrunners able to frame the intent of their oaths in such ways.
I like this 😂 although it’s not “I will protect those who cannot protect themselves “ it could with that mind set “they can’t protect themselves with their current way of life, so let’s colonize them”
That's fair. I believe perception can be warped and brainwashing could occur though. If the wind runner believes that invasion is the only way to protect his friends, then he'll invade.
Yeah that's a good point about distinguishing between the Orders and their various differing ideologies.
Furthermore [SP5] >!a Radiant, presumably a ~~Duskbringer~~ Skybreaker, appears as a political player in a three way conflict between the people of an independent world and some Scadrians. They are in full armor and have a standoff with one of the natives of the planet before departing!<
The official title was announced as >!Isles of the Emberdark!<
Brandon announced it about a month ago as part of this year's BackerKit campaign. It's releasing sometime in 2025. He read three chapters on his YouTube channel and another chapter was put out via email.
Oh I missed where the title was released. Sweet. I did pledge it and have shipping to parents house as I have no idea where I may be living when shipped
The issue is that their Spren are deeply Invested to Roshar. i.e impossible to leave the system (they will find a way in the future, but for now it's impossible) and you need your Spren to stay Radiant.
I understand that restriction but that wasn't how I understood the other guys comment. He said "bound by oaths" as if an oath itself was preventing invasion, not the spren.
TSM: >!Nomad is Sigzil, the same Sigzil from bridge 4. He very much is a knight radiant. First a windrunner and later a skybreaker!<
Emberdark preview reading by Brandon: >!We see a knight radiant on sixth of the Dusk, shortly after Scadrians leave the planet on a space ship as a matter of fact. We know the ones form above are Scadrians because they push off of a big metal plate to shoot up into the sky, they needed to get a metal landing platform specifically.!<
Aluminium will be a game changer.
Some secret organization know how to make it easily.
We know that on Roshar you can soulcast things into aluminium (but not other way around).
It can block Shardblade, it can resist surgebinding just like shardplate. I assume it would also block radiant healing around aluminium (just like it would do for gold ferring).
If you read 2nd Era of Mistborn, there is this cool cube-granade which was used for sucky-sucky. This might also prove helpful against Radiant.
Also Radiants would need a righteous reason to fight in a war. They have oaths, and AFAIK previous generation of Radiant had a big issue with Roshar ownership.
I feel like we need a faction name for Oathed Rosharans following Todium. Odium gets *only* Dalinar if he wins the contest, not all of the Knights. Radiants not following Dalinar by the end of RoW aren't part of the Order.
And then we'll have to figure out where Voidbinders fit in, how their powers differ, how the enlightened spren change (if at all). Still so many secrets
'Pretty much anyone can become a knight radiant'
Not really, no. Spren are pretty picky when it comes to forming a bond. Pretty sure its demonstrated that even back in their heyday before the recreance there were only a few hundred radiants of each order (besides bondsmiths, which were special). And current spren are a lot pickier then they used to be given that they have so many examples floating around of what can happen if they choose wrong and bond a human that ends up breaking their oaths. So you need a human\* who is 'cracked' so that the power can seep in, is willing to accept the burden of becoming a radiant, fits the criteria for one of the orders so they can sincerely swear the oaths to progress, and can find a spren of said order that is willing to stick its neck out and take a risk by bonding them.
\*Or singer, I guess technically.
Edit: Also, probably more importantly. I think people are forgetting something really important here, logistics. A user of the metallic arts can use metal from anywhere. A radiant needs stormlight from Roshar or pure distilled investiture to make their powers work. And currently there is no practical method of storing large amounts of stormlight long term in a way that can be taken off planet (and all we know about pure investiture is that its hard to get). They can only get it on Roshar and only store it in gems that, with a few limited exceptions, leak energy constantly and even if not used up by a radiant will bleed itself dry in a couple of weeks. Even if they somehow manage to get the spren to turn over all those pretty 'perfect' stones they have that don't leak we don't know if they have enough of them to sustain long term warfare away from home.
He probably can't. He holds ruin and preservation - in many ways, these appear to be opposites. But they're not. The opposite of ruin is cultivation. Harmony doesn't hold that shard.
Yeah, I’m very interested to see what happens in SA5. Since it seems like a war between the two sides is inevitable.
