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Of course... DomA Send a noteboard - 05/12/2010 08:21:05 PM
The whole thing depends on what you choose to call "our Age".

What was it in RJ's mind, really? We don't know.

We know his fictional world make abstraction of much of real world science, a bit the same way the creationists do. There's no big bang, the Sun is eternal.

So where did RJ drew the line between reality and fiction exactly? What did he chose to accept as "real" and what did he choose to reject for fictional purpose? What of our past is part of what he called "Our Age"? We have some clues: Most legends come from the early Age, and the end of the previous ones. Myths go further, to the dawn of the previous Age and beyond. So our legends and myths are clues.

He had Thom in EOTW speak of Ages where men ran with animals, and Ages in which the world was covered in Ice. That seems to indicate that, just like characters in the Third Age, and though unlike them we don't share their world view about the Pattern or Ages, we still have many facts/legends/myths from the past Age, and all sort of scientific theories and little more about the Age before that. "Our Age" seems to begin with the dawn of civilization, and end in some imaginary nuclear holocaust that RJ stopped talking about after book 1, as communist Russia broke apart in the meantime, and it was some years before the new geopolitics cleared up. The Age where humans ran with animals (and shamans walked Dreams) would be pre history and extended into primitive civilizationsbefore fading, both of which incidentally has given us several key elements of later mythology (from moon goddesses to cyclical time to animal totems and so on). The Age before would be the last Ice Age, and beyond that, in RJ's concept, there's an Age we know nothing, and which isn't at all what we believe our past beyond the Ice Age to have been.

There's also the matter of the earth being wholly different in the Third Age to what it is in "our Age". It isn't impossible the continents were ours in the AOL before the Breaking, but it's possible the theorical cataclysm that ended our Age changed them too, and if it was nuclear indeed, it may have wiped out almost everything, and left pretty much a clean slate for humanity to start again at the dawn of the AOL (which was either a very, very long Age, or a very short one. The peaceful state achieved could indicate the AOL civilization was stable for millenia before Shai'tan, while channelling could suggest humanity rebuilt itself up from almost nothing to the pinnacle of the AOL in a very short time as well, short enough to remember the lessons about war from the previous Age).

As for the Portal Stones... nothing confirms they're from the Age before the AOL. There could be a very simple explanation: they were buried during our Age and a few more, and only the AOL people found them.

Of course, between the Ogier and the Finns, nothing makes science-fiction-ish theories like having the Portal Stones brough by Aliens toward the end of our Age ridiculous. My feeling is still that they were the creations of the Finns. It's confirmed now they made the gateways (the doorways) to their world - them, not the Aes Sedai - and RJ confirmed previously they could travel to the Mirror Worlds somehow(he said they could put someone in one such, and empty one, if someone wasn't careful how he asked to be made "King of the World".) So they seem to have the knowledge, and they can also guess at the strength of angreal and such... and can feed on someone's connection to the True Source, like a gholam. We'll never know the full details of their relationship to the One Power, but it seems they can make objects that human qualify, perhaps wrongly, as "ter'angreal". It seems almost certain they made the original Foxhead medallion, which Elayne can reproduce, if imperfectly.

The Finns also spoke of themselves as "Ancients" - and they sure seem to know the "numbers of chaos"!! So my pet theory is that the Finns found the human world through their Portal Stones, and built Ghenjei as a permanent doorway, and later the two doorways for humans after they made a bargain with them. We can believe pretty much what we want, I'm pretty sure RJ intended to leave those ancient mysteries untouched and unexplained, or otherwise this would ruin the mythos, to give us "ancient" information not a single character has. I think it's the same reason why he always refrained from saying too much about the "mystery Ages" - a wise decision as many other works of fiction (Lost, Star Wars etc.) have proven over and over. If we're told too much, all the bolts and screws and gaping logical holes will show, and this would undermine the "realism" of the worldbuilding a lot, and by extension, the series itself.

