Book Ter'angreal (KoD spoilers)

[o***@yahoo.com]

I just re-read the part of the book where Aviendha discovers how to use the
Ter'angreal that seems to be a book archive. "Thousands and thousands of books"
in fact. And Elayne seemed to think it was divided up into fiction and
non-fiction. Because Aviendha did her indentifying and went away so quickly I
didn't think much of it until later. But later I realized that the books in
that Ter'angreal may be the most important find from times of old that the
characters have discovered. Think of how much information would be in there.
Assuming it's from the Age of Legends those books could include information
engineering, medicine, physics, chemistry, biology, and, of course, the One
Power. The ramifications of all those books could be like having the library of
Congress dropped into the middle of Victorian England. It could move the
science, technology, channeling, etc. of the Third Age ahead by thousands of
years if properly studied.

I've heard some people say that they think Rand will seal the bore and seal away
the one power as well. I'm not sure I agree. More and more I see the seeds of
a coming Age of Legends, assuming the good guys win The Last Battle. Channelers
are discovering or re-discovering (sometimes through captured Forsaken) new ways
to use the one power at a remarkable rate. Such as the making of Ter'angreal,
heartstone, better versions of Healing, etc.

If the DO is put out of commission for a while and the world is allowed to
develop peacefully then with the help of Ter'angreal full of books, knowledge
gleaned from the Forsaken, and just good old research then it may very well
flourish into the Age of Legends. Only to have the Bore opened up again as the
wheel turns...

[bercreaup]

Well, three things.

1) When an Age comes around again, all memory of its previous instance
has disappeared. Since much legend and even, as you point out, public
record of the AoL still exists in Randland, the next AoL must be a
long, long way off.

2) Randlanders live in the third age. Out of the 7 ages, the AoL must
either be the 1st or 7th (which depends on who you ask). Either way,
there are either 3 or 4 full ages bestween Rand's time and the next
AoL. Many thousands of years.

3) If Randland is supposed to be our world, and I believe RJ has said
it is in Q & A, there must be an intervening time between the third age
and the AoL where the One Power is untouchable: the age we currently
live in.

But that doesn't mean it has to be Rand that seals away the One Power.
It could happen, say, at the end of the fourth or fifth age. And I do
agree that they're discovering enough new stuff with the OP that some
big things could be in the works. Maybe the new age will be a
wonderous age that is not quite up to snuff with the AoL, but still
greater than any other age humanity remembers.

[Dave Holman]

Post by o***@yahoo.com
I just re-read the part of the book where Aviendha discovers how to use the
Ter'angreal that seems to be a book archive. "Thousands and thousands of books"
in fact. And Elayne seemed to think it was divided up into fiction and
non-fiction. Because Aviendha did her indentifying and went away so quickly I
didn't think much of it until later. But later I realized that the books in
that Ter'angreal may be the most important find from times of old that the
characters have discovered. Think of how much information would be in there.
Assuming it's from the Age of Legends those books could include information
engineering, medicine, physics, chemistry, biology, and, of course, the One
Power. The ramifications of all those books could be like having the library of
Congress dropped into the middle of Victorian England. It could move the
science, technology, channeling, etc. of the Third Age ahead by thousands of
years if properly studied.

Which is precisely why I found the passage annoying. Either the
ter'angreal has to be lost in the next book (which would obviate the
need for the passage in the first place, thus turning it into a waste
of space) or the next age has to go through a series of catastrophes
surpassing in severity even the once every thousand years bloodbaths
that have characterized the Third Age. After 3,000 years of a medieval
society punctuated by horrific events, which followed the most
catastrophic event of them all; the Breaking of the World, which in
turn followed the War of the Shadow, which in turn had followed God
only knows how many thousands of years of AoL peace, the world is only
_now_ forgetting our Age, the First Age. It's taken that bloody long to
turn the Cold War and the first landing on the moon into myths and
stories that are probably nearing the end of their lives. If you toss
the ter'ipod into Randland and _don't_ destroy it, then I fail to see
how one could realistically eliminate virtually all knowledge of the
Second Age within any reasonable time frame. Based on the world
dynamics that Jordan's created (legend to myth, myth long forgotten,
etc.), the AoL should be nothing more than a few scattered artifacts
and some stories that lack much if any historical context within a few
hundred years of the end of the Last Battle.

[Tricia]

Wasn't this the Ter'angreal where RJ himself makes an "appearance" in
the series -- chubby guy with book? More than likely it was just
another cameo appearance on his part.

Tricia

[Robert E]

Post by Tricia
Wasn't this the Ter'angreal where RJ himself makes an "appearance" in
the series -- chubby guy with book? More than likely it was just
another cameo appearance on his part.
Tricia

At least he's not Clive Cussler.

[Antonio Contreras]

Post by Dave Holman

Post by o***@yahoo.com
I just re-read the part of the book where Aviendha discovers how to use the
Ter'angreal that seems to be a book archive. "Thousands and thousands of books"
in fact. And Elayne seemed to think it was divided up into fiction and
non-fiction. Because Aviendha did her indentifying and went away so quickly I
didn't think much of it until later. But later I realized that the books in
that Ter'angreal may be the most important find from times of old that the
characters have discovered. Think of how much information would be in there.
Assuming it's from the Age of Legends those books could include information
engineering, medicine, physics, chemistry, biology, and, of course, the One
Power. The ramifications of all those books could be like having the library of
Congress dropped into the middle of Victorian England. It could move the
science, technology, channeling, etc. of the Third Age ahead by thousands of
years if properly studied.

Which is precisely why I found the passage annoying. Either the
ter'angreal has to be lost in the next book (which would obviate the
need for the passage in the first place, thus turning it into a waste
of space) or the next age has to go through a series of catastrophes
surpassing in severity even the once every thousand years bloodbaths
that have characterized the Third Age. After 3,000 years of a medieval
society punctuated by horrific events, which followed the most
catastrophic event of them all; the Breaking of the World, which in
turn followed the War of the Shadow, which in turn had followed God
only knows how many thousands of years of AoL peace, the world is only
_now_ forgetting our Age, the First Age. It's taken that bloody long to
turn the Cold War and the first landing on the moon into myths and
stories that are probably nearing the end of their lives. If you toss
the ter'ipod into Randland and _don't_ destroy it, then I fail to see
how one could realistically eliminate virtually all knowledge of the
Second Age within any reasonable time frame. Based on the world
dynamics that Jordan's created (legend to myth, myth long forgotten,
etc.), the AoL should be nothing more than a few scattered artifacts
and some stories that lack much if any historical context within a few
hundred years of the end of the Last Battle.

