Space-age Roshar [+SotD2]

[SwordNimiForPresident the sword/that sword]

4 minutes ago, KaladinWorldsinger said:

I think the moons are impossibly far away for that to work. Also we know, using stormlight is invigorating until you stop and you feel drained and exhausted. I imagine even if it's possible to reach the moon and back, the radiant will straight up die when he turns off stormlight.

To put perspective on how far the moon is, you can fit the other eight planets between the earth and the moon.

It's pretty far

It would take less than 4 hours to reach the moon at 1g.

Edited March 8, 2022 by SwordNimiForPresident
typo

[AquaRegia he/him]

There is also the fact that Roshar's moons are in MUCH closer orbits than Earth's moon is.  Our moon takes 28 days to orbit once; Roshar's moons orbit once per day.  They must also be in highly elliptical orbits to behave the way they are described to in the books, which means at their closest approach to Roshar they may only be a few HUNDRED miles above the surface (although travelling VERY fast).

As with real-life space travel, it's not really about how FAR, but rather how FAST you can go.

Not taking credit; people smarter than I am have already worked all this out:

Quote

Yeah, Scadrial and Roshar are both very far away from FTL. Getting into space will be easier though. Shardplate allows for easy pressure suits, and Stormlight lets Radiants go without oxygen.

But don't they ALREADY have FTL travel?  The presence of known Worldhoppers demonstrates that the simplest mechanism for interstellar travel - through the Cognitive Realm - has already been in use for quite a while.

Edited March 8, 2022 by AquaRegia
thought of something else

[EmulatonStromenkiin he/him]

2 hours ago, AquaRegia said:

But don't they ALREADY have FTL travel?  The presence of known Worldhoppers demonstrates that the simplest mechanism for interstellar travel - through the Cognitive Realm - has already been in use for quite a while.

FTL is considered in the physical realm, as the cognitive realm is essentially hyperspace in this, not really FTL travel. Also, it's space that's different in the cognitive realm, allowing for teleporting, not true FTL

[Frustration he/him]

2 hours ago, AquaRegia said:

But don't they ALREADY have FTL travel?  The presence of known Worldhoppers demonstrates that the simplest mechanism for interstellar travel - through the Cognitive Realm - has already been in use for quite a while.

 

7 minutes ago, EmulatonStromenkiin said:

FTL is considered in the physical realm, as the cognitive realm is essentially hyperspace in this, not really FTL travel. Also, it's space that's different in the cognitive realm, allowing for teleporting, not true FTL

Emulation Stromenkiin is correct Shadesmar does not count, however Oathgates are FTL

[NameIess]

14 minutes ago, Frustration said:

Emulation Stromenkiin is correct Shadesmar does not count, however Oathgates are FTL

Technically the oathgates go through the spiritual realm or whatever, it doesn't just send you flying at FTL speeds towards your destination.

[StanLemon]

Oathgates are weird. Odium thought it necessary to recover the crystal core in order to rebuild an Oathgate so it's likely quite an undertaking to build one from scratch. Also the spren used for them are unlike any other spren known. They seem to have some relation with Lightspren and Inkspren but they are also distinctly different. It may even be that in order to make them a Dawnshard or Shard is necessary 

[AquaRegia he/him]

13 minutes ago, Frustration said:

Emulation Stromenkiin is correct Shadesmar does not count, however Oathgates are FTL

We may just be having a difference in definitions.  By the definitions that make sense to me, Einstein says there is no way to travel faster than light in 4-dimensional spacetime (a.k.a. the Physical Realm, in Cosmere-speak).  A real-world ship can accelerate from rest to .999c, but relativity forbids then accelerating more and going FTL.  Therefore ANY real-world FTL (if such a thing turns out to be possible) must invoke more than four dimensions.

If you enter the Cognitive Realm on one planet, travel for a while, and exit on another planet (which we know for a fact multiple characters have done), then by my definitions, you have traveled faster than light.  I don't see how that "does not count".  My definition of speed is distance divided by time, so If those two planets are 20 light years apart, and you make that trip in one year, you were going 20x faster than light.

[Anomander Rake he/him]

Just now, AquaRegia said:

We may just be having a difference in definitions.  By the definitions that make sense to me, Einstein says there is no way to travel faster than light in 4-dimensional spacetime (a.k.a. the Physical Realm, in Cosmere-speak).  A real-world ship can accelerate from rest to .999c, but relativity forbids then accelerating more and going FTL.  Therefore ANY real-world FTL (if such a thing turns out to be possible) must invoke more than four dimensions.

