And maybe the Sea Folk know (or can hire people who know) how to throw a dock up anywhere that's not marshy or boggy. As for not connected to Andor by land, then she loses whatever loopholes she hoped to exploit with her thought about taxing goods that come out of the enclave.

Um, no. She made her deal with Alise, the far and away most competent Kinswoman, and who absolutely does not want to be second fiddle to sisters. The financial incentives WILL force a break between those who want to continue with their work in Andor and those who seek to subordinate them to the Tower.


The Tower has not changed greatly. Egwene loses all interest in real reform if it doesn't boost her power. Nothing will or can fundamentally change unless they get rid of the Oaths. After all, those are "what make (them) Aes Sedai." Which your girl has no intention of doing, despite the objections of far smarter people. As for the Tower's possession of Traveling, that is meaningless as far as the rest of the world is concerned. Unless you are under the impression that their possession of Healing means no one else dies of disease or accidents?


Not when they've been co-opted by Egwene's agreement.

They made an agreement that will put an END to any competition! They agreed to train each other's initiates. There's no need for competition because the other parties are bound to hand them over anyway. Their agreement ELIMINATES the need for competition. Why do you think patent & copyright laws exist? They are honored in order to encourage people to invent new things, because the laws, by limiting access to new technology or intellectual properties, gives their creators a chance to profit from them, rather than shafting the guy who does the hard work by having everyone else swoop in and copy his discovery. With the three groups no longer keeping secrets from one another, there is no more competition, and no incentive for the Sea Folk to make a breakthrough to gain an edge over the Aiel and Tower, because they just have to share them anyway. But if the Kin find a better way to make a gateway, or a refined Healing weave, not only are they NOT bound to share it with the Tower, they have the opportunity to make some bank off of it! The Kin are the only ones left with incentive to compete.

It's like you are willfully ignorant of human history, psychology, law and politics. Do you know the only time Europe had NO wars going on in the last 2000 years? When it looked like it was going to be the battleground between two nuclear armed countries. Do phrases like "deterrence" and "MAD" mean anything to you? And the point of letting the rulers have channelers is that it means no Tetsuan can betray a Manetheren ever again, no Bonwhin can think to abuse an Artur Hawkwing and commit such atrocious crimes against the greatest human being of the Third Age that she was given the ultimate punishment only used once before in Tower history by an Amyrlin. It means that in times of crisis, a Malkier will not stand alone while waiting for the Tower to get off its ass, an Agelmar will not beg for just one channeler to stand at his side in Tarwin's Gap, and that the Forsaken will have a lot harder time taking the reins of a nation, or the Seanchan will not have so great an advantage in battle against other lands, and may be forced, by the greater initiative and possibilities inherent in loyal, free channelers, to loose their damane. The Logains and the Taims will be far more easily quashed when they poke their heads up, rather than waiting for the Tower to send a too-small party of sisters, see them fail, and then send a larger party when they start taking it seriously, and all the while these terrorists are running loose wreaking havoc. It means the greatest national hero of a nation will not face public humiliation at the hands of one of the most incompetent Amyrlins known in the series, because he is just trying to do his job, and she's ignorant and insecure. It means freedom and equality. There will be none of that stability the Tower loves so much, but which also seems to indicate a stagnating and dying world, but who cares because a stable and stagnant world challenges their puny Aes Sedai brains a lot less when they are trying to run its affairs.

What ways? And your sheer and absolute ignorance is clearly displayed when you say shit like "official sanction" has been given to end a monopoly! Official sanction is what CREATES monopolies. As long as that kind of power is concentrated, the problem of a monopoly can never really go away, it just because shuffled around.

Yes, the incentives the Kin will have, since ToM makes it clear they will be working for money. If you are ignorantly referring to Egwene's little dream-summit, you are grossly ignorant of political and economic principles, and I have already dealt with that idiocy above.