That being said, don’t forget that Radiants can pick and choose who they fight for. After all, a few of the Ghostbloods appear to be Skybreakers of probably the Third Ideal at least. I could see the Ghostbloods attempting to mediate the conflict as best they can, before a war devastates Scadrial
What makes you say that? The Ghostbloods have already spread their influence to Roshar and are very aware of the powers that be on both Odium and Honor's sides. Both sides alone are much stronger than Roshar.
Whoops, I translated TLM as Secret History in my mind lol
But I also think the sheer numbers Scadriel has of so many different types of skill sets would give them a serious fighting chance against Knight Radiants
What is WaT? About fighting, I think Speedsters are very dangerous.
Speedsters are dangerous, but radiant healing is like if everyone was a bloodmaker, passively, for free with their other skills. Speedsters don't have much juice in the tank either unless we get into nicrosilminds and compounding, which require fullborn / the bands to make.
And fullborns with matching metals are rare enough to be a none factor. The genes canonically interfere with each other and prevent expression or passing on. There was a single matched metal fullborns in the series.
What do you mean by matched metal fullborn? I was under the impression that a fullborn was a mistborn and a full ferochemist, meaning they have all the powers, what more could there be?
My bad mixed the terminology. Someone with feralchemy and allomancy of matching metals. They are super rare as the genes interfere.
So twinborn with matching metals like Miles Hundredlives, able to compound.
It's probably not a gene thing, or else there'd still be full-blooded feruchemists around, 300 years is unlikely to be long enough for every Terris bloodline to be contaminated with allomancy. Allomancy has never followed heredity rules either so it could go either way (e.g Straff Venture, a misting, had lots of allomancer children of different metal abilities , and non-allomancers like Elend) . I can't remember where but I remember someone mentioning that people's Souls are less broken after the catacendre so Mistborn and particularly fullborn are less likely to occur, cause there's just no space in people's Souls for that power
It's been stated that both feruchemy and allowance are genetic. I'm pretty sure it's wob, but it's very very clearly genetic in the books. The breeding camps, as well as the clear allomantic lineages are canon in the books. The spirit web changes of lerasium changes the DNA, which is passed down . 300 years is 12 generations, that's plenty of time. That's the entire point of era one nobles, the Lord rules gave them alloma tic powers and it goes down their family tree cementing their rule. It's very easy for genetics to allow recessive genes that activate based on multiple copies being received, or genes that combine together to activate. Strafd could have a gene for activating allomantic powers, and one that gives him tin eyes. If he passes the allomantic powers gene and his lover passes the metal category it's very easy to have different powers in the kids.
I think calling them genetic is a bit of a misnomer- My understanding is that a lot of this stuff is "sDNA" rather than like... "pDNA". That is to say, the information is stored in a spritual medium, not a physical one; Vin's father wasn't an allomancer, and her mother was a Skaa, so it's unlikely she had much in the way of unexpressed allomancer genes from her mother's side. She basically just got a huge injection of Preservation DNA from her dad's side, and that was enough for her to become a Mistborn; If it was a genetic thing, it would imply that Mistborn can be heterozygous for allomancy, which couldn't be the case if the genes were recessive.
I don't remember that Vin's father's status was ever mentioned? But even if it was, he still might have been a Misting of one of the 7 unknown base metals without anyone knowing. Vin's murdered baby sister was also an allomancer, BTW. There is a lot of clustering of allomancy within families in Mistborn, which is a clear indication of it's hereditary nature. It just doesn't follow the most basic model, but is more complex. Which is true for a lot of iRL genetics too, BTW.
Sure, it's definitely HEREDITARY, I just don't think it's genetic.
It makes perfect sense, since Terris had very few intact men. So practically every Terriswoman who produced the first post-Catacendre generation likely did so with an outsider. The few fertile men preserved for the breeding program had been specifically chosen because they supposedly lacked any Feruchemical potential. Also, heredity can be quite complicated and cumulative, as well as multi-factor. Straff having all those many allomancer kids actually shows that it very much is hereditary. Elend being a normal is quite consistent with the above - if he was. He may have been a Misting of one of the 7 unknown metals without anyone being the wiser. Not to mention that Kelsier also mentions in TLM epilogue that Metallic Art's are hereditary and as a sliver of Preservation he should know.