Well, the prophecy says that Rand will save the world, but it also says
that he will break it again in the process. The end of this age could
very well be a gigantic catastrophe that sends societies in Randland
some 1000 years back... again.

[o***@yahoo.com]

On 14 Dec 2005 08:57:26 -0800, "Dave Holman" <***@hotmail.com>
wrote:

This is the first I've heard of an Age that is supposed to be like our
own (science, technology, no One Power). Has RJ said something about
this in interviews or something?

If this is true, it reminds me a little of the Deathgate books (minus
the wheel part). The idea there was that mankind had forgotten how to
use magic because of the excess "noise" of modern life and science. Only
after a catastophic nuclear war, with the Earth depopulated, was magic
rediscovered.

If all memory of the One Power and such are supposed to be erased I can
see how that book Ter'angreal *could* be annoying. But even if Rand
somehow seals off the one power, forgetting everything about the Power
and Aes Sedai would seem to require something a great deal more
destructive than the last Breaking of the world. Then of course comes
the question: When do they re-discover the One Power? It would seem
that for all the memory of past ages to be forgotten would require a
continuing series of catastrophes. If find it hard to believe that the
incredibly sophisticated Age of Legends society wouldn't have been able
to keep records of things like the moon landing, etc.

Post by Dave Holman
only knows how many thousands of years of AoL peace, the world is only
_now_ forgetting our Age, the First Age. It's taken that bloody long to
turn the Cold War and the first landing on the moon into myths and
stories that are probably nearing the end of their lives. If you toss
the ter'ipod into Randland and _don't_ destroy it, then I fail to see
how one could realistically eliminate virtually all knowledge of the
Second Age within any reasonable time frame. Based on the world
dynamics that Jordan's created (legend to myth, myth long forgotten,
etc.), the AoL should be nothing more than a few scattered artifacts
and some stories that lack much if any historical context within a few
hundred years of the end of the Last Battle.

[bercreaup]

***@yahoo.com wrote:

This is the first I've heard of an Age that is supposed to be like our
own (science, technology, no One Power). Has RJ said something about
this in interviews or something?

[snip]
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Time is a wheel. If you look in one direction, you are looking at the
past. If you just turn around and look in the other direction, you are
looking at the future. The books are set in our future and in our past,
depending on which way you look... [RJ, America Online conference, 20
October, 1994]"

So he doesn't say there is always an age without the OP, but if our age
is a part of the Wheel, it seems like there would have to be. Or I
suppose the other possibility is that, for some reason, people forget
the knowledge of channeling in an age like ours and they are just doing
it without being aware of it, like Nynaeve and Rand in the first book.

[Dave Holman]

Post by o***@yahoo.com
This is the first I've heard of an Age that is supposed to be like our
own (science, technology, no One Power). Has RJ said something about
this in interviews or something?

http://www.steelypips.org/wotfaq/3_sources/3.12_future-earth.html

[ajr]

Post by Dave Holman
If you toss
the ter'ipod into Randland and _don't_ destroy it, then I fail to see
how one could realistically eliminate virtually all knowledge of the
Second Age within any reasonable time frame.

(a) Why is it inevitable that the ter'ipod is fully loaded?
(b) Why is it inevitable that the non-fiction is fully loaded?
(c) Why is it inevitable that the non-fiction deals with medicine,
physics, engineering, etc.?

A brief glance at my own bookshelves shows non-fiction books on law,
international development, US domestic politics, psychology,
philosophy, the SImpsons, the Darwin Awards, international politics,
political science. There are also a number of fiction works by someone
called 'Robert Jordan'. You'd be hard-pressed to build a bring 16th
century world forward 500 years based on that.

[Dave Holman]

Post by ajr

Post by Dave Holman
If you toss
the ter'ipod into Randland and _don't_ destroy it, then I fail to see
how one could realistically eliminate virtually all knowledge of the
Second Age within any reasonable time frame.

(a) Why is it inevitable that the ter'ipod is fully loaded?
(b) Why is it inevitable that the non-fiction is fully loaded?
(c) Why is it inevitable that the non-fiction deals with medicine,
physics, engineering, etc.?
A brief glance at my own bookshelves shows non-fiction books on law,
international development, US domestic politics, psychology,
philosophy, the SImpsons, the Darwin Awards, international politics,
political science. There are also a number of fiction works by someone
called 'Robert Jordan'. You'd be hard-pressed to build a bring 16th
century world forward 500 years based on that.

The nonfiction section doesn't have to be complete; we already know
(or can deduce) that it at least contains a couple thousand volumes (it
makes little sense to create a device whose two principal categories
don't break down along at least roughly symmetrical lines. If I had
3,750 books of fiction and 250 books of nonfiction and had to
categorize them, I certainly wouldn't begin my classification by using
those two values unless I absolutely had to).
All that aside, I don't really care if it turns out the fiction
section contains 98% of the total works. It doesn't matter to me in the
slightest whether or not the Wonder Girls & Friends can recreate the
Mayo Clinic, MIT, or the Sharom and the Collam Daan. Leaving aside the
fantasy genre, most other works of fiction contain strong echos of the
period they are describing. If you dropped _To Kill A Mockingbird_ into
the hands of a (literate) tribesman from the interior of the Amazon,
he's not going to pick up a whole lot in the way of practical
knowledge. He will, however, walk away with a limited understanding of
race relations in early-mid twentieth century America in the deep
south. He'll also have a basic grasp of American jurisprudence, family
social dynamics, early-mid twentieth century cultural and social mores,
and even basic ideas about some of the technology readily available at
the time, specifically the auto. This diffusion of the culture and
environment surrounding the story holds throughout time and location.
You can learn a good deal about the Imperial Court of 11th century
Japan by perusing the world's first novel, _The Tale of Genji_
(incidentally, I've been meaning to note for years that the FAQ's date
for the work is off by a century), just as a thousand years later one
of the world's latest novels, _The Kite Runner_ provides an insightful
glimpse inside the Afghanistan of the last few decades.
The WOT universe is designed in such a way that _all_ _knowledge_ of
an Age fades away as the years and events accumulate. Once you're two
Ages removed from any particular period, knowledge of the Age itself
must be nearly extinct. In other words, I'm reasonably certain that I
could find any number of individuals, today, who know nothing at all
about the technology that drives western civilization. People who
couldn't so much as explain the principles behind a combustion engine,
let alone atomic theory. Yet these same people could be intimately
familiar with the industrialized world itself. That familiarity, by
WOT universal laws, _can not_ be carried over in any way through the
Ages.

