“They will all be killed, with no survivors. It’s a simple process:

1.) Enter the minds of the army.
2.) Kill them all.
3.) Feel around and look for survivors.
4.) Kill them all.”

Problem is the Bond. All of Richard’s troops, about 25–33% of SoT’s total forces, are immune to psychic powers. Trying to enter their minds would be futile.

Alagaesia wiping out the force to a man would be a good hit against SoT, since they would be able to use the death words reliably again, but it isn’t too likely. SoT doesn’t march with just soldiers at once. If there are Mriswith accompanying them, they would probably go unnoticed by virtue of being invisible and resistent to searching/finding magic, and if the force was slaughtered they could report back. There are also going to be wizards and sorceresses among their ranks, who have already taken defensive precautions against general magic at least insofar as their bodily well being is concerned, and will be actively watching for any magical tricks from Alagaesia.

“Thats how wards operate in Alagaesia, not SoT. I need to know the nature of this wizards web. The only thing I could find on it is that Zedd used it to keep his identity a secret in Wizards First Rule.”

Shields operate in a similar fashion in both series.

A wizard’s web is a lingering spell that is placed around an object or person to protect it or cause an effect. They have been used to disguise identity, create and sustain illusions, form trapping webs that restrain the one they’re cast on, or create shields that stick around an area or over a person to protect them from damage or assault. For example, Demmin Nass and his quadsman had a wizard’s web placed over them in the first book that blocked any magical attack that wasn’t stronger than the web, deflecting it back at the caster. Also, shields like this are placed in strategic points in areas such as the Wizard’s Keep or the Palace of the Prophets to prevent anyone but certain people, or those with strong magic, from passing them.

“considering that most armys march without much in the way of magical support, it’s possible that the initial battles would leave the SoT with no survivors nor reliable intel. Alagaesia can psychicly track down the survivors and kill them instantly. SoT could dedicate a hero or to in order to get some intel, but that runs the risk of losing them.”

A Mriswith would make an ideal spy/intelligence officer, especially given that there’s plenty of them, not just a few, and they are invisible and undetectable to most magics. No need to risk a hero when SoT could send one of them to gather information.

@Darth Destro
i find that more than a little unlikely, as it has not taken into account master generals like Jagang the Just and Kahlan Amnell. They would not just stand still while their armies are being blown to pieces, they would figure out a counterattack. Secondly the “kill them all with death words” fails to take into account one very simple fact: Mord-Sith are among the Rahl armies. Though in small numbers, I have already explained their lethal abilities. If even Galbatorix tried to cast something as simple as a Death Word on a Mord-Sith, it would be the last bit of harm he would ever do to his future mistress. Oh, I’d just love to see Cara get her Agiel onto Galbatorix…

I’ll have to second AHEM. If Galbatorix took to the field he wouldn’t go after the mord- sith but the super powerful magicians

““I’ll have to second AHEM. If Galbatorix took to the field he wouldn’t go after the mord- sith but the super powerful magicians”

And he’d be quite a force in that department. I don’t think there’s anyone or anything in SoT, shy of Orden, that could bring down Galbatorix. It would probably take two dozen of SoT’s strongest wizards and sorceresses working together to bring him down, especially if he had Murtagh and Thorn for backup.”

I agree. The suggestion of Cara bringing down Galbatorix was not meant as plausible, but as a demonstration of what the Mord-Sith can do. Though it would be cool if Galbatorix was broken by Cara or Bridene…

“Not to mention the dragon Shurikan that’s by his side 24/7″

Yes, a good point. I think I mentioned some posts back that it would be very implausible for a Mord-Sith to be able to capture a Dragon Rider, because the dragon doesn’t actively use magic to be captured and would defend their Rider. No Mord-Sith is immune to a big set of claws.

“I also seriously doubt he could survive a direct attack from Nicholas the Slide, who’s soul stealing bypasses all magical defenses.”

