Interesting. My view on how there could be 20 million Trollocs and a Cyndane strength problem... - Edit 3
Before modification by Shannow at 05/12/2009 06:20:15 AM
FYI -- Was at the event in Sandy tonight. There wasn't an official Q&A session, but a number of people stayed and asked questions as time permitted. Only a couple of pertinent points.
1. Verin. He said the notes on her are quite extensive. Lots of her backstory is there. He said he felt like what wasn't revealed in the books would be a good candidate for the encyclopedia.
2. Trollocs. Question was how many trollocs did the Dark One have access to. He stated definitively that there are lots and lots of trollocs. The Dark One has access to either "orders of magnitudes more" or "an order of magnitude" more trollocs that can be supported in the blights (I can't remember whether there was an "s" there. Sorry). He wouldn't comment on how or where, but was very clear that there was going to be a big big trolloc army.
3. Ability to Channel/Souls. I think this has all been reported, but he stated definitively that the ability to channel is tied to soul. He stated definitively that the spark was not tied to the soul but could be affected by a specific body (ie, just because you had the spark in one life, you could be reborn and just have the ability to learn.) He stated with 85% probability that strength in the power was not tied to soul, meaning that if you were an uber channel in one body, you could be weak in the power in your next body.
Also, for any Alcatraz readers, he stated that in book four, one of the powers would be a person who was bad in Math (his example was that if you asked this person to tell you what 5 gold coins + 2 gold coins equalled was holding the gold coins, and the person (I can't remember if he said he or she) answered 17, that 17 gold coins would appear....
1. Verin. He said the notes on her are quite extensive. Lots of her backstory is there. He said he felt like what wasn't revealed in the books would be a good candidate for the encyclopedia.
2. Trollocs. Question was how many trollocs did the Dark One have access to. He stated definitively that there are lots and lots of trollocs. The Dark One has access to either "orders of magnitudes more" or "an order of magnitude" more trollocs that can be supported in the blights (I can't remember whether there was an "s" there. Sorry). He wouldn't comment on how or where, but was very clear that there was going to be a big big trolloc army.
3. Ability to Channel/Souls. I think this has all been reported, but he stated definitively that the ability to channel is tied to soul. He stated definitively that the spark was not tied to the soul but could be affected by a specific body (ie, just because you had the spark in one life, you could be reborn and just have the ability to learn.) He stated with 85% probability that strength in the power was not tied to soul, meaning that if you were an uber channel in one body, you could be weak in the power in your next body.
Also, for any Alcatraz readers, he stated that in book four, one of the powers would be a person who was bad in Math (his example was that if you asked this person to tell you what 5 gold coins + 2 gold coins equalled was holding the gold coins, and the person (I can't remember if he said he or she) answered 17, that 17 gold coins would appear....
1. Regarding the extra Trollocs, he says that the Dark One has access to an order of magnitude of Trollocs greater than what can be supported by the Blight. By that I assume about 10 times more, at least. If the Blight can support a million Trollocs, then we're talking at least 10 million Trollocs.
This is very interesting. My view is that the Trollocs have been breeding for 3000 years. And the last time they were seen in significant numbers was during the Trolloc Wars. Therefore, if at any given time the maximum number of Trollocs that the Blight can support is 1 million, then there has been about 1000 years - say 50 Trolloc generations if we take one generation as being 20 years - during which the carrying capacity of 1 million has been underutilized. For example, I doubt that every Trolloc alive has been sent to attack the Borderlands in every generation over the last 1000 years.
So what if the Dark One has taken half of every Trolloc generation - say 500 000 of them - and stuffed them in a vacuole.
That means that over the course of 1000 years 25 million Trollocs could have been "stored" in a time capsule and kept ready for use in the Last Battle. To the Trollocs, they might only have spent a couple of days or weeks in this vacuole, but in reality, they've been there for up to 1000 years.
All 25 million could then be unleashed at once for use in the Last Battle.
2.
Regarding channeler strength not tied to the soul. That's slightly problematic given Demandred and Mesaana's comments about Cyndane. Because if channeler strength is dependent on the body, and not the soul, then Demandred had no reason to think that Cyndane is not Lanfear based on Mesaana's comment that Cynadane is weaker than Lanfear was.
If strength was dependent on the new body then channeler strength could never be an indicator of who a transmigrated channeler had been before. Demandred would surely know this.
Thanks for your post. It was most informative.