[Ian Ohlander]

"That familiarity, by WOT universal laws, _can not_ be carried over in
any way through the Ages."

I don't see why this is a universal law. It's not even remotely stated,
let alone as some universal law. Nor do I see that it must be true in
every possible detail (every single familiarity) or that the opening to
each book ("The wheel of times turns and ages come and go leaving
memories that fade to myth....") is a detailed prophetic (even
prescriptive) description.

I myself believe that this ter'ipod *SHOULD* be used to give the light
a fighting chance. New AS weaves that can be changed (or perverted,
based on your POV), like Traveling was warped into Deathgates, or that
can help light forces (more like the preserving weave for food). I'm
sure others can think of more.

I say 'should' because I think that realistically, if the characters
had any clue (and that is debatable), they would use this. If nothing
else, forcing the forsaken to face a new angle of attack and resistance
(similar to what they faced in the AOL) could only help.

And the dream of the Wise Ones might hint at it. "Rain, coming from a
bowl. There are snares and pitfalls around the bowl. If the right had
picks it up, THEY WILL FIND A TREASURE PERHAPS AS GREAT AS THAT OF THE
BOWL." - http://encyclopaedia-wot.org:8008/books/loc/ch19.html

But then again, many of the characters have been uncharacteristically
stupid, of late.

[Zdenek Dvorak]

Hello,

Post by Ian Ohlander
"That familiarity, by WOT universal laws, _can not_ be carried over in
any way through the Ages."
I don't see why this is a universal law. It's not even remotely stated,
let alone as some universal law. Nor do I see that it must be true in
every possible detail (every single familiarity) or that the opening to
each book ("The wheel of times turns and ages come and go leaving
memories that fade to myth....") is a detailed prophetic (even
prescriptive) description.
I myself believe that this ter'ipod *SHOULD* be used to give the light
a fighting chance. New AS weaves that can be changed (or perverted,
based on your POV), like Traveling was warped into Deathgates, or that
can help light forces (more like the preserving weave for food). I'm
sure others can think of more.
I say 'should' because I think that realistically, if the characters
had any clue (and that is debatable), they would use this. If nothing
else, forcing the forsaken to face a new angle of attack and resistance
(similar to what they faced in the AOL) could only help.

I think using the knowledge stored in this ter'angreal might turn out to
be quite problematic. Suppose you come to a bookstore and decide to
find something that would be useful for war. You will find a lot of
indirect information, but most likely nothing precise enough; and you
have a huge advantage in that you have quite precise idea what you might
be looking for in the beginning.

Even if you happen to be incredibly lucky and you have found a
specialized bookstore that actually contains books say on construction
of guns, including technical data, you will have great deal of problems
in actually understanding them, since they will most likely assume that
you already have some knowledge in the area.

OK, say you have spent some time digging through the books and now you
understand how guns work. Still, it is useless to you unless you can
manufacture them. You need to do the same all over again with the
related areas of metalurgy, mechanics, chemistry, etc. In each of the
fields you will run into similar problems.

Making use of any information in such a collection of books definitely
is not something that can realistically happen in a few months.

Zdenek

[Tony Evans]

In rec.arts.sf.written.robert-jordan, Zdenek Dvorak

Post by Zdenek Dvorak
Making use of any information in such a collection of books definitely
is not something that can realistically happen in a few months.

That assumes you need a whole range of skills to be able to complete the
production of something.

What if the information is 'do X with this weave and do Y with this weave
and combine the results to get Z'.

If you can find books which describe how to do something using a skill
you're already exceptionally talented in, which in this case can be applied
to almost any solution in theory, it may save time.

There is no true universal skill in our world in that regard - but there is
in theirs.

[T***@gmail.com]

Post by Tony Evans
In rec.arts.sf.written.robert-jordan, Zdenek Dvorak

Post by Zdenek Dvorak
Making use of any information in such a collection of books definitely
is not something that can realistically happen in a few months.

That assumes you need a whole range of skills to be able to complete the
production of something.
What if the information is 'do X with this weave and do Y with this weave
and combine the results to get Z'.
If you can find books which describe how to do something using a skill
you're already exceptionally talented in, which in this case can be applied
to almost any solution in theory, it may save time.
There is no true universal skill in our world in that regard - but there is
in theirs.
--
Tony Evans (ICQ : 170850)
Recommended Author : Guy Gavriel Kay
Reality is an illusion produced by alcohol deficiency.
Homepage : http://www.darkstorm.co.uk/tony

[Tim Bruening]

Post by Tony Evans
In rec.arts.sf.written.robert-jordan, Zdenek Dvorak

Post by Zdenek Dvorak
Making use of any information in such a collection of books definitely
is not something that can realistically happen in a few months.

That assumes you need a whole range of skills to be able to complete the
production of something.
What if the information is 'do X with this weave and do Y with this weave
and combine the results to get Z'.
If you can find books which describe how to do something using a skill
you're already exceptionally talented in, which in this case can be applied
to almost any solution in theory, it may save time.
There is no true universal skill in our world in that regard - but there is
in theirs.

Mat and Aludra might find the books about guns useful, since they already know
about gunpowder.

[Diamond3Bob]

It might not be all that problematic as described by Zdenek if it was
"searchable" like the internet. If he was able to find the word
"gunpowder" or its equivalent, Mat could search for its uses. Finding
the word that meant gunpowder, might be as simple as translating the
ingredients into old toungue and searching for their combination.

[Zdenek Dvorak]

Hello,

Post by Diamond3Bob
It might not be all that problematic as described by Zdenek if it was
"searchable" like the internet. If he was able to find the word
"gunpowder" or its equivalent, Mat could search for its uses. Finding
the word that meant gunpowder, might be as simple as translating the
ingredients into old toungue and searching for their combination.

even then, you will

-- need to go through a lot of irrelevant information,
-- would have problems understanding it,
-- and problems with filtering out simplifications and other types of
wrong information
-- and technical problems with implementation of whatever you found

Also, you know that you want to search for "gunpowder". The guys from
Randland probably would not have more than a vague idea that they need
"something about killing trollocs", or, in Mat's case, "things that make
bang". Try searching an internet with that :-)

Zdenek

[Bill E. Brooks]

Post by Zdenek Dvorak
Hello,

Post by Diamond3Bob
It might not be all that problematic as described by Zdenek if it was
"searchable" like the internet. If he was able to find the word
"gunpowder" or its equivalent, Mat could search for its uses. Finding
the word that meant gunpowder, might be as simple as translating the
ingredients into old toungue and searching for their combination.

even then, you will
-- need to go through a lot of irrelevant information,
-- would have problems understanding it,
-- and problems with filtering out simplifications and other types of
wrong information
-- and technical problems with implementation of whatever you found
Also, you know that you want to search for "gunpowder". The guys from
Randland probably would not have more than a vague idea that they need
"something about killing trollocs", or, in Mat's case, "things that make
bang". Try searching an internet with that :-)

OTOH, Mat knows the Old Tongue. For him, "something that makes a bang"
may be the same as the Old Tongue for gunpowder.