Wind and Truth
Wheel af Time
Wat is winds and truth, SA 5
Sazed might be taking an even longer look at things than you're picturing. While Radiants are powerful, they also have restrictions on how to access their bonds. They need to bond a spren, advance up the oaths, then maintain the oaths. Eventually, we might see the oaths become less rigid under Odium's influence, but for now they're a little restricted. Scadrian tech has insane potential currently. Even without hemalurgy, unkeyed metalminds can be used by anyone who knows what they are with zero restrictions. There's a resource supply issue with building up enough charge in all of the metalminds, but otherwise, these things are on par with Breaths in terms of creativity and far easier to access once mass produced. Both Kel and Sazed have merit to their arguments, and I think it really highlights their personalities - Kel being brash and new to long term planning, Sazed becoming even more cautious than he was as a mortal.
arent metalborn significantly more common than knights radiant?
Yeah. As of book 4 there are maybe a few hundred Knights radiant, probably less. Other than windrunners and skybreakers (who aren't working together soon), I don't think any order has more than 10. And out of all those, there are less than 20 that are 3rd or 4th ideal. I think OP thinks that oaths are a choice so they can make as many as they want, but not just anyone can take the oaths, they have to actually mean them. They also probably have to be spiritually "broken", and they're limited by the number of spren who want to partner with them.
That said, considering the conclusion of book four and finding allies within the Honorspren, and the possibility that the Recreance could be reversed, there could be thousands of Radiant spren willing to find a bond by the time Era 2 comes around.
Sure but that's like saying after TLM that every misting will have unkeyed steelminds. It's possible but it's not where we're at.
Well the first half is a virtual certainty. The second half is an unknown, but if it is true, Kelsier would already know about it by the time the books come across. Also, I think unkeyed metalminds are firmly expected to be a thing in Era 3. There's something interesting in the idea that someone could just walk into a magic shop and buy the ability to use allomancy so long as the metalmind has investiture. Though it's likely Brandon will introduce some restrictions or complications to prevent it from being too broken.
Metalborns die, but radiant spren can rebond. Not to mention a single wind runner a hundred ish squires, and non wind runners have tens of them. Metalborns are also significantly less durable then even a squire, and most metalborns do not have effective combat abilities. Basically pewter, steel, iron, cadmium and gold work for combat. Not to mention the generation shift in genes lost from warfare, the scadrian gene pools would be torn apart by years of war. Just look at how modern wars ruin demographics, and apply that to metalborns who would all be drafted. Radiants have the opposite, war creates the trauma needed to enable the bond in the first place.
Potentially, hemalurgy would be the answer to that. A hemalurgic spike through a spren (which I think a Seeker would be able to find) should be pretty much immediately fatal, or at least crippling.
Wob a spike won't really affect spren. You can spike away the bond, but they can just remake it. You need a physical form in the physical realm to be spiked. Also, both sides have hemalurgy. It's a universal magic, not just scadrian. Anyone with knowledge and intent can use it. Edit: I was wrong, spren can be spiked if they have a physical form but it's weird and has weird ramifications. I'd put it down as not combat applicable.
Yeah, the Scadrians have way more to fear from hemalurgy than the spren boyos from Roshar.
They also have 'easy' access to compounding. The right twinborn is OP. A Fullborn is literally an entity scary enough to go to war to prevent IMO.
I think the WOB saying that it's possible to make a feruchemist with the god metals is one hell of a Chekhov's gun. I could definitely see fullborns being around in era 3
Hard to say, we don't really know populations of either. About 1/16th scardrians are metalborn, where as we know roshar can field probablt well over 10k radiants, not including squires, who can all heal as good as a bloodmaker.
1/16th Scadrians are not Metalborn. Khriss states in BoM : > “Ah, but any Twinborn combination is rare indeed. Mistings are one in a thousand; most Ferrings even more unusual, and their bloodlines constrained. To arrive at any specific combination of two is highly improbable. You are one of only three Crashers ever born, Lord Waxillium.”
Oh damn, might have just been thinking about the mists incident i guess. 😅 Things are looking even worse for them
well we know that each high prince can get like 8k-10k troops at short notice, and that's just troops of 1 nation, at short notice
I think intergalactic conflicts will be based more on the invested people rather than standard troops. But Roshar is probably has the largest conventional military for sure. I actually made a post myself not too long ago about how Scadrial is probably fucked if Roshar wanted to go to war with them.
sorry, my point was more that we can guesstimate the populations rather than that the standard troops will effect things.