If you enter the Cognitive Realm on one planet, travel for a while, and exit on another planet (which we know for a fact multiple characters have done), then by my definitions, you have traveled faster than light.  I don't see how that "does not count".  My definition of speed is distance divided by time, so If those two planets are 20 light years apart, and you make that trip in one year, you were going 20x faster than light.

I'd agree that you can say using the CR is effectively FTL travel, but saying "you were going 20x faster than light" seems disingenuous.  Your energy / speed never come remotely close to c to begin with.

Differing opinions aside, for the sake of causality, they are FTL.

[Frustration he/him]

20 minutes ago, AquaRegia said:

We may just be having a difference in definitions.  By the definitions that make sense to me, Einstein says there is no way to travel faster than light in 4-dimensional spacetime (a.k.a. the Physical Realm, in Cosmere-speak).  A real-world ship can accelerate from rest to .999c, but relativity forbids then accelerating more and going FTL.  Therefore ANY real-world FTL (if such a thing turns out to be possible) must invoke more than four dimensions.

If you enter the Cognitive Realm on one planet, travel for a while, and exit on another planet (which we know for a fact multiple characters have done), then by my definitions, you have traveled faster than light.  I don't see how that "does not count".  My definition of speed is distance divided by time, so If those two planets are 20 light years apart, and you make that trip in one year, you were going 20x faster than light.

I'd still call that reguar travel, it's just a shorter distance i.e. moving across a circle rather than around it. Now if moving from the PR to the CR shifted them over several miles I might consider it, but where it's just "This space doesn't exist here" I struggle to call that FTL

 

[Ixthos he/him]

I'm with @AquaRegia on this. There may be multiple methods of FTL, but Cognitive Realm travel certainly counts. It likely bypasses causality issues due to the Cognitive Realm likely having - ironically - a consistent frame of reference, but if someone got a ship into the Cognitive Realm and then used it to travel quickly to another world and then returned to the Physical Realm that would be FTL. There possibly is still speed bubble based Physical Realm FTL, but Cognitive Realm travel is just as deserving of that term.

[StanLemon]

I'm trying to think of Roshar's potential interstellar abilities. Even Oathgates which are the most powerful transportation abilities known so far requires specific platforms. If they're limited to a single planet or anywhere an Oathgate is is yet to be seen, though I think the latter is more likely. 

I doubt they'll have Battlestar Galactica level jump drives. I think they'll be more focused on controlling movement through the CR and possibly building Oathgates for fast travel between worlds and have space ships that use sublight speeds for inner solar system movement 

[Frustration he/him]

9 minutes ago, StanLemon said:

I'm trying to think of Roshar's potential interstellar abilities. Even Oathgates which are the most powerful transportation abilities known so far requires specific platforms. If they're limited to a single planet or anywhere an Oathgate is is yet to be seen, though I think the latter is more likely. 

I doubt they'll have Battlestar Galactica level jump drives. I think they'll be more focused on controlling movement through the CR and possibly building Oathgates for fast travel between worlds and have space ships that use sublight speeds for inner solar system movement 

I agree I think that Roshar will be more gate focused compared to Scadrial's focus on FTL ships.

[AquaRegia he/him]

40 minutes ago, Frustration said:

I'd still call that regular travel, it's just a shorter distance i.e. moving across a circle rather than around it. Now if moving from the PR to the CR shifted them over several miles I might consider it, but where it's just "This space doesn't exist here" I struggle to call that FTL

Let's say Alice and Bob shake hands on Scadrial.  "May the fastest traveler win!"  Bob climbs aboard his starship and engages his hyperwarp drive; Alice enters the Cognitive Realm and starts walking.  Bob's instrument panel says Warp 15 or whatever, Alice's legs say "we're walking".

If Bob lands on Roshar six months later and finds Alice already waiting for him, who went faster?  What difference does it make who "felt like" they were traveling faster?  What I see is that Bob has an FTL ship... and Alice won the race.

We know Hoid was on Scadrial during MBe1; we know he's on Roshar during SAe1; we know he's on Scadrial again during MBe2.  If it looks like FTL, and it acts like FTL...