Nicholas is explicitly vulnerable to psychic attacks. A telepath can enter his mind and incapacitate him at the speed of thought, quicker than he can summon his Slide attack. He can only attack with his Slide powers at normal human reflex time, as evidenced when he was too slow to strike at Richard despite seeing him, and thinking about him. This would prove a fatal weakness when tested against Galbatorix’s immense mental power.

“AHEM, I was reading brisingr yesterday and it said that the power inside of Aren Brom’s ring had enough power to destroy a large castle.”

That is correct.

“Brisingr also shows of Galbatorix’s might. He held two powerful dragons and their riders perfectly still hundreds of feet above the ground. He sat in Uru’baen and the spell took place in Gil’ead. Spells cost more the farther you get from the source. Brom and Arya both said that cast a spell over a mile would be tremendous. He casted a spell over what seems to be somewhere in the realm of 40-120 mi. Galbatorix said he could hold the spell for as long as he wanted for he had become LIKE a God”

What he said was actually, “I can keep you thus as long as I want, for I have become as powerful as a god, and there are none who can stop me! . . . I am the greatest of magicians, and soon I will be even greater still.”

The correct answer is the Sword of Truth universe. Many reasons have already been listed, but I’ll add a few that I haven’t seen.

Reason 1: The picture/painting magic that was utilized to completely remove Richard’s ability to use magic until the image was disrupted. It was also used to send the ‘gobblies’ after Rachel, driving her to the artist’s location(this was the artist’s decision, since the Violet(the artist) was a spiteful twit with a grudge against Rachel and wanted to watch her die), where she would have been killed had she not had the necessary blood to do use the art-magic and been around to learn how the art-magic worked.
– When applied to the ‘heavy hitters’ of Alagaesia, they’re screwed. Strip them of their magical abilities, sure, they’re still melee machines, but get blasted into oblivion. Alternatively, the ‘gobblies’ – or something similar could be sent to kill them. So far as I know, nothing in Alagaesia is comparable, thus it would not be an attack with a counter-spell. The art-magic also, so far as I can tell, ignores range. I believe that there are other applications of the art-magic, but I can’t remember what they are.

Reason 2: The Chainfire spell/ritual.
– Not having the access to the right SoT books, I can’t recall or check exactly how broadly Chainfire can be targeted (what it’s erasing from memories), but in Confessor, Richard sends Chainfire to the new new world and has it erasing the memories of magic itself.
Erasing the Alagaesian’s memory of magic, the Ancient language, or some of their major entities (also wipes their memories of who they are, and makes them invisible to everyone not involved in the casting, touched with the Sword of Truth, or, I suspect, Pristinely Ungifted) would severely cripple the Alagaesians.
The closest parallel in Alagaesia is when the Dragons got together and stripped the names and identities from Galby’s first dragon and the dragons of the Forsworn. However, Chainfire is still on a vastly more powerful scale.

Reason 3: In order to win, Alagaesia needs to counter-conquer Sword of Truth – otherwise Sword of Truth wins via time, attrition, and destroying Alagaesian territory in successive waves. Which, frankly is going to be even more difficult than Sword of Truth conquering Alagaesia.
Attrition ultimately favors SoT over Alagaesia – vastly larger populations, and both Elves and Dwarves are small populations even relative to the Alagaesian Humans, and thus vastly less replaceable – essentially if an Elf dies, they’re not being replaced, Dwarves have some degree of replacement ability, but it is limited.
Plus, the Alagaesian’s military, even assuming that they can via conscription restore the military for their invasion force to be sized similarly to their start point, is woefully outnumbered by the civilians in the New World, much less the Old World, which is even more heavily populated; with that force-rebuild assumption for them, we should assume similar force-rebuilding capability, if not superior force-rebuilding capability, for the Sword of Truth side.
Once Alagaesia invades SoT, they will have to deal with major hardpoints (not so up on the Old World hardpoints, so they’re unlisted); The Temple of Winds (access is blocked to everyone except Richard and who he lets in), Aydindril(sp?), the Wizard’s Keep, the Palace of the Prophets, and the People’s Palace.
My personal favorite is probably the People’s Palace. The People’s Palace is an enormous rune that amplifies the Current Lord Rahl’s power and basically gibs everyone else’s magic who isn’t Lord Rahl. In addition to being a magical uber-hardpoint, it’s also a hardpoint in more conventional terms.