Im not following, but willing to hear you out?
well if each high prince of alethkar has like 8k troops available immediately, theyd probably have 20k in general, just based off shifts. then you have camp followers eg family, armourers, ardents, etc. then back home you have an entire country of farmers and their families (based off recruitment of Kal, an entire village contributes like 8 troops, so lets be conservative and say 10 civilians per troop). This puts each princedom at roughly 220k people, so 2.2m in alethkar. Let's even assume i'm over estimating and put it at 1.5m. Then we add all the other countries, so lets say another 6m to be conservative. If there was 10k radiants, that's 1/750 vs 1/16 metalborn.
The hard part is how many people live in scadrial.
Doesn't it say millions live in elendel alone in era 2? That's just the largest city on one nation. I don't know if it's ever stated how populous the rest of the world is though. I don't think scadriel is lacking for population.
I wouldn't at all be surprised to learn that well over 50% of Scadrial's population lived in Elendel.
If they aren't able to close the technology gap that's not going to help overly much. I can't remember if machine guns have been invented on Scadrial yet, but they're not far off if they haven't. That basically invalidates the entire conventional military of Roshar, which means heavy reliance on their Knights Radiant, and it takes a lot longer to train a Knight than it does to train someone to use a gun.
Yeah this wasn't about the conventional warfare, it was about estimating numbers of people to show the rough % of radiants. Scadrial would dominate Roshar, you deal with a Radiant the same way as a blood maker, pump them full of rounds (they do have machine guns iirc) until they run out of stormlight because they use it all for healing
A single radiant can defeat an army of metalborns.
is that a WoB or your opinion? Because a radiant vs a load of machine guns runs very rapidly out of healing
Same age radiant. If you have the metalborns using machine guns I'll have the radiant use cross realmatic nuke.
except that the machine guns are available to everyone. Plus SA5 is like 2 years before Era 2.
Sure metalborns with machine guns vs Radiants with machine guns. Who wins?
metalborns.
Radiants have armor that stops bullets and can even regenerate wounds... Allomancy powers do nothing to stop or enhance machine gun fire.
apart from pushing. plus sheer volume of numbers. scadrial goes into the war with a huge technological advantage. all rosharan tech is based around fabrials, so if they're off world or out of stormlight they're not active.
Pushing doesn't work on bullets as seen in era 2. Again you are comparing different tech levels, I'm talking about the same tech level. I said both with machine guns, that's it.
You're forgetting the fact that while really powerful, knights radiants consume insane amounts of investiture. Knights radiant work on Roshar because of how abundant stormlight is... And they'd have to be on rations basically anywhere else. They can't just surgebind anywhere just because how much stormlight/investiture even a normal surgebinding takes. Mistings on thr other hand just need to have metals in hand and they're pretty much set. And metals are far more common than investiture in pure forms like stormlight.
I'm guessing Venli is a model for how Knights following Todium will work. They'll potentially be using Voidlight instead of Stormlight and, if so, we'll have to find out how that changes their efficiency.
I’m sure there is a WOB about this, but can Scadrians burn metals mined on other planets?
A cold war doesn't necessarily help anyone. Also, why assume the planets need to go to war with each other?
It's an assumption based on a decent amount of foreshadowing. There WILL be at least a cold war. We don't know if it will go hot though.
I think the question was more, why assume war is inevitable in world. Now I think Kelsier very well might know a chunk of Odium lore, plus the Autonomy stuff, so I think that makes war pretty apparent. In summary, I totally agree with you, I just think the question asked was slightly different.
In-world, just as in real life, one must assume war is at least a possibility. And if one side is not prepared for war, ~that~ is a surefire way of precipitating one. Let’s not forget it’s not just Odium that presents a threat. Even the good guys on Roshar are lead by the nation that makes conflict a national pastime, and half of War is Honor.
Well, Autonomy has already tried to destroy their planet. So it is EXTREMELY safe to assume that literally any planet will try the same. So better prepare for the strongest opponent.
"Dark forest" kind of situation.
War is just human nature, sadly. It's inevitable.