The recruits have options now. And there are already other alternatives for the rulers. If a ruler wants to forbid Aes Sedai recruiting in his realm, he can turn to the Black Tower for support, and they would be all too eager to leap at the chance to have the kind of official recognition and sanction in his land that Aes Sedai have taken for granted everywhere and for centuries. With Elayne's Kin and the Seanchan as precedents, the Tower will not be able to stop rulers from gathering their own channelers (the allusions to the fates of the Malkieri sisters in KoD show that even under the old Tower system there is still national pride and loyalty). If the Tower is such an overwhelming attraction, then you have to confess that Egwene's deal with the Sea Folk and Aiel is a farce and a sham designed to give her the ability to steal their channelers.
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By whom? Egwene won't let her best friends and the two most accomplished sisters she has ever met finish a sentence on the subject and the one time she ever brought it up to mainstream sisters, they were even more recalcitrant than she. Let me make sure I understand you clearly though - your expectation of a brighter tomorrow is based on the assumption that Egwene is going to have one of her intentions come to pass, and another intention entirely thwarted?

Yeah, keep smoking whatever you're on. And maybe, once they've got a booming enterprise going, where they are received with courtesy by the wealthiest of merchants and even nobles who seek their services, maybe they won't want to toss all that on the fire to take their chances with the murder-brainwashing-ter'angreal ritual in the hopes of having the chance to kiss Aes Sedai ass as the weakest and bottom of the totem pole.

And it never would have happened without the outsider making the discovery.

How so? No one else is coming up with anything that does not directly relate to the possibility of saving her ass from a lurking killer.

Why does it automatically follow that they are going to experiment more to attract people from two other channeling traditions, one of which is very strict and traditional and the other of which is very strict and hierarchical? Anyway, once they realize that "a happy medium regarding the water in our environment" is a strong draw, the sisters will give up looking for new ways. Don't forget, these are all the same women who have been doing stuff the old way for centuries. Even the few changes that have come about, have not been a result of new ways of thinking, but of weird circumstances twisting their old habits to lead them new places. Egwene herself says that none of her reforms will last, and eventually the Tower will return to business as normal.

Living in, and associated with the premier -greal expert alive, AND her substantial stash. How long do you think that state of affairs will last?

There is no indication that they are determined to increase their ranks and outdo each other. Secondly, Egwene's deal has stripped them of any incentive to try to outdo each other, since they will just have to share whatever they discover with the others anyway. Meanwhile, the Kin will have greed to spur them on, and THAT works. As a result of the Kin's deal with Elayne and Egwene's deal with the others, the Kin have gained the incentive of greed and the others have lost it.


You are so absurdly naive, I cannot believe you are allowed out of the house! Do you really think they are going to trade their sure-thing automatic standing for a harsh lifestyle in a foreign culture and a dangerous environment and the uncertainty of advancement in a meritocracy? No, the only thing that's going to happen is, at BEST, the Tower will get stuck with all the slackers and bureaucrats, who will be staunchly against any reforms because it will mess up their comfortable and familiar status quo. More likely the Tower will not need to change much at all, or will resist any changes. They allowed their numbers to drop almost suicidally low, rather than take the logical step of recruiting. They were open to new ways when they were in a rebel camp, but being back in their old familiar confines of the Tower will reinforce old habits.

You mean the way Egwene did? And all it took was a single conversation to set her back on track. With Oath-Rod-loving Aes Sedai resuming the training of their sunburned Accepted, fresh from their sojourns abroad, those notions will be deliberately beaten out of them, and even if she was so inclined, how could Egwene stop it? Tell the teaching sisters "Hey, you know that institutional quirk you are all so fond of an revere, please stop talking about how great it is when you are instructing our initiates on what it means to be an Aes Sedai." Yeah, that'll work.