Reason 4: The SoT Witch-women, such as Six, possess some sort of innate temporal ability that enables them to twist magic cast at them against the caster – the stronger the attempted spell, the more strongly it’s twisted. Nikki/Nicci(forget which spelling is correct) who is very powerful in her own right put herself into a coma for several days when she tried to take out Six. I’m uncertain about the other abilities of Witch-women off-hand. So far as I can tell, nothing in Alagaesia is remotely comparable to this, and even all of Galby’s power would be turned back against him.

As for Shruikan shredding a Mord-Sith who Galby had tried to blast – it’s explicitly stated that Shruikan has been compelled to serve Galby via dark arts, aka, magic; that compulsion is the only reason Shruikan’s name wasn’t stripped along with the names of the dragon of the Forsworn. Thus, if Galby’s power has been captured by a Mord-Sith, it is arguable that those bindings would be broken or suspended. Not sure about that, though. If the bindings were broken, that would leave a freshly freed dragon, now whether Shruikan would side with the person who has enslaved him and made him kill his own kind for over 100 years or the person who released him (even if said person is on the other side in the war) could be debated, though I’m inclined to say that Shruikan would just bug out of there in our current scenario.
As for why Galby would attempt to blast a Mord-Sith – if a strike team used the Slyph to insert into wherever Galby was spending the night, well, that strikes me as a reasonable situation for Galby to lash out against them.

Question: Would the act of attempting to reach out and touch her mind count as trying to use magic against a Mord-Sith? If so, it would be even easier for the Mord-Sith to disrupt the Alagaesian casters.
The Alagaesian telepathic abilities are magical in nature, so it seems likely they could trigger Mord-Sith-happy-fun times – but there is the Rahl Bond, which might prevent them from getting close enough to trigger Mord-Sith-happy-fun times.

@ Moondancer
Though let it be known i am on your side, I don’t think it is quite as easy as you might think. Sot’s dragons were mostly killed by the chimes, and the ones that weren’t are infinitely smaller.
Though the magicians we hear about the most (Zedd, Richard, Nicci, Prelate Verna, Sister Ulcia) are much more powerful than a Varden or Emperor spellcaster, I think an average Sister of the Light is not that high above an Emperor wizard.
As for the Mord-Sith, certainly a good idea for taking out Varden spellcasters and the like. But they weren’t able to take out, say, Jagang. Even Mord-Sith have limits. They can’t turn invisible to sneak past the hundreds of Galbatorix’s guards. Remember, Galbatorix hardly ever takes the battlefront, and if he does, he would be very, very careful where he cast his magic. It is still possible a Mord-Sith to capture Galby, just unlikely.

@Moondancer
As mentioned earlier in this post, SoT dragons are much smaller than A dragons. Believe you me, the four dragons left in Alagaesia would have no problem with ten of the best dragons SoT has to offer.

I do think that Sword of Truth has the advantage as current reasoning goes, but I would raise objections to a few points here.

“– When applied to the ‘heavy hitters’ of Alagaesia, they’re screwed. Strip them of their magical abilities, sure, they’re still melee machines, but get blasted into oblivion. Alternatively, the ‘gobblies’ – or something similar could be sent to kill them.”

The only person the anti-magic artwork has been applied to was Richard, who at the time was unskilled in the use of his Gift and didn’t really understand it. Experienced magic users have never had this applied to them before. In fact, in the first book, Zedd stated that the Tamarang magic artwork wouldn’t have worked against him or Kahlan. Putting this kind of magic on someone as experienced as Galbatorix, who has been studying magic for the past century and is constantly protected by wards designed to block any magical attack, might not work so well. Sure, he might not have see this specific spell before, but his experience with his own magic alone might thwart it.