-Bill E. Brooks

[Tim Bruening]

Post by Zdenek Dvorak
Hello,

Post by Diamond3Bob
It might not be all that problematic as described by Zdenek if it was
"searchable" like the internet. If he was able to find the word
"gunpowder" or its equivalent, Mat could search for its uses. Finding
the word that meant gunpowder, might be as simple as translating the
ingredients into old toungue and searching for their combination.

even then, you will
-- need to go through a lot of irrelevant information,
-- would have problems understanding it,
-- and problems with filtering out simplifications and other types of
wrong information
-- and technical problems with implementation of whatever you found
Also, you know that you want to search for "gunpowder". The guys from
Randland probably would not have more than a vague idea that they need
"something about killing trollocs", or, in Mat's case, "things that make
bang". Try searching an internet with that :-)

Aludra could tell Mat what words to search for.

[Scott Lurndal]

Post by Tim Bruening

Post by Zdenek Dvorak
Hello,

Post by Diamond3Bob
It might not be all that problematic as described by Zdenek if it was
"searchable" like the internet. If he was able to find the word
"gunpowder" or its equivalent, Mat could search for its uses. Finding
the word that meant gunpowder, might be as simple as translating the
ingredients into old toungue and searching for their combination.

even then, you will
-- need to go through a lot of irrelevant information,
-- would have problems understanding it,
-- and problems with filtering out simplifications and other types of
wrong information
-- and technical problems with implementation of whatever you found
Also, you know that you want to search for "gunpowder". The guys from
Randland probably would not have more than a vague idea that they need
"something about killing trollocs", or, in Mat's case, "things that make
bang". Try searching an internet with that :-)

Aludra could tell Mat what words to search for.

Could she? Does she know that Potassium Nitrate is the primary
ingredient in her fireworks? Or does she refer to it as saltpetre,
or "white crystals harvested from Manure piles"?

scott

[Mike Timbers]

Post by Zdenek Dvorak
Hello,

Post by Diamond3Bob
It might not be all that problematic as described by Zdenek if it was
"searchable" like the internet. If he was able to find the word
"gunpowder" or its equivalent, Mat could search for its uses. Finding
the word that meant gunpowder, might be as simple as translating the
ingredients into old toungue and searching for their combination.

even then, you will
-- need to go through a lot of irrelevant information,
-- would have problems understanding it,
-- and problems with filtering out simplifications and other types of
wrong information
-- and technical problems with implementation of whatever you found
Also, you know that you want to search for "gunpowder". The guys from
Randland probably would not have more than a vague idea that they need
"something about killing trollocs", or, in Mat's case, "things that make
bang". Try searching an internet with that :-)

OK, so "How do you make things go bang" in Google, brought me

http://strangebutuntrue.tripod.com/science/chemistry/c3.htm

[Morek]

The problem is to filter out all the pr0n ;)
Regards from Brazil!
Morek

[Tim Bruening]

Post by Diamond3Bob
It might not be all that problematic as described by Zdenek if it was
"searchable" like the internet. If he was able to find the word
"gunpowder" or its equivalent, Mat could search for its uses. Finding
the word that meant gunpowder, might be as simple as translating the
ingredients into old toungue and searching for their combination.

A Google Ter'angreal!

[Bill E. Brooks]

Post by Ian Ohlander
"That familiarity, by WOT universal laws, _can not_ be carried over in
any way through the Ages."
I don't see why this is a universal law. It's not even remotely stated,
let alone as some universal law. Nor do I see that it must be true in
every possible detail (every single familiarity) or that the opening to
each book ("The wheel of times turns and ages come and go leaving
memories that fade to myth....") is a detailed prophetic (even
prescriptive) description.

This law will be in tatters if the Wheel is broken. And it is yet
another reason why Rand may want to break the Wheel.

Post by Ian Ohlander
I myself believe that this ter'ipod *SHOULD* be used to give the light
a fighting chance. New AS weaves that can be changed (or perverted,
based on your POV), like Traveling was warped into Deathgates, or that
can help light forces (more like the preserving weave for food). I'm
sure others can think of more.
I say 'should' because I think that realistically, if the characters
had any clue (and that is debatable), they would use this. If nothing
else, forcing the forsaken to face a new angle of attack and resistance
(similar to what they faced in the AOL) could only help.

I have a feeling that most of this information will be more useful in
the next age than this one.

Post by Ian Ohlander
And the dream of the Wise Ones might hint at it. "Rain, coming from a
bowl. There are snares and pitfalls around the bowl. If the right had
picks it up, THEY WILL FIND A TREASURE PERHAPS AS GREAT AS THAT OF THE
BOWL." - http://encyclopaedia-wot.org:8008/books/loc/ch19.html

I thought that was the ter'angreal Aviendha was so fond of. The one
Elayne thought would be especially useful in the Waste.

-Bill E. Brooks

[Ian Ohlander]

You mean the knife that makes one invisible to the shadow? Or is it the
vase that pulls moisture from the air?

Seems to me that while that'd be great, a far more usefull treasure
would be one that actively aided the war against the shadow.

As for whether the book would be helpful, well, if there is a handbook
on weaves, that would definitely help (and would not require a
technological infrastructure. By that I mean, I doubt the book would
help them make jo-cars, shock lances, or sho-wings. As was said, they'd
be too unfamiliar with the necessary principles, requirements, etc.)

But a book that contained weaves for instant communication with
scattered light forces would definitely help. At the most, it would
require the creation of some comm devices that we saw Alviarin have.
But the advantage it would bestow would be huge. Can you imagine how
general Matt could use that in a battle. A better weave for food
spoilage would help too. And other things that my tired brain is
missing.

And a collection of thousands of books should contain at least one text
with those kinds of things. Not to mention, even texts that do not
contain detailed instructions would at least get them thinking in new
directions (think the arm/chip in T2 and the effect it had on computer
chip design in that movie.)