Give it time. $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

More fool her. That just means she won't stop the Kin until it's too late, but without tough financial straits making rebels reluctantly accept the need to go into business, once they regain the enormous resources of the White Tower again, the opposition to such practices will kill them off and prevent the Tower from profiting by channeling. And if they do continue with these things, eventually that business will become the tail that wags the dog and it will bring down the old Tower and replace it with something new and much more to my liking. Or a worse and more powerful tyrannical organization, fueled by money instead of arrogance. Either way, business will doom the Tower as we know it, or as you imagine it is becoming.


I know! Isn't it great! That, by the way, is how you get advancements. Compare airplane development from 1933 to 1939 and then from 1939 to 1945. The latter era saw far greater and more rapid changes than the former. And afterwards, military technology kept developing during the Cold War as each side sought an advantage. But since the Cold War ended 20 years ago, the US military is still using the exact same tanks and standard rifles.

Explain the Aiel, the Sea Folk and the AoL. It was not that channelers are inherently evil but that people are inherently evil and for some reason, the Seanchan never really got a decent or viable culture. There is no indication that the Seanchan had a society that devolved into feuding channelers striving for power, and all things being equal, it is just as likely that the prevalence of channelers meant society never got a chance to get started there. Channelers can be kept under wraps the same way wealthy people, or great warriors or people with guns are kept under wraps. The aggregate power and potential of the general population can keep them at bay. And they arise independently, so an oppressed population can produce their own channelers to counter those of the oppressors.

But there are other governments to keep them honest, and they are not allowed monopolies. That's why there is the FBI, and state police departments and county sheriffs and city, borough and municipal police departments. Not to mention a different law enforcement agency for every possible interest, like the Secret Service , the ATF, the DEA, ICE and the US Marshall Service.

And who the hell does the Tower govern, protect or answer to that they deserve this monopoly! It is NOT a government, except for being a tyrannical usurper over the channeling population.

And that's the point. A good government or good law is clearly defined and well-established. That is why everyone learns as children about Hammurabi. His code was barbaric and draconian, but the significance was that it was written down - the law was clearly defined. You can have a tyranny that is clearly defined, but without clear definition, you will get there eventually. Which is where the Tower is right now. They oppress anyone who will not join, and they murder anyone who gets through their training but fails to prove that they worship the Tower above all, and are willing to let people die or perform completely counter-indicated actions solely because the Tower told them to. Look at Faile's little litany of atrocities sisters have been forced to commit in the past, and tell me that the Tower is not a tyranny. Himmler, Goring and Goebbels might have like Nazi Germany just fine, but that does not change the nature of that tyranny, and neither does the contentment of the Aes Sedai who sit in its lap of luxury.

So what. It did. Ecrasez l'infame!

Bullshit, pollyanna. The Tower was out to grab as much power as it could, and kept it up from day one until now. Because that is what institutions do, because they are created by people, and that is what people do. The oppressive and excessive influence of the Tower in our time is the nadir of their worldly power, as well as of their numerical & channeling strength, and is a function of the malaise that is reducing the influence of ALL authorities and powers in the world. They have been worse throughout their history, and only in these latter days is there some relief, because their grip falters as the whole world weakens.

Yes it is. The Tower could not "exceed their mandate" if a jealous rival organization sought to check their every move to get more powerful.

Oh, please! Absolutely no decisions of any weight or substance have been made in the interest of protecting their investment in Tar Valon. In fact, all it did was give Egwene a club to mendaciously beat Elaida with, claiming she was neglecting her duty to oversee the city. They have been shown to make no political or diplomatic moves in the interests of the city of Tar Valon, because it is so far from everywhere that it has no threats or rivals to complicate things for the sisters. Even worse, divesting the Tower of responsibility for the city will make them even MORE removed from, and indifferent to, the ordinary people.

Prophecy doesn't say forever.
That's hardly comforting to a fan of the Resident Evil movies.

Why should they have the right to police channelers? If a channeler breaks a law in Andor, let Andor deal with it. Otherwise, it's no one's business what a channeler does with his power, than it is what he does with his money or his land or his penis. And don't cite excessive and tyrannical regulations extant in those spheres of human activity, either. I reject those as I reject the Tower.