Assuming they were stripped of their ability to summon and control magic, there’s still the fact of their wards. Galbatorix, Murtagh, and most others can cast wards on themselves that keep working even when they aren’t paying attention to them or upkeeping them, and wards can even be cast over someone who doesn’t have any magic of their own. Assuming they were stripped of being able to use magic, they would likely still be protected by their wards, and thus not quite so easy to blast away.

Furthermore, the artwork is only designed to strip innate magic, not outside magical powers like enchanted objects. Considering that Galbatorix and Murtagh both get the majority of their strength from their Eldunari, which have nothing to do with their innate magical powers, they would be unlikely to be rendered helpless magically.

“Erasing the Alagaesian’s memory of magic, the Ancient language, or some of their major entities (also wipes their memories of who they are, and makes them invisible to everyone not involved in the casting, touched with the Sword of Truth, or, I suspect, Pristinely Ungifted) would severely cripple the Alagaesians.”

Only problem is, Chainfire starts the end of the world, whatever it’s used upon. With Sword of Truth and Alagaesian placed on the same planet, the SoT forces would be unlikely to utilize something that would ultimately destroy them as well as their opponents.

“The SoT Witch-women, such as Six, possess some sort of innate temporal ability that enables them to twist magic cast at them against the caster – the stronger the attempted spell, the more strongly it’s twisted. Nikki/Nicci(forget which spelling is correct) who is very powerful in her own right put herself into a coma for several days when she tried to take out Six. I’m uncertain about the other abilities of Witch-women off-hand. So far as I can tell, nothing in Alagaesia is remotely comparable to this, and even all of Galby’s power would be turned back against him.”

It’s correctly spelled Nicci, with two Cs.

As dangerous as this power of a witch woman’s can be, it leaves an important vulnerability to smaller magics. According to Zedd, a wizard can thwart such magic by using deliberately small magics. Problem is for witch women, the main attack spells of the strongest magicians in Alagaesia are the Twelve Words of Death, which are very small in function but cause great amounts of damage, such as by tearing vital arteries. Given that very small, precise magics are exactly what a witch woman is vulnerable to, it would be very chancy, to say the least, for Six or Shota to attack someone like Galbatorix.

“As for Shruikan shredding a Mord-Sith who Galby had tried to blast – it’s explicitly stated that Shruikan has been compelled to serve Galby via dark arts, aka, magic; that compulsion is the only reason Shruikan’s name wasn’t stripped along with the names of the dragon of the Forsworn. Thus, if Galby’s power has been captured by a Mord-Sith, it is arguable that those bindings would be broken or suspended. Not sure about that, though.”

Galbatorix has numerous methods of binding others to his service, and only some of them depend on his own magic. For example, he has all of his servants swear oaths of loyalty to him in the Ancient Language, which has nothing to do with his magic. Even if Galbatorix had no magic and his charms holding Shruikan were broken, the dragon would still be compelled by his oaths to protect and serve Galbatorix in every way possible.

“As for why Galby would attempt to blast a Mord-Sith – if a strike team used the Slyph to insert into wherever Galby was spending the night, well, that strikes me as a reasonable situation for Galby to lash out against them.”

The Slyph can only travel to a limited number of static locations that were designated as points for the Slyph when it was made, all of which are within Alagaesia, and the Slyph never mentioned a point that was located right inside the castle of the king of a far off land. Unless Galbatorix decides to travel to Alagaesia and then camp out right where one of the Slyph’s wells are, he wouldn’t be ambushed in his sleep.

“While Galby would be hard to get to stuck up in his castle as he is SOT has something that can get past his magical defences. The people of Bandarkar are imune to magic them and a small force of mord sith can sneak into the castle and take him out.”

The Bandakar could get past Galbatorix’s protective wards, but the Mord-Sith would have no such protection. While Mord-Sith can capture other’s magic, they are vulnerable to magical traps, as Zedd having to lead Rikka through the traps of the Keep in Chainfire proves. Furthermore, the Bandakar themselves are almost all pacifists who have no interest in war, and the ones who aren’t pacifists have no military or stealth training that they would need to stage such an assassination. The only Pristinely Ungifted with any level of combat skill is Richard’s half-sister Jennsen, who Richard probably wouldn’t want to send on such an obvious suicide mission.