Of course, there is one huge potential flaw. Who's going to be reading
this library, looking for this knowledge? Elayne probably won't. She's
still up to her neck in political machinations and likely will be like
that till the series ends. Are there any friendly browns near Caemlyn?
Or a brown who might use the library for just such a practical purpose
(as opposed to looking at plant species, or some such esoteric
nonsense.) They might be the key.

[Morek]

Verin?
Regards from Brazil!
Morek

[Bill E. Brooks]

Post by Ian Ohlander
You mean the knife that makes one invisible to the shadow? Or is it the
vase that pulls moisture from the air?

I meant the vase. You are losing the context:
And the dream of the Wise Ones might hint at it. "Rain, coming from a
bowl. There are snares and pitfalls around the bowl. If the right hand
picks it up, THEY WILL FIND A TREASURE PERHAPS AS GREAT AS THAT OF THE
BOWL."

Post by Ian Ohlander
Seems to me that while that'd be great, a far more usefull treasure
would be one that actively aided the war against the shadow.

Not from the Aiel prospective. But now that I have carefully examined
the quotes, I see that I've gotten them crossed up. The bowl described
in the same passage as the vase is something else, and there is no real
hint as to what this other treasure is, other than it being a nice item.

Post by Ian Ohlander
As for whether the book would be helpful, well, if there is a handbook
on weaves, that would definitely help (and would not require a
technological infrastructure. By that I mean, I doubt the book would
help them make jo-cars, shock lances, or sho-wings. As was said, they'd
be too unfamiliar with the necessary principles, requirements, etc.)
But a book that contained weaves for instant communication with
scattered light forces would definitely help. At the most, it would
require the creation of some comm devices that we saw Alviarin have.
But the advantage it would bestow would be huge. Can you imagine how
general Matt could use that in a battle. A better weave for food
spoilage would help too. And other things that my tired brain is
missing.
And a collection of thousands of books should contain at least one text
with those kinds of things. Not to mention, even texts that do not
contain detailed instructions would at least get them thinking in new
directions (think the arm/chip in T2 and the effect it had on computer
chip design in that movie.)

I think this is wishful thinking. You are assuming that it is even
possible to learn a weave from a book. If that's true, why don't
novices and Accepted learn their weaves from books? Where is your
support for this?

There could be some 3D imagery, I suppose, but even that might not do.

Post by Ian Ohlander
Of course, there is one huge potential flaw. Who's going to be reading
this library, looking for this knowledge? Elayne probably won't. She's
still up to her neck in political machinations and likely will be like
that till the series ends. Are there any friendly browns near Caemlyn?
Or a brown who might use the library for just such a practical purpose
(as opposed to looking at plant species, or some such esoteric
nonsense.) They might be the key.

Rand has a school in Caemlyn, doesn't he? Perhaps that's who needs to
get it.

-Bill E. Brooks

[Sorcha]

Post by Bill E. Brooks

Post by Ian Ohlander
As for whether the book would be helpful, well, if there is a handbook
on weaves, that would definitely help (and would not require a
technological infrastructure. By that I mean, I doubt the book would
help them make jo-cars, shock lances, or sho-wings. As was said, they'd
be too unfamiliar with the necessary principles, requirements, etc.)
But a book that contained weaves for instant communication with
scattered light forces would definitely help. At the most, it would
require the creation of some comm devices that we saw Alviarin have.
But the advantage it would bestow would be huge. Can you imagine how
general Matt could use that in a battle. A better weave for food
spoilage would help too. And other things that my tired brain is
missing.
And a collection of thousands of books should contain at least one text
with those kinds of things. Not to mention, even texts that do not
contain detailed instructions would at least get them thinking in new
directions (think the arm/chip in T2 and the effect it had on computer
chip design in that movie.)

I think this is wishful thinking. You are assuming that it is even
possible to learn a weave from a book. If that's true, why don't
novices and Accepted learn their weaves from books? Where is your
support for this?
There could be some 3D imagery, I suppose, but even that might not do.

The main problem is the lack of a notation system, really - how do
you indicate a weave of a certain power, or of a certain strength,
saidin or saidar? Plus there is the whole 3D aspect, as you pointed
out.

My own suspicion (other than RJ hasn't thought too much about it) is
that there could have been such in the Age of Legends, as I'd be
highly surprised that such a sophisticated society lacked something
so central to organisation as a system for disseminating vital
information. All those bright, well-trained, talented people and *no-
one* ever managed to think out the problem?

From the point of view of such teaching artifacts surviving the
Breaking in a useable form, there are two parts to this. One is the
physical survival of the female Aes Sedai themselves, which seemed to
pretty precarious at times (remember the one who encountered the Aiel
wagons in Rand's ancestor-dream?). The whole impression is that they
were hanging on to existence by their toenails at times and it is
times like that where organised training is the first thing to go out
the window. Hell, in a culture so disrupted that they couldn't even
keep the *calendar* straight, any fancy-schmancy way of passing on
weaves past getting down and showing the girl is not going to be
exactly reliable. And then that solidifies into 'the way we do
things' and into tradition and people stop questioning because 'this
is the way we've always done it'.

That isn't to say that there aren't some fancy-schmancy interactive
teaching aids lying around the Tower somewhere with great big signs
saying 'Do Not Touch!!! You may Gasp!! Burn Yourself Out!!' on them.
Or in, I dunno, some other stash of angreal around the place, ahem.
Actual books wouldn't last for three thousand years, but some sort of
interactive ter'angreal would do the job nicely. Not necessarily a
complete VR-suite like the Accepted doorway or the Aiel one in
Rhuidean, but using the same principles on a level less than complete
interactivity, maybe. Whether anyone could figure out how to use them
in time for anything useful is another story altogether, of course...

Sorcha

[Tim Bruening]

Post by Sorcha

Post by Bill E. Brooks

Post by Ian Ohlander
As for whether the book would be helpful, well, if there is a handbook
on weaves, that would definitely help (and would not require a
technological infrastructure. By that I mean, I doubt the book would
help them make jo-cars, shock lances, or sho-wings. As was said, they'd
be too unfamiliar with the necessary principles, requirements, etc.)
But a book that contained weaves for instant communication with
scattered light forces would definitely help. At the most, it would
require the creation of some comm devices that we saw Alviarin have.
But the advantage it would bestow would be huge. Can you imagine how
general Matt could use that in a battle. A better weave for food
spoilage would help too. And other things that my tired brain is
missing.
And a collection of thousands of books should contain at least one text
with those kinds of things. Not to mention, even texts that do not
contain detailed instructions would at least get them thinking in new
directions (think the arm/chip in T2 and the effect it had on computer
chip design in that movie.)