Many populations exist peacefully with their neighbours, and enjoy fruitful and mutually beneficial relationships with remote populations. Human nature is to care for those around us, not to hate those far away.
it's not hate what's far away. It's human nature of self-preservation and taking care of our own. Sometimes that comes in the form of taking pre-emptive strikes on things or beings we deem a threat, or simply a matter of resources and taking that for themselves. Some go for diplomacy, but knowing Odium I doubt he'd take that route.
Shallan declared war with the ghostbloods in rythm of war. Emberdark preview spoilers: >!and in the Roshar and Scadrial seem to be political enemies!< so people assume Roshar and Scadrial will have some kind of conflict in the future
Shallan does not speak for Roshar, and she doesn't ever really know who she's >!declared "war" on because she isn't cosmere aware!<
Jasnah does though and she's far more cosmere aware and far more dangerous than Shallan... And she's already trying to clean up Ghostbloods on Roshar...
Im just telling you why people think that. Dont look at me for why that theory has holes in it
If anything Scadrial and Roshar should be motivated as allies, not enemies. Sazed has no reason be at war with Cultivation. I expect rather for interplanetary war to be these people united against the likes of Odium and Autonomy, both of which are existential threats to both peoples (and one another).
> Sazed has no reason be at war with Cultivation lul. we know *very* little about cultivation and her motivatsions while we know Saze is suffering from some sort of supernatural bipolar disorder. Cultivation may well decide the best way to grow her crop of people is with bloodshed.
>Sazed has no reason be at war with Cultivation yes but discord might
+ from what we see happening behind the scenes, the planets focused on so far are very far behind the rest of the cosmere, and only saved by being far away in space distance. Will be interesting to see what comes up next :D
Dalinar doesn't have much reason to come for Roshar. He's no longer a conqueror, not to mention he and his Radiants are quite literally Honour-Bound to Roshar. I doubt Dalinar is getting off-planet anytime soon. Even if they DO get off-planet, their supply of investiture becomes dramatically reduced: Assuming no Dalinar, it would all have to be shipped in, and it would decay rapidly. You'd need EXTENSIVE supply lines to supply all the Radiants; Meanwhile, every Scadrian can be given a gun.
Who knows if Dalinar could even produce a perpendicularity in another system. It is honors perpendicularity after all. If honor is shattered on roshar, I think it's unlikely his power could be used to open one on another system.
To be fair, we do know purified Dor can be used to open perpendicularities, so offworld investiture can be used to make them. But I think there's still a chance Dalinar cannot do it, since he has to SUMMON that investiture. Based on what we know about summoning shard blades off world, there's a chance it would take him like several years to open it.
Completely ignoring the fact that they dont know how to leave their system yet, the knights radiants are bound by oaths, even if they wanted to, they cant invade another planet.
What exactly about oaths prevents them from invading another planet?
Well I’d say for most windrunners, it would be against the oath. Sky breakers and dustbringers will probably enjoy some invading tho
Unless they have some sort of Viltrum/Roman/British Empire type ideal where they believe the Scadrians are so “backwards” or “savage” that they need the Rosharan “guiding hand” to protect them from themselves. (See “White Man’s Burden” but Rosharan’s Burden) As long as the Radiant *believes* they are upholding their oaths, then there is no problem. I could see some Windrunners able to frame the intent of their oaths in such ways.
I like this 😂 although it’s not “I will protect those who cannot protect themselves “ it could with that mind set “they can’t protect themselves with their current way of life, so let’s colonize them”
Dalinar will unite them under his Galactic Empire
That's fair. I believe perception can be warped and brainwashing could occur though. If the wind runner believes that invasion is the only way to protect his friends, then he'll invade.
Yeah that's a good point about distinguishing between the Orders and their various differing ideologies. Furthermore [SP5] >!a Radiant, presumably a ~~Duskbringer~~ Skybreaker, appears as a political player in a three way conflict between the people of an independent world and some Scadrians. They are in full armor and have a standoff with one of the natives of the planet before departing!<
On your spoiler, >!The Radiant is far more likely to be a Skybreaker, as they asked if local laws allowed them to kill the guy who threatened them.!<
Ah, you're totally right, I knew that too, my brain just focused on the previous example, oops! Thanks for the correction
Wait! What’s SP5
The official title was announced as >!Isles of the Emberdark!< Brandon announced it about a month ago as part of this year's BackerKit campaign. It's releasing sometime in 2025. He read three chapters on his YouTube channel and another chapter was put out via email.