“I dont think Murtaugh and Galbatoriks are as powerfull as you think. Perhaps in Eldest but even in that fight Murtaugh is stronger only because of the Elendenari. In Brisinger Eragon and Saphira best him slightly although it could be said he had his 12 elves. Murtaugh had his 12 or so dragon hearts. I say therefore that they are even.”

MURTAGH, not Murtaugh. Don’t spell the name of the most badass character in Inheritance wrong. Oh, and he uses Eldunari or Eldunarya, not Elendenari.

Yeah, they were even in that fight, when Eragon was getting help from Arya, Saphira, and a dozen elves, while Murtagh was fighting alone except for Thorn. If Eragon had been alone, they would not have been even.

“Im not so sure. where specificly does it say that Alagaesia dragons are bigger. I looked in confessor but couldent find any size relatedinformation. If you could site where you found that piece of information i would then conclude that they are smaller. And beside that point i think even if they are smaller size hardley matters. They are fersocious and tough.”

The size comparison comes from the official artwork, which is posted on the front of the books. Compare the size of Scarlet on the cover of Wizard’s First Rule to Thorn on the Swedish cover of Eldest.

http://img1.fantasticfiction.co.uk/images/n0/n4562.jpg

http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/inheritance/images/6/6e/Swedish-eldest.jpg

Just for reference, Scarlet is being ridden by Richard, who’s bigger than most men. Thorn is being ridden by Murtagh, a man of middling height and size. In Alagaesia, there are dragons that vastly outclass Thorn in terms of size and raw strength.

“Murtagh was not fighting alone. At this fight he had about a dozen dragon hearts. Eragon had a dozen elves. If Murtagh and Thorn were to fight Eragon and Saphira and neither of them have their hearts or elven help then the field would be even, with Eragon a little stonger magicly then Murtagh.
In the battle in Eldest Murtagh had some 5-10 hearts proved by the “multitudes” in his head. Eragon had no hearts or Elven help and yet still almost beat him. Eragon is about as powerfull as Murtagh. Saphira is more powerfull then Thorn.”

Fighting alone may have some quirky definitions, considering that both Eragon and Murtagh have been massively powered up by outside factors that the other doesn’t have. If you were to take away Murtagh’s HoHs(and I remind you at this point that there is no definite number or even estimate as to how many Murtagh is carrying), then you’d have to consider whether it would be “fair” to take away Eragon’s elvish traits, his energy-stored jewels, etc.

Eragon did not “almost” beat Murtagh in Eldest. He got his a** kicked. Murtagh easily defeated him without even tiring himself. According to the author himself, Eragon was severely outmatched by Murtagh at that battle magically, and would still have lost even if he had been in much better shape with all the power available to him at the time.

And Saphira is not more powerful than Thorn. If she was, she would actually win a fight against him, rather than engaging in a fairly equal battle in which both repeatedly receive injuries and strike blows, and Thorn outfought Saphira at the end of Eldest despite being severely injured at the time. The only indication that Saphira is stronger than Thorn is her own hollow boasting, and really, this is the same dragon who proclaimed herself to be stronger than gods.

“As for SOT characters. Shota and Six are not weakened by smaller magicians. In fact if a smaller(in power) magacian attacked them even with the most minute spell they would not be destroyed but in fact nullified. In the beggining of Confessor Zedd admited that he could not best the witches in a fight he could only protect himself with the small trickle of power. If either Six or Shota were to engage Galbatoriks the dragonrider would be destroyed.”

You are really overestimating the witches, here.

There temporal-twisting only works on stronger magic, hence why a skillful magic user can beat them by using tactically weaker magic, as with the Death Words. Before the events of the books, Zedd defeated Shota and took the Sword of Truth from her despite her abilities, precisely by using these sort of tactics.

Shota and Six are not invincible. Against a Dragon Rider who could protect himself against their magic while striking back with deadly spells that are too small for them to twist back on them, they would die.