I think this is wishful thinking. You are assuming that it is even
possible to learn a weave from a book. If that's true, why don't
novices and Accepted learn their weaves from books? Where is your
support for this?
There could be some 3D imagery, I suppose, but even that might not do.

The main problem is the lack of a notation system, really - how do
you indicate a weave of a certain power, or of a certain strength,
saidin or saidar? Plus there is the whole 3D aspect, as you pointed
out.
My own suspicion (other than RJ hasn't thought too much about it) is
that there could have been such in the Age of Legends, as I'd be
highly surprised that such a sophisticated society lacked something
so central to organisation as a system for disseminating vital
information. All those bright, well-trained, talented people and *no-
one* ever managed to think out the problem?

The AS could have made ter'angreals that could be made to produce many types
and patterns of weaves at the press of a button or at a verbal command (press
this button to produce a "Traveling Weave", press that button to produce a
Healing Weave). We have already seen ter'angreals that can produce a Gate!

[ajr]

Post by Tim Bruening
The AS could have made ter'angreals that could be made to produce many types
and patterns of weaves at the press of a button or at a verbal command (press
this button to produce a "Traveling Weave", press that button to produce a
Healing Weave). We have already seen ter'angreals that can produce a Gate!

IIRC, we have not seen such a ter-angreal. Sammael's fool boxes were
just a way to convince the Shaido to go through the gates that he wove
so he could scatter them across the lands.

[Jon al'Thor]

Rand has a school in Caemlyn, doesn't he? Perhaps that's who needs to get it.

Yes, or rather Elayne has, since she has taken over the accademy
Caemlyn.
The problem is that I can't figure any Aes Sedain, Elayne included,
hadning over a ter'angreal to a non-chaneler. So, I think it'll go to
the browns, just hopeing a more "practically" inclined brown one get's
her hands on it.

[Scott Lurndal]

Post by Jon al'Thor

Rand has a school in Caemlyn, doesn't he? Perhaps that's who needs to get it.

Yes, or rather Elayne has, since she has taken over the accademy
Caemlyn.
The problem is that I can't figure any Aes Sedain, Elayne included,
hadning over a ter'angreal to a non-chaneler. So, I think it'll go to
the browns, just hopeing a more "practically" inclined brown one get's
her hands on it.

Actually, my guess is that once Satelle Anan has been healed,
she'll return to the study of ter'angreal that originally burned
her out in the Tower. Perhaps with help from Aviendha.

[Bill E. Brooks]

Post by Scott Lurndal

Post by Jon al'Thor

Rand has a school in Caemlyn, doesn't he? Perhaps that's who needs to get it.

Yes, or rather Elayne has, since she has taken over the accademy
Caemlyn.
The problem is that I can't figure any Aes Sedain, Elayne included,
hadning over a ter'angreal to a non-chaneler. So, I think it'll go to
the browns, just hopeing a more "practically" inclined brown one get's
her hands on it.

Actually, my guess is that once Satelle Anan has been healed,
she'll return to the study of ter'angreal that originally burned
her out in the Tower. Perhaps with help from Aviendha.

Interesting. The FAQ suggests that Setalle Anan is Martine Janata.
Corianan Nedeal was the name that had popped into my head. Was
she dismissed as too old to be Setalle Anan? Or was she confirmed
as dead?

-Bill E. Brooks

[Sorcha]

<snip the studying of ter'angreal>

Post by Bill E. Brooks

Post by Scott Lurndal
Actually, my guess is that once Satelle Anan has been healed,
she'll return to the study of ter'angreal that originally burned
her out in the Tower. Perhaps with help from Aviendha.

Interesting. The FAQ suggests that Setalle Anan is Martine Janata.
Corianan Nedeal was the name that had popped into my head. Was
she dismissed as too old to be Setalle Anan? Or was she confirmed
as dead?

We know that Setalle was in the Tower seventy years ago (she
recognises Zarya) and that the Kin helped her with her first
childbirth about twenty years before the present day (so maybe 980 NE
or so).

Corianan Nedeal died in 526 NE.
Martine Janata was burned out about 975 NE or thereabouts and
disappeared from the Tower.

Hence the bets are on Setalle really being Martine, who was the only
Aes Sedai to study ter'angreal in living memory. Which begs the
thought that if Verin had come into possession of Corianan's notes
sometime in the interim, what happened to any notes that Martine may
have made?

It also suggests all sorts of conspiracy theories, as I would bet
large sums that Martine was Brown Ajah and I really wonder what went
on in the Brown around seventy years ago, if Martine was burned out
and Verin was set on her present course (and made her 'last serious
mistake').

Sorcha

[David Snider]

Post by Bill E. Brooks
Interesting. The FAQ suggests that Setalle Anan is Martine Janata.
Corianan Nedeal was the name that had popped into my head. Was
she dismissed as too old to be Setalle Anan? Or was she confirmed
as dead?

Corianin Nedeal was the last Tower Dreamer. The only ter'angreal she
studied were those connected to Tel'aran'rhiod.

[David Snider]

Post by Bill E. Brooks
Interesting. The FAQ suggests that Setalle Anan is Martine Janata.
Corianan Nedeal was the name that had popped into my head. Was
she dismissed as too old to be Setalle Anan? Or was she confirmed
as dead?

Corianin Nedeal was the last Tower Dreamer. The only ter'angreal she
studied were those connected to Tel'aran'rhiod. To answer you question
she's been dead for almost 500 years.

--
David Snider
The truth is more than what is told, it is all the secrets that we hold.

[Tim Bruening]

Post by Bill E. Brooks

Post by Scott Lurndal

Post by Jon al'Thor

Rand has a school in Caemlyn, doesn't he? Perhaps that's who needs to get it.

Yes, or rather Elayne has, since she has taken over the accademy
Caemlyn.
The problem is that I can't figure any Aes Sedain, Elayne included,
hadning over a ter'angreal to a non-chaneler. So, I think it'll go to
the browns, just hopeing a more "practically" inclined brown one get's
her hands on it.

Actually, my guess is that once Satelle Anan has been healed,
she'll return to the study of ter'angreal that originally burned
her out in the Tower. Perhaps with help from Aviendha.

Interesting. The FAQ suggests that Setalle Anan is Martine Janata.
Corianan Nedeal was the name that had popped into my head. Was
she dismissed as too old to be Setalle Anan? Or was she confirmed
as dead?

