Difference between revisions of "Fourth Bridge"
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|captain=[[Navani Kholin]]
|world=Roshar
|universe=[[
|books=[[Stormlight Archive]]
}}
{{quote
|She is an odd ship, to be sure, but majestic in her own way.
}}
The ''
== Design ==
The back half of the upper deck is covered by a semi-round roof, while the front half is open-air and surrounded by a railing. [[Bridge Four]]'s original bridge is embedded into the floor; some of the [[Windrunners]] have a habit of kneeling down and touching it before taking off. A command station, composed of several tables, is typically placed in the sheltered section, though in some cases, it might be moved to the front. The furniture is bolted down.{{book ref|sa4|3}}{{file ref|Navani's Notebook - The Fourth Bridge.jpg|text=The Fourth Bridge}}
The lower decks serve as the hold. The bottom one has a broad door that allows large amounts of people to come in and out at once. It functions akin to a drawbridge; it forms a wall and can be lowered and raised by ropes to open and close. While sparsely-furnished, the holds can accomodate several hundred people.{{book ref|sa4|3}} There are numbers painted on their walls, dividing them into
=== Mechanics ===
The airship doesn't so much fly as it is held in the air by [[fabrial]]s. There are hundreds of gemstones forming a lattice of
The conjoiner fabrials are isolated using [[aluminum]] so that only certain planes of movement are transferred between the paired gem halves. The Urithiru structure can only convey vertical motion; the Shattered Plains lattice can only transfer horizontal motion. The former is lowered to raise the airship, while the latter is moved around to make it fly and turn in any direction.{{book ref|sa4|19}}{{book ref|sa4|3}} To allow the ship to continue moving when the space for the lattices runs out, an additional aluminum mechanism is used to reverse the motion while the gemstones are temporarily unhooked.{{book ref|sa4|3}}
The arrival did not go smoothly, as Kaladin's approach to Hearthstone was discovered, leading to a squad of [[Fused]] being sent their way. However, the ship still successfully made landing, delivering the Radiants and picking up the citizens of Hearthstone and other refugees. The first among them was the Herdazian general [[Dieno enne Calah]], who asked that the ship be used to pick up the remainder of his resistance forces, which Dalinar agreed to.{{book ref|sa4|3}}
As the evacuation progressed, the battle began to rage in the skies around the ship. The Fused were fascinated by the ''Fourth Bridge'', trying to approach and take a look at its mechanisms
=== The Fused Response ===
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In [[Kholinar]], the airship caused some concern among the Nine who ruled the Fused, leading into a discussion about humanity's newfound technical prowess. It was this conversation that allowed [[Raboniel]] to suggest the plan to invade [[Urithiru]].{{book ref|sa4|14}} Meanwhile, the ''Fourth Bridge'' arrived on the Shattered Plains
It's unclear what happened with the airship afterwards. [[Falilar]] and Navani both suggested a number of issues to resolve, including fixing the fans and checking whether the weight didn't crack the gemstones; as such, it probably remained on the Plains.{{book ref|sa4|9}} In Urithiru, Navani began workshopping ideas for new designs, though her work was interrupted by the [[Voidbringer]] invasion.{{book ref|sa4|42}} With conjoiner fabrials nonfunctional after Raboniel turned the tower's defenses on the Radiants, the airship most likely remained grounded for the entire period of occupation, as the vertical movement lattice was mounted in Urithiru.{{book ref|sa4|39}}
== Trivia ==
* The ship's speed -- about five knots -- is equivalent to about 9.2 km/h, or 5.8 mph.
* Brandon joked that "how can I make airships with this" was the third
* Up until very late in the publishing process for ''[[Rhythm of War]]'', the discovery of the interactions between aluminum and fabrials, which made the ''Fourth Bridge'' possible, was attributed to [[Azish]] scholars; the version of chapter 3 released publicly on Tor.com still has this explanation.{{url ref|url=https://www.tor.com/2020/07/28/read-rhythm-of-war-by-brandon-sanderson-chapters-two-and-three/|text=''Rhythm of War'': Chapters 2 and 3|site=Tor.com}} Brandon disliked it, and when writing ''[[Dawnshard]]'', he changed it so that [[Huio]] and [[Rushu]] were behind the discovery.{{wob ref|14403}} The change narrowly made it into book before release.
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