My point is that all you need is a way to move from PR to CR anywhere at will (which Elsecallers, among others, supposedly can).  Thus you already have all the "technology" needed to go from anywhere to anywhere in a reasonable amount of time, apparently much faster than anyone could in the PR alone.  Now, it's possible that while Worldhopping through the CR, time passes much more quickly in the PR.  Maybe after visiting another world, Khriss arrives back home at Silverlight to find that 400 years have passed.  I don't know whether that's true, but it's not the impression I've got.  It would make for unsatisfying stories, I think.

Edited March 8, 2022 by AquaRegia
correction

[Frustration he/him]

2 minutes ago, AquaRegia said:

Let's say Alice and Bob shake hands on Scadrial.  "May the fastest traveler win!"  Bob climbs aboard his starship and engages his hyperwarp drive; Alice enters the Cognitive Realm and starts walking.  Bob's instrument panel says Warp 15 or whatever, Alice's legs say "we're walking".

If Bob lands on Roshar six months later and finds Alice already waiting for him, who went faster?  What difference does it make who "felt like" they were traveling faster?  What I see is that Bob has an FTL ship... and Alice won the race.

We know Hoid was on Scadrial during MBe1; we know he's on Roshar during SAe1; we know he's on Scadrial again during MBe2.  If it looks like FTL, and it acts like FTL...

My point is that all you need is a way to move from PR to CR anywhere at will (which Elsecallers, among others, supposedly can).  Thus you already have all the "technology" needed to go from anywhere to anywhere in a reasonable amount of time, apparently much faster than anyone could in the PR alone.  Now, it's possible that while Worldhopping through the CR, time passes much more quickly in the PR.  Maybe after visiting another world, Khriss arrives back home at the 17th Shard to find that 400 years have passed.  I don't know whether that's true, but it's not the impression I've got.  It would make for unsatisfying stories, I think.

The problem with that analogy is that Bob did move faster, Alice just had less distance to cover.

[cometaryorbit]

6 hours ago, KaladinWorldsinger said:

I think you are completely jumping the gun here, space age will start happening around Mistborn era 4, stormlight 6-10 takes place after era 2. It will take a long time for scadrians to reach present day tech(era 3), i think 200 years or so.

 

I doubt it will take that long. The Basin in Era 2 is ~1910 tech, though missing a few things (e.g. radio, airplanes) largely due to their civilization being limited to a very small area.

Era 3 is supposed to be 1980s tech, so I think wed expect more like a 70 or 80 year gap rather than 200 years. And the introduction of Southern tech may speed things up.

4 hours ago, KaladinWorldsinger said:

I think the moons are impossibly far away for that to work.

Roshar's moons are not in orbits stable over billions of years. They might be no farther away than the other side of the Roshar supercontinent.

[Humble_Knight]

I think intra-system travel will be done with a combination of fabrials. Brandon has recently mentioned that the silver kingdoms had every variety of "smart" fabrials; they could mimic every surge. This means there exists Windrunning fabrials, and gravitation is an open question away from the surface of a planet. We see that lashings are applications of a single g-force in a given direction. If you are traveling through an area of space with a different gravitational well, is the strength of a lashing changed? Once you escape Roshar's well, do you use the star's gravitational force? The other interesting surge is combining transformation and division. If you have a chunk of stone that you are planning to soulcast into your propulsive fluid, you can store in in a pretty small space before transforming it, and then heating it with division (or anti - investiture annihilation). 

Just my thoughts on sublight travel methods

[SwordNimiForPresident the sword/that sword]

19 minutes ago, Humble_Knight said:

gravitation is an open question away from the surface of a planet. We see that lashings are applications of a single g-force in a given direction. If you are traveling through an area of space with a different gravitational well, is the strength of a lashing changed? Once you escape Roshar's well, do you use the star's gravitational force?

It seems to apply 1g of Rosharan gravity in a given direction. Presumably, the only reason that lashed objects do not continually accelerate in the books is that they are reaching terminal velocity. In the vacuum of space this would not be the case and interplanetary travel could be achieved in hours or days depending on the distance and the number of lashings used. This would likely be faster than the weeks long voyage through Shadesmar that would be required just to reach the edge of Roshar itself, since terminal velocity seems to also be a factor in the Cognitive Realm.

As to the reference gravity for lashings, it seems to take into account your relative motion. The further you are from a massive object the less its gravity will affect you.

[EmulatonStromenkiin he/him]

I realize that in the cytoverse, FTL travel and communication is achieved essentially by teleporting, going to the space that inhabits all points and none. You could probably achieve something similar in the cosmere if you find an easy way to travel in/out of the spiritual realm, where space doesn't matter. I still have minor objections concerning space bending, i.e. is a tesseract FTL travel, but I mostly understand.