IIRC, Corianan Nedeal was the last Dreamer before Egwene, and died centuries ago.

[Tim Bruening]

Post by Scott Lurndal

Post by Jon al'Thor

Rand has a school in Caemlyn, doesn't he? Perhaps that's who needs to get it.

Yes, or rather Elayne has, since she has taken over the accademy
Caemlyn.
The problem is that I can't figure any Aes Sedain, Elayne included,
hadning over a ter'angreal to a non-chaneler. So, I think it'll go to
the browns, just hopeing a more "practically" inclined brown one get's
her hands on it.

Actually, my guess is that once Satelle Anan has been healed,
she'll return to the study of ter'angreal that originally burned
her out in the Tower. Perhaps with help from Aviendha.

I have read of a woman who got burned out one day while studying ter'angreals, and
lost her memory for the previous week, and no one had had the nerve to touch any of
the ter'angreals in her room ever since! Was Satelle that woman?

[Scott Lurndal]

Post by Tim Bruening

Post by Scott Lurndal

Post by Jon al'Thor

Rand has a school in Caemlyn, doesn't he? Perhaps that's who needs to get it.

Yes, or rather Elayne has, since she has taken over the accademy
Caemlyn.
The problem is that I can't figure any Aes Sedain, Elayne included,
hadning over a ter'angreal to a non-chaneler. So, I think it'll go to
the browns, just hopeing a more "practically" inclined brown one get's
her hands on it.

Actually, my guess is that once Satelle Anan has been healed,
she'll return to the study of ter'angreal that originally burned
her out in the Tower. Perhaps with help from Aviendha.

I have read of a woman who got burned out one day while studying ter'angreals, and
lost her memory for the previous week, and no one had had the nerve to touch any of
the ter'angreals in her room ever since! Was Satelle that woman?

That is the speculation.

scott

[Tim Bruening]

Post by Scott Lurndal

Post by Tim Bruening

Post by Scott Lurndal

Post by Jon al'Thor

Rand has a school in Caemlyn, doesn't he? Perhaps that's who needs to get it.

Yes, or rather Elayne has, since she has taken over the accademy
Caemlyn.
The problem is that I can't figure any Aes Sedain, Elayne included,
hadning over a ter'angreal to a non-chaneler. So, I think it'll go to
the browns, just hopeing a more "practically" inclined brown one get's
her hands on it.

Actually, my guess is that once Satelle Anan has been healed,
she'll return to the study of ter'angreal that originally burned
her out in the Tower. Perhaps with help from Aviendha.

I have read of a woman who got burned out one day while studying ter'angreals, and
lost her memory for the previous week, and no one had had the nerve to touch any of
the ter'angreals in her room ever since! Was Satelle that woman?

That is the speculation.

Is there any hope that Nynaeve could Heal her?

[Ian Ohlander]

I think Sorcha provides a pretty good line of reasoning. It is
inconceivable that a society as advanced as the AOL AS did not have
some way of encoding weave information. To have to world's most
powerful abilities reside ONLY in the minds of the practicers, without
some external back up doesn't make much sense. But, as was pointed out,
there would be the problem of how to represent such information,
including strength of threads, sequence, placement, type, etc.

I think a brown would be perfect and have the best background. But
she'd also have to have her feet planted in reality, for her to even
see the benefits of such things she discovered, or the willingness to
tell someone who might actually use it. I was just wondering if any
Browns (aside from Verin) come to mind who'd be perfect- who jumped out
as obvious.

But with all that RJ has to do in the last book, this might take too
much of his time (despire the fact that it seems logical). Now that I
think about it, RJ will probably drop this point, or it DOES point to
the kin. But so far, the kin haven't been any great treasure. So far,
they've basically been comm devices and food transport for Elayne in
her struggle for the throne.

[Morek]

I´ve always tought that this treasure as great as the bowl was The
Kin...

[Tim Bruening]

Post by Dave Holman

Post by ajr

Post by Dave Holman
If you toss
the ter'ipod into Randland and _don't_ destroy it, then I fail to see
how one could realistically eliminate virtually all knowledge of the
Second Age within any reasonable time frame.

(a) Why is it inevitable that the ter'ipod is fully loaded?
(b) Why is it inevitable that the non-fiction is fully loaded?
(c) Why is it inevitable that the non-fiction deals with medicine,
physics, engineering, etc.?
A brief glance at my own bookshelves shows non-fiction books on law,
international development, US domestic politics, psychology,
philosophy, the SImpsons, the Darwin Awards, international politics,
political science. There are also a number of fiction works by someone
called 'Robert Jordan'. You'd be hard-pressed to build a bring 16th
century world forward 500 years based on that.

The nonfiction section doesn't have to be complete; we already know
(or can deduce) that it at least contains a couple thousand volumes (it
makes little sense to create a device whose two principal categories
don't break down along at least roughly symmetrical lines. If I had
3,750 books of fiction and 250 books of nonfiction and had to
categorize them, I certainly wouldn't begin my classification by using
those two values unless I absolutely had to).
All that aside, I don't really care if it turns out the fiction
section contains 98% of the total works. It doesn't matter to me in the
slightest whether or not the Wonder Girls & Friends can recreate the
Mayo Clinic, MIT, or the Sharom and the Collam Daan. Leaving aside the
fantasy genre, most other works of fiction contain strong echos of the
period they are describing. If you dropped _To Kill A Mockingbird_ into
the hands of a (literate) tribesman from the interior of the Amazon,
he's not going to pick up a whole lot in the way of practical
knowledge. He will, however, walk away with a limited understanding of
race relations in early-mid twentieth century America in the deep
south. He'll also have a basic grasp of American jurisprudence, family
social dynamics, early-mid twentieth century cultural and social mores,
and even basic ideas about some of the technology readily available at
the time, specifically the auto. This diffusion of the culture and
environment surrounding the story holds throughout time and location.
You can learn a good deal about the Imperial Court of 11th century
Japan by perusing the world's first novel, _The Tale of Genji_
(incidentally, I've been meaning to note for years that the FAQ's date
for the work is off by a century), just as a thousand years later one
of the world's latest novels, _The Kite Runner_ provides an insightful
glimpse inside the Afghanistan of the last few decades.
The WOT universe is designed in such a way that _all_ _knowledge_ of
an Age fades away as the years and events accumulate. Once you're two
Ages removed from any particular period, knowledge of the Age itself
must be nearly extinct. In other words, I'm reasonably certain that I
could find any number of individuals, today, who know nothing at all
about the technology that drives western civilization. People who
couldn't so much as explain the principles behind a combustion engine,
let alone atomic theory. Yet these same people could be intimately
familiar with the industrialized world itself. That familiarity, by
WOT universal laws, _can not_ be carried over in any way through the
Ages.