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Egwene and the WIse Ones don't know the most basic thing about Teleranriod - 02/12/2010 10:43:16 PM 1958 Views
IIRC Nicola was killed by a Black Ajah Sister and Egwene had tried to save her. - 02/12/2010 10:52:01 PM 1159 Views
Yes, I meant allowing her near the battle in the first place - 03/12/2010 06:28:45 AM 763 Views
And who would enforce those rules? - 03/12/2010 12:42:33 PM 880 Views
Also, I'm not sure how you could expect the Wise Ones to know that. - 03/12/2010 02:51:43 PM 755 Views
How do you figure? - 02/12/2010 10:55:15 PM 962 Views
Re: How do you figure? - 02/12/2010 11:06:29 PM 1051 Views
may, being the operative word. - 02/12/2010 11:12:49 PM 875 Views
except for the part of the soul that stays in the sleeping body, like they've explained many times. *NM* - 02/12/2010 11:16:43 PM 420 Views
mmm fair point. maybe if you were there "too strongly"? - 02/12/2010 11:18:50 PM 879 Views
right. but i dont think 'too strongly' ever means completely. maybe in the flesh or something *NM* - 03/12/2010 01:24:38 AM 445 Views
This doesn't make a lot of sense - 03/12/2010 06:37:02 AM 817 Views
They also told Perrin that about... - 03/12/2010 12:55:57 AM 962 Views
yes, that is another confounding factor - 03/12/2010 09:14:35 AM 819 Views
Oh, I see. - 02/12/2010 11:45:37 PM 922 Views
Re: Oh, I see. - 03/12/2010 02:29:30 AM 929 Views
Re: Oh, I see. - 03/12/2010 02:45:59 AM 856 Views
He isn't a wolfbrother - 03/12/2010 05:43:06 AM 894 Views
Maybe he hadn't discovered it yet. - 03/12/2010 06:21:22 AM 798 Views
He'd be a shadowbrother-brother - 03/12/2010 06:51:59 AM 728 Views
You raise an interesting possibility - 03/12/2010 06:44:18 AM 993 Views
Wolfbrothers are going to be part of the next age. - 03/12/2010 07:05:30 AM 754 Views
I thought they were just a transitional thing - 03/12/2010 07:13:17 AM 840 Views
I doubt it, that Age is ours. - 03/12/2010 09:33:03 PM 754 Views
Uhm, TOTALLY. - 03/12/2010 10:00:01 PM 713 Views
GASP! *NM* - 04/12/2010 06:59:09 AM 493 Views
I know RJ said something - 04/12/2010 06:15:51 AM 729 Views
Re: I know RJ said something - 04/12/2010 07:05:50 AM 812 Views
So... - 04/12/2010 07:24:07 AM 836 Views
Re: So... - 04/12/2010 10:12:45 AM 794 Views
Of course... - 05/12/2010 08:21:05 PM 886 Views
If the first age is the Technological / Scientific Age - 06/12/2010 06:33:18 AM 862 Views
I don't see why they would have to be unique themes. - 06/12/2010 07:04:08 AM 793 Views
I don't even know why they're supposed to be mutually exclusive. *NM* - 06/12/2010 07:37:35 AM 417 Views
Re: I don't see why they would have to be unique themes. - 06/12/2010 08:14:15 AM 776 Views
uhm, duh, stonehedge. - 04/12/2010 07:11:44 PM 746 Views
That's far from "the most basic" thing and it is entirely excusable that they do not know it. - 02/12/2010 11:17:46 PM 924 Views
It could be extrapolated from the fact that it's souls that inhabit it - 03/12/2010 06:54:40 AM 801 Views
You're caving to bias from being outside the story with more information than any single character. - 03/12/2010 09:13:12 AM 818 Views
Don't forget the Heroes - 03/12/2010 09:34:43 AM 703 Views
I think that she meant that comment as more for the "hero" version - 03/12/2010 10:57:38 AM 759 Views
Maybe this should be a question for Sanderson? - 03/12/2010 11:43:54 AM 772 Views
that's only because you're stubbornly holding to yours, despite everyone indicating its errors *NM* - 03/12/2010 05:29:15 PM 489 Views
Obviously my tenacity indicates that I have a worthy point - 03/12/2010 07:06:18 PM 588 Views
Perrin doesn't count since his information is from Hopper - 03/12/2010 09:58:01 PM 788 Views
So it's my evidence against your non-evidence? - 04/12/2010 06:05:41 AM 848 Views
why are you assuming that all souls are the same? - 04/12/2010 07:18:10 PM 1058 Views
1. You're wrong. 2. Even if you're right, how would they know? - 03/12/2010 05:28:33 AM 1005 Views
Maybe, but I bet they can spell it. - 03/12/2010 05:43:28 AM 835 Views
Incidentally, wouldn't that mean it is safer to go to Tel'aran'rhiod in the flesh? *NM* - 03/12/2010 09:35:21 PM 417 Views
I'm more inclined to believe that being killed in the flesh in TAR - 04/12/2010 07:35:15 PM 703 Views
Where does that reasoning begin? - 04/12/2010 07:53:42 PM 1269 Views
Perhaps it's more of a matter that the "usual route" may be altered? - 04/12/2010 10:20:51 PM 682 Views
But human souls don't go to Tel'aran'rhiod, from what we know. - 04/12/2010 11:19:53 PM 702 Views
maybe it does? - 05/12/2010 12:18:05 AM 1033 Views
So do we have any reason to believe this is the case? *NM* - 05/12/2010 02:48:48 AM 401 Views
I don't think so. It's not really something that's discussed - 05/12/2010 03:19:37 AM 564 Views
I'm pondering too - 05/12/2010 03:04:10 PM 861 Views
Not @ all - if humans regularly go to TAR after they die, we'd have seen it already. Heroes would - 04/12/2010 01:28:45 AM 880 Views
that would have been decidedly clever. *NM* - 04/12/2010 07:18:52 PM 360 Views

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