[AquaRegia he/him]

I suppose my fundamental question is this: why does it matter whether someone figures out a technological way to make FTL spacecraft when there is already a much easier way to get from point A to point B?  Why are people hung up on "who will invent FTL and when"?  Characters already can and do travel from planet to planet.  I think a better question is "how long until everybody figures out a way to do what a few already can?"  Gavilar would say "I'm working on it."

[Anomander Rake he/him]

26 minutes ago, AquaRegia said:

I suppose my fundamental question is this: why does it matter whether someone figures out a technological way to make FTL spacecraft when there is already a much easier way to get from point A to point B?  Why are people hung up on "who will invent FTL and when"?  Characters already can and do travel from planet to planet.  I think a better question is "how long until everybody figures out a way to do what a few already can?"  Gavilar would say "I'm working on it."

It's the implications for me - knowing that they'll have the magic and physics down to a point where they're able to accomplish incredible things like that.  The currently available method doesn't have awesome implications that hide keys to understanding the magic systems, even if it does essentially the same thing a helluva lot easier.

Side note, I finally looked up Alice and Bob's origin after seeing them in so many examples like yours and even probably using them myself a time or two XD.  They're from a not so old paper on cryptography! I'd seen Carol and Ted before but never knew about the whole cast that exists.  A neat story lol

Edited March 9, 2022 by Anomander Rake

[Ixthos he/him]

34 minutes ago, Anomander Rake said:

It's the implications for me - knowing that they'll have the magic and physics down to a point where they're able to accomplish incredible things like that.  The currently available method doesn't have awesome implications that hide keys to understanding the magic systems, even if it does essentially the same thing a helluva lot easier.

Side note, I finally looked up Alice and Bob's origin after seeing them in so many examples like yours and even probably using them myself a time or two XD.  They're from a not so old paper on cryptography! I'd seen Carol and Ted before but never knew about the whole cast that exists.  A neat story lol

Oh, it gets better! Alice and Bob have a rich history. Spoilered for length from this source: https://web.mit.edu/jemorris/humor/alice-and-bob

Spoiler

The Story of Alice and Bob

(Short extract from after-dinner speech by John Gordon at The Zurich Seminar
April 1984)

I go to lots of conferences on Coding Theory in which complicated
protocols get discussed. You know the sort of thing:

     "A communicates with someone who claims to be B.
      So to be sure, A tests that B knows a secret number K.
      So A sends to B a random number X.
      B then forms Y by encrypting X under key K and sends Y back to A."

and so on. Because this sort of thing is is quite hard to follow, a few
years ago theorists stopped using the letters A and B to represent the 
main players, and started calling them Alice and Bob. So now we say

     "Alice communicates with someone claiming to be Bob.
      So to be sure, Alice tests that Bob knows a secret number K.
      Alice sends to Bob a random number X. 
      Bob then forms Y by encrypting X under key K and sends Y back to Alice." 

It's supposed to make it easier to understand.

Now there are hundreds and hundreds of papers written about Alice and Bob.

Alice and Bob have been used to illustrate all sorts of protocols and
bits of coding theory in scientific papers. Over the years Alice and Bob
have tried to defraud insurance companies, they've exchanged secret messages
over a tapped line, and the've played poker for high stakes by mail.
Now if we put together all the little details from lots of papers - a snippet
from here, a snippet from there - we get a facinating picture of their lives.

This may be the first time in the history of coding theory that a
definitive biography of Alice and Bob has been given.

Take Bob. Bob is often selling securities to speculators so we can be
pretty sure he's a stockbroker. But from his concern about eavesdropping
he is probably into something subersive on the side too.

Take Alice. From the number of times Alice tries to buy stock from
him we can say she is probably a speculator. And she's also worried
that her husband doesn't get to find out about her financial dealings.

So Bob is a subversive stockbroker and Alice is a two-timing speculator.

But Alice has a number of serious problems.

     She and Bob only get to talk by telephone or by email. 
     And in the country where they live the phone service is very expensive. 

And Alice and Bob are cheapskates.

So the first thing Alice must do is MINIMISE THE COST OF THE PHONE CALL.

The telephone in their country is also pretty lousy. The interference
is so bad that Alice and Bob can hardly hear each other. So the second thing
Alice must do is to PROTECT HER MESSAGES AGAINST ERRORS in transmission.

On top of that Alice and Bob have very powerful enemies.