Perhaps the book ter'angreal represents the beginnings of a change in that
design.

[o***@yahoo.com]

Post by ajr
A brief glance at my own bookshelves shows non-fiction books on law,
international development, US domestic politics, psychology,
philosophy, the SImpsons, the Darwin Awards, international politics,
political science. There are also a number of fiction works by someone
called 'Robert Jordan'. You'd be hard-pressed to build a bring 16th
century world forward 500 years based on that.

The fact that the Ter'angreal has thousands and thousands of books in
it, as well as the fact that it divides things into fiction and
non-fiction implies, to me, a fairly generalized collection. I suppose
it could be a specialized collection of fiction and non-fiction works on
political science or something but that seems unlikely considering the
fiction/non-fiction divide.

I'm not saying it's the imperial library on Trantor or anything, but it
must be full of stuff that bright people could utilize.

If every trace of an age must be gone within the span of two ages then
it's going to take a shitload of destruction to wipe out every trace. In
the Third Age there are still plenty of traces of the Age of Legends,
even after the Breaking of the World.

Someone said that they think the OP will be sealed off or something by
the end of the third age, perhaps at the end of the Last Battle. If so,
that could explain a lot of the forgetting. If the Power is gone you
can expect most channelers to die of loss. As those are the people most
knowledgeable about the Power, most of the knowledge of channeling would
be lost with them. It's also possible the True Source "powers" to some
degree all angreal, ter'angreal, and even cuendillar. If those objects
need the power simply to exist then that might explain why cuendillar
doesn't pile up to fill the entire world. It may simply break apart or
fade away with the Power to sustain it.

But the FAQ notes (thanks for the link) that the people of Randland
appear to have vague tales of moon landings and other modern devices. If
all evidence of past ages is supposed to dissapear why do they have that
information, no matter how fragmentary?

[c***@hotmail.com]

Post by o***@yahoo.com
...
If every trace of an age must be gone within the span of two ages then
it's going to take a shitload of destruction to wipe out every trace. In
the Third Age there are still plenty of traces of the Age of Legends,
even after the Breaking of the World.
...
But the FAQ notes (thanks for the link) that the people of Randland
appear to have vague tales of moon landings and other modern devices. If
all evidence of past ages is supposed to dissapear why do they have that
information, no matter how fragmentary?

As I understand it the seperation between the ages are not necessarily
cataclysms, any more than the seperation between the Stone Age and the
Bronze Age was. Ages are defined by historical trends, not by the
Creator hitting the "reset" button. All evidence of past ages would
disappear over time just due to the passage of time, but that doesn't
have to happen exactly as abruptly as we saw at the end of the Age of
Legends. (And even then, "abruptly" was a process of decades if not
centuries as the male channelers went individually.)

So I don't see any problem with the ter'ipod (nice term, BTW) leading
to the Fourth Age being a different-but-equally-fantastic Age of
Legends. Some ends of Ages might not be as clean breaks as the one
we've seen - maybe there is carryover sometimes.

[Diamond3Bob]

WoT ages are not like moving from the "stone age" to the "bronze age."
They are more like the "Age of Pices," which was theoretically ushered
in by the coming of Christ, and the "Age of Acquarius," supposedly
dawning now through some time in the next 20 years or so. The time of
Christ was a "breaking of the world", as supposedly is/will be the
current transition from Pices to acquarius.

[Tim Bruening]

Post by Diamond3Bob
WoT ages are not like moving from the "stone age" to the "bronze age."
They are more like the "Age of Pices," which was theoretically ushered
in by the coming of Christ, and the "Age of Acquarius," supposedly
dawning now through some time in the next 20 years or so. The time of
Christ was a "breaking of the world", as supposedly is/will be the
current transition from Pices to acquarius.

I don't remember Jesus smashing any cities, creating any mountains, or
draining any oceans! The only time he got violent was when he found money
changers and merchants in the Temple in Jerusalem!

[Bill E. Brooks]

Post by Tim Bruening

Post by Diamond3Bob
WoT ages are not like moving from the "stone age" to the "bronze age."
They are more like the "Age of Pices," which was theoretically ushered
in by the coming of Christ, and the "Age of Acquarius," supposedly
dawning now through some time in the next 20 years or so. The time of
Christ was a "breaking of the world", as supposedly is/will be the
current transition from Pices to acquarius.

I don't remember Jesus smashing any cities, creating any mountains, or
draining any oceans! The only time he got violent was when he found money
changers and merchants in the Temple in Jerusalem!

The poster never attributed violence to Jesus. Jesus' lifetime was
quite a violent time in history though; indeed, some of that sort of
brutal behavior resulted in Jesus' own death.

-Bill E. Brooks

[Neil Anderson]

<snip book ter-angreal and what it means>

Perhaps it will form the basis of the library that Nesune will found -
as seen by one of Min's visions, in the scene where the first of the
da'stang AS prisoners captured at Dumai's Wells swear fealty to Rand.

Neil Anderson

[Tim Bruening]

Post by Neil Anderson

<snip book ter-angreal and what it means>

Perhaps it will form the basis of the library that Nesune will found -
as seen by one of Min's visions, in the scene where the first of the
da'stang AS prisoners captured at Dumai's Wells swear fealty to Rand.
Neil Anderson

Min said that those 5 da'stang prisoners, including one Elza, would each
serve Rand in her own way.

tGS Spoilers:

1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1

But in The Gathering Storm, Elza helps Semirhage enslave Rand. How can
Min's Viewing consider this "serving Rand"?

[Tim Bruening]

Post by Neil Anderson

<snip book ter-angreal and what it means>

Perhaps it will form the basis of the library that Nesune will found -
as seen by one of Min's visions, in the scene where the first of the
da'stang AS prisoners captured at Dumai's Wells swear fealty to Rand.
Neil Anderson

Min said that those 5 da'stang prisoners, including one Elza, would each
serve Rand in her own way.

tGS Spoilers:

1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1

But in The Gathering Storm, Elza helps Semirhage enslave Rand. How can
Min's Viewing consider this "serving Rand"?

[Diamond3Bob]

If I understand the comments in this section correctly, Randland might
be somewhere between the Age of Dinosaurs, Middle Earth (JRR Tolkein -
Lord of the Rings) and our own existence. I find this to be an
intriguing possibility.