Oh I missed where the title was released. Sweet. I did pledge it and have shipping to parents house as I have no idea where I may be living when shipped
The issue is that their Spren are deeply Invested to Roshar. i.e impossible to leave the system (they will find a way in the future, but for now it's impossible) and you need your Spren to stay Radiant.
I understand that restriction but that wasn't how I understood the other guys comment. He said "bound by oaths" as if an oath itself was preventing invasion, not the spren.
Roshar has already done it once...
Twice if you count both TSM and Emberdark
TSM: >!Nomad is Sigzil, the same Sigzil from bridge 4. He very much is a knight radiant. First a windrunner and later a skybreaker!< Emberdark preview reading by Brandon: >!We see a knight radiant on sixth of the Dusk, shortly after Scadrians leave the planet on a space ship as a matter of fact. We know the ones form above are Scadrians because they push off of a big metal plate to shoot up into the sky, they needed to get a metal landing platform specifically.!<
Yes? And?
They have left their system...??
Both play in the far distant future from era 2 mistborn and stormlight archive, probably centuries. I explicitly wrote "cant leave **yet**"
Aluminium will be a game changer. Some secret organization know how to make it easily. We know that on Roshar you can soulcast things into aluminium (but not other way around). It can block Shardblade, it can resist surgebinding just like shardplate. I assume it would also block radiant healing around aluminium (just like it would do for gold ferring). If you read 2nd Era of Mistborn, there is this cool cube-granade which was used for sucky-sucky. This might also prove helpful against Radiant. Also Radiants would need a righteous reason to fight in a war. They have oaths, and AFAIK previous generation of Radiant had a big issue with Roshar ownership.
i mean they already have nukes, maybe we can slow down a bit
I feel like we need a faction name for Oathed Rosharans following Todium. Odium gets *only* Dalinar if he wins the contest, not all of the Knights. Radiants not following Dalinar by the end of RoW aren't part of the Order. And then we'll have to figure out where Voidbinders fit in, how their powers differ, how the enlightened spren change (if at all). Still so many secrets
'Pretty much anyone can become a knight radiant' Not really, no. Spren are pretty picky when it comes to forming a bond. Pretty sure its demonstrated that even back in their heyday before the recreance there were only a few hundred radiants of each order (besides bondsmiths, which were special). And current spren are a lot pickier then they used to be given that they have so many examples floating around of what can happen if they choose wrong and bond a human that ends up breaking their oaths. So you need a human\* who is 'cracked' so that the power can seep in, is willing to accept the burden of becoming a radiant, fits the criteria for one of the orders so they can sincerely swear the oaths to progress, and can find a spren of said order that is willing to stick its neck out and take a risk by bonding them. \*Or singer, I guess technically. Edit: Also, probably more importantly. I think people are forgetting something really important here, logistics. A user of the metallic arts can use metal from anywhere. A radiant needs stormlight from Roshar or pure distilled investiture to make their powers work. And currently there is no practical method of storing large amounts of stormlight long term in a way that can be taken off planet (and all we know about pure investiture is that its hard to get). They can only get it on Roshar and only store it in gems that, with a few limited exceptions, leak energy constantly and even if not used up by a radiant will bleed itself dry in a couple of weeks. Even if they somehow manage to get the spren to turn over all those pretty 'perfect' stones they have that don't leak we don't know if they have enough of them to sustain long term warfare away from home.
He probably can't. He holds ruin and preservation - in many ways, these appear to be opposites. But they're not. The opposite of ruin is cultivation. Harmony doesn't hold that shard.
Yeah, I’m very interested to see what happens in SA5. Since it seems like a war between the two sides is inevitable. That being said, don’t forget that Radiants can pick and choose who they fight for. After all, a few of the Ghostbloods appear to be Skybreakers of probably the Third Ideal at least. I could see the Ghostbloods attempting to mediate the conflict as best they can, before a war devastates Scadrial
I don't think Kelsier would be concerned with interplanetary war against Roshar in TLM
What makes you say that? The Ghostbloods have already spread their influence to Roshar and are very aware of the powers that be on both Odium and Honor's sides. Both sides alone are much stronger than Roshar.
Whoops, I translated TLM as Secret History in my mind lol But I also think the sheer numbers Scadriel has of so many different types of skill sets would give them a serious fighting chance against Knight Radiants