One of their enemies the is the Tax Authority. Another is the Secret Police.

These enemies have almost unlimited resources. They always listen in
to telephone conversations between Alice and Bob.

This is a pity since Bob and Alice are always plotting tax frauds and
overthrowing the government.

So the third thing ALICE must do is PROTECT HER COMMUNICATIONS 
FROM EAVESDROPPING.

And these enemies are very sneaky. One of their favourite tricks is
to telephone Alice and pretend to be Bob.

So the fourth thing Alice has to do is to BE SURE SHE IS COMMUNICATING
WITH WHOM SHE THINKS SHE IS.

Well, you think, so all Alice has to do is listen very carefully to be
sure she recognises Bob's voice.

But no.

You see Alice has never met Bob. She has no idea what his voice sounds like.

All in all Alice has a whole bunch of problems.

Oh yes, and there is one more thing I forgot so say

- Alice doesn't trust Bob.

Now most people in Alice's position would give up.

Not Alice.She has courage which can only be described as awesome.

Against all odds, over a noisy telephone line, tapped by the tax
authorities and the secret police, Alice will happily attempt, with
someone she doesn't trust, whom she can't hear clearly, and who is
probably someone else, to fiddle her tax return and to organise a
cout d'etat, while at the same time minimising the cost of the phone call.

A coding theorist is someone who doesn't think Alice is crazy.

 

[Anomander Rake he/him]

1 hour ago, Ixthos said:

Oh, it gets better! Alice and Bob have a rich history. Spoilered for length from this source: https://web.mit.edu/jemorris/humor/alice-and-bob

  Reveal hidden contents

The Story of Alice and Bob

(Short extract from after-dinner speech by John Gordon at The Zurich Seminar
April 1984)

I go to lots of conferences on Coding Theory in which complicated
protocols get discussed. You know the sort of thing:

     "A communicates with someone who claims to be B.
      So to be sure, A tests that B knows a secret number K.
      So A sends to B a random number X.
      B then forms Y by encrypting X under key K and sends Y back to A."

and so on. Because this sort of thing is is quite hard to follow, a few
years ago theorists stopped using the letters A and B to represent the 
main players, and started calling them Alice and Bob. So now we say

     "Alice communicates with someone claiming to be Bob.
      So to be sure, Alice tests that Bob knows a secret number K.
      Alice sends to Bob a random number X. 
      Bob then forms Y by encrypting X under key K and sends Y back to Alice." 

It's supposed to make it easier to understand.

Now there are hundreds and hundreds of papers written about Alice and Bob.

Alice and Bob have been used to illustrate all sorts of protocols and
bits of coding theory in scientific papers. Over the years Alice and Bob
have tried to defraud insurance companies, they've exchanged secret messages
over a tapped line, and the've played poker for high stakes by mail.
Now if we put together all the little details from lots of papers - a snippet
from here, a snippet from there - we get a facinating picture of their lives.

This may be the first time in the history of coding theory that a
definitive biography of Alice and Bob has been given.

Take Bob. Bob is often selling securities to speculators so we can be
pretty sure he's a stockbroker. But from his concern about eavesdropping
he is probably into something subersive on the side too.

Take Alice. From the number of times Alice tries to buy stock from
him we can say she is probably a speculator. And she's also worried
that her husband doesn't get to find out about her financial dealings.

So Bob is a subversive stockbroker and Alice is a two-timing speculator.

But Alice has a number of serious problems.

     She and Bob only get to talk by telephone or by email. 
     And in the country where they live the phone service is very expensive. 

And Alice and Bob are cheapskates.

So the first thing Alice must do is MINIMISE THE COST OF THE PHONE CALL.

The telephone in their country is also pretty lousy. The interference
is so bad that Alice and Bob can hardly hear each other. So the second thing
Alice must do is to PROTECT HER MESSAGES AGAINST ERRORS in transmission.

On top of that Alice and Bob have very powerful enemies.

One of their enemies the is the Tax Authority. Another is the Secret Police.

These enemies have almost unlimited resources. They always listen in
to telephone conversations between Alice and Bob.

This is a pity since Bob and Alice are always plotting tax frauds and
overthrowing the government.

So the third thing ALICE must do is PROTECT HER COMMUNICATIONS 
FROM EAVESDROPPING.

And these enemies are very sneaky. One of their favourite tricks is
to telephone Alice and pretend to be Bob.

So the fourth thing Alice has to do is to BE SURE SHE IS COMMUNICATING
WITH WHOM SHE THINKS SHE IS.

