This is actually rather easy, the hard part is thining iron while retaining its strength, but because it is going to be transformed to C, the tensile strength of the base material is not relevant. If you have 2 AS helping, it gets even easier; One floats a 40lb ingot on a bed of air, something virtually every AS can do in tehir sleep, the other uses fire to melt it. The liquid metal spreads and then is cooled. The whole process would take minutes.

Even without using the power, it is not difficult, just takes a bit longer. If you have a blast forge, you can liquify the metal and then pour it to a form, this is called casting, and has been done throughout history, how do you think those goblets were made? Without a hot enough forge, you heat the metal and then roll it between 2 stone cylinders. The only time it is tough is when you are trying to shape it without losing temper, which does not matter with C. The process is not new, only the scale would slow initial startup of production.


Simplifying somewhat, but not as much as you think. The camp AS had 4 women (one was murdered) who could be said were very good at C conversion, but they were only part of the tower (could be wrong but I always thought the rebels were about 25% to 30% of the sisters)this wuold statistically place the total number of sisters who could do the harbor chain transformation at around 20. They are the tip of the bell curve, not the only ones who are capable. 1 harbor chain would equal enough C armor for hundreds, if not thousands (you only need ~30 pounds of iron for C plate armor) of warriors harbor chains are HUGE.


I could be wrong, but i believe they had shock lances before the war began. I know they had flying vehicles before then, these are not examples of their progress in war. Judging by the Forsaken, the best of the best, they were not all that great as military thinkers. I agreee that they SHOULD be, but we must accept what the books portray them as, and Sun Tzu they are not. Just because they (or the author) did not think of it, does not mean it is not practical.


Have you ever worn medieval style armor or modern kevlar? Flexibility is NOT something you actually want in armor plate. It something engineered into the material because the designer must have it, to keep the material from breaking. The flexibility actually reduces the pure stopping power of the armor. Non-fantasy materials must have it though, hard=brittle and armor that shatters when stressed past a certain point is a "bad thing". C does not have a "breaking point". It is, by definition, inherantly unbreakable therfore the perfect armor material.

As described by the author, a sheet of C 1 nanometer thick could stop a 30 quatrillion ton projectile moving at relatavistic speeds and be unharmed. If that is not armor, then I do not know what is.

For storytelling purposes, RJ had to limit the use of C in the AoL, otherwise the archeology of the society would still exist. Put yourself into the shoes of a channeler in the AoL. Wouldn't you (over a span of time) convert virtually everything into C in your house so that nothing breaks? All your plates, all you flatware, all the structural elements of your house, Wouldn't you convert the body of your car so that it doesn't get messed up? I would, especially once my daughter started driving...

We have to seperate the storytelling elements from our theoretical extrapolation on the author's framework. I have already stated that I do not actually want C armor introduced into the story in any large way and there had best be a good reason for it to be introduced in even a minor one i.e. Egwene converts Gawyn's shield with a "I should have thought of this before" and he later uses that shield to stop a stream of balefire aimed at her while she is linked to Rand allowing him to seal the bore.