“Richard could take on Murtagh and Eragon.
The SOT universe have very big men. Jangangs guard are all around 250 pounds and 6 foot 8. Richard while being stabed and wounded the night before killed three of them in a few seconds. Richard is a sort of superhuman himself. He killed 30 Baka tu mana Tribes people. If Verna was right and each was about worth as much as 50 men then richard killed 1,500 people. Just read the descriptions of Richard in a fight any fight from any book. He will do what it takes to win any fight. He will not lose. Richard has taken pain that would kill Eragon or Murtagh. (the head pains)(agiel). In magic Richard is unparellel. He said that if he attacked the heart of the imperial order he would wipe out a large majority but eventually be killed. What is 50% of the imperial order? about one million five hundred thousand people. Do not underestimate richard or you will be killed.”

Hyperbole.

Richard never said anything about wiping out a majority of the Imperial Order. He only made comments along the lines of being able to kill a good many, not a large fraction. If he could wipe out such a large percentage of the Imperial Order, he would do so. If he actually said at one point that he could kill half of them by himself, then give me a quote and a page number in the particular book.

Richard is not superhuman. He is a peak human with the optimal level of fighting skill possible for a human to attain, through having the memories of multiple master swordsmen, and a powerful magic sword. He is limited to human reflexes and reaction times. He is a deadly opponent for someone with normal human strength and speed to face and well beyond any normal human combatant, but he is severely outmatched physically by what he is facing.

Murtagh and Eragon are both master swordsmen as well, with highly magical swords, who possess superhuman strength and speed. They’ve blown through elite soldiers, monsters, urgals, and other threats by the hundreds with ease. In the time it takes for Richard to put his hand on the hilt of the Sword of Truth, Murtagh or Eragon could rush forward and decapitate him. Even if he was able to fight them one-on-one, his slower reflexes would fatally cripple him. He’d never be able to land a blow on them with the Sword of Truth, because from their point of view, he’d be moving in slow motion, while from his point of view, Murtagh and Eragon would be moving super-fast.

“Telepathy will not work for A. Richards troops are protected by the bond and Jangangs by the dreamwalkers power. Jangangs power is different then A. He immediatly gets complete control over a victum unlike A where there is a strugle.”

Jagang might not have to struggle whenever he faces an unprotected person, but he definitely struggles when he has to take over a person who does not have the gift, and when he encounters actual resistence(the Bond) he can’t do anything at all.

In Alagaesia, there isn’t a struggle unless the victim can set up wards of resistence, in which case the Alagaesian magicians at least have a chance of battering it down, unlike Jagang, who is easily blocked by the Bond. In the case where there is no ward protecting a victim, they are easily and effortlessly taken over.

As for protection, I would accept that the Bond would thwart Alagaesian telepathy, but Jagang has never demonstrated the ability to protect his own troops from hostile telepaths, or shield his own mind from them. To say he could do so is simply speculation.

“Heres a different perspective for a universe match who is the better writer, Paolini or Goodkind?”

Goodkind by far.

In the fourth book I think it is very likely that saphira would eventually give Eragon her endari

What if while SOT was attacking Alegaisia, Galbatorix was attacking SOT villiages, farms, and cities? Wouldn’t destruction at home drive the SOT back to their world

that’s cute.

Here’s how the fight goes at every meeting beetween alageisia forces and sword of truth forces.

1. Galbatorix or Mutagh or Oromis or Eragon enters the mind of every solider on the battle ground.

2. Kill them all.

3. Death words

SoT guys have no way to counter Alageisia’s death words and mind intrusion. They do not understand how it works. They don’t know about death words. etc.

Consider this: Eragon can slaughter thousands of troops who weren’t protected by death words. Galbatorix has many times the magical energy as Eragon. Galbatorix, Eragon, Murtagh and Oromis working together could slaughter hundreds of thousands every day. Plus, SoT doesn’t really have any tough heroes. Oh yes and Jajang’s mind F*ckery won’t work because everyday jack off magicians in A. can protect not only their minds, but the minds of hundreds of troops and still have energy to cast.