Well, you think, so all Alice has to do is listen very carefully to be
sure she recognises Bob's voice.

But no.

You see Alice has never met Bob. She has no idea what his voice sounds like.

All in all Alice has a whole bunch of problems.

Oh yes, and there is one more thing I forgot so say

- Alice doesn't trust Bob.

Now most people in Alice's position would give up.

Not Alice.She has courage which can only be described as awesome.

Against all odds, over a noisy telephone line, tapped by the tax
authorities and the secret police, Alice will happily attempt, with
someone she doesn't trust, whom she can't hear clearly, and who is
probably someone else, to fiddle her tax return and to organise a
cout d'etat, while at the same time minimising the cost of the phone call.

A coding theorist is someone who doesn't think Alice is crazy.

 

LOL thats great, thank you for sharing.  I love niche little bits of history like this.

[Zibus]

On 3/7/2022 at 1:54 PM, AquaRegia said:

It's clear the Cosmere is moving towards space travel and interactions between cultures... but why does that insure conflict?  It would be like the US invading and conquering Mexico because we want to put up some solar panels there.  Why a war when what we really want is a DEAL?  Seems to me that the future of the Cosmere should be interstellar TRADE, not interstellar WAR.

You could say the same thing about our world, but just look at what's happening right now in Ukraine. Even when trade is better, many powerful people will choose war instead.

On 3/8/2022 at 3:35 PM, StanLemon said:

I'm trying to think of Roshar's potential interstellar abilities. Even Oathgates which are the most powerful transportation abilities known so far requires specific platforms. If they're limited to a single planet or anywhere an Oathgate is is yet to be seen, though I think the latter is more likely. 

I doubt they'll have Battlestar Galactica level jump drives. I think they'll be more focused on controlling movement through the CR and possibly building Oathgates for fast travel between worlds and have space ships that use sublight speeds for inner solar system movement 

We very well might end up with different sides using very different sorts of FTL tech, like in the old game Web and Starship. One side can travel space quickly with FTL ships but can't move big armies effectively, while the other has gates that can move big armies but has to set up gates on each world they want to visit. More info here if you're interested: http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/fasterlight.php#webstarship

8 hours ago, AquaRegia said:

I suppose my fundamental question is this: why does it matter whether someone figures out a technological way to make FTL spacecraft when there is already a much easier way to get from point A to point B?  Why are people hung up on "who will invent FTL and when"?  Characters already can and do travel from planet to planet.  I think a better question is "how long until everybody figures out a way to do what a few already can?"  Gavilar would say "I'm working on it."

From a military perspective because space is much harder to defend than the Cognitive realm. The Cognitive realm will eventually function as a parallel battlefield, I imagine, with each planet careful defending its "cognitive" borders. We know there's already a whole city (Silverlight) that exists primarily in the Cognitive. Once large scale cognitive travel is developed, you're going to have armies trying to move through it. On the other hand, millions of light years of space are much harder to control so if you can develop FTL ships that travel only (or primarily) through the Physical Realm it could be a huge advantage.

[+Bzhydack he/him]

11 hours ago, AquaRegia said:

I suppose my fundamental question is this: why does it matter whether someone figures out a technological way to make FTL spacecraft when there is already a much easier way to get from point A to point B?  Why are people hung up on "who will invent FTL and when"?  Characters already can and do travel from planet to planet.  I think a better question is "how long until everybody figures out a way to do what a few already can?"  Gavilar would say "I'm working on it."

Big issue with travel throu Cognitive Realm is that it is accessable only in specific points - usually Perpendicularities. While Roshar has plenty of those points (Oathgates + Perpendicularity + Bondsmiths), other planets have only one or two those points, and they can be very easly blocked from one side or another. So during conflict they are critical poits, because if one side will be able to conquer them, will automaticly cut off other side from Cognitive Realm. And Physical Realm FTL dont have this issue.

Also, those points have only limited exchange capacity. With trade and tavels on larger scale they would generate massive traffics.

[AquaRegia he/him]

6 hours ago, Bzhydack said:

Big issue with travel throu Cognitive Realm is that it is accessable only in specific points - usually Perpendicularities.

Am I mistaken that both Elsecallers and Willshapers have the Surge of Transportation?  That's two orders of Radiants who can a] move to and from the CR anywhere and b] take armies and equipment along - it's just a matter of scaling, the ability already exists.  And if one magic system grants this ability, it seems likely others will also.