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> The Ages, how does it go again?
TwangCat
Posted: Jul 25 2004, 07:59 PM
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The power has to be missing for a bare minimum of two ages, the stone age and the modern world age. Also just because we can't cure genetic diseses now doesn't me we won't be able to with technology. It's not impossible to do with technology we just don't know how yet.
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Sharn Penndroen
Posted: Jul 25 2004, 10:44 PM
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Well, in there are lots of theories as to how to cure them, but it is the actual devising of the method that is holding us back right now. Give it 10 or 20 years and we'll have started some. In fact there was a trial in which a swiss doctor cured 15 out of 17 boys with SCIDS using gene therapy. Anyone that is interested, I'll tell you how. It was pretty cool. Sorry, but you've touched on my subject of interest. I know this is slightly off topic.


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Entropic_existence
Posted: Jul 26 2004, 12:51 AM
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Yes, although there currently is a moratorium on the method of gene therapy used to treat SCIDS due to two patients in seperate treatment programs dieing. The death was directly linked to the treatment (I won't get into it because it is waaaay off topic but we did a pretty in depth look at the method of treatment in one of my Genetics classes last semester.)


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Niveus
Posted: Jul 26 2004, 03:10 AM
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according to the books directly the were no "steddings" pre breaking if Jordan wants to change that fine by me he wrote it.
But at the very least steddings played a relitivly minor role in ogier lives its like your home town as you return there even after moving away to see friends and familly you would never notice the "Longing" but there is a passag in the novels that describes the longing as a desire that became a need.

so pre breaking any longong would be so minimal as to never interfere with daily life, but post breaking during the exile the longing became unbearable to them and became a very prominant part of there lives


mind you with a work of fiction so large its almost impossable to remember every detail of the books even he has forgotten stuff.

this is my i joined this forum so we can get a more indepth look at RJ's world and help us see or grasp things we missed earlier


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Sharn Penndroen
Posted: Jul 26 2004, 04:27 AM
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Here is some insightful information on the Creation and the Ages. Most of us already know it, but it is good to review as, Niveus said, things we know during such discussions.

I really find the part on the Creation helpful and the part about the First Age definitively names it as "our day."

Creation

First Age

Second Age

Third Age - After the Breaking

Third Age - Free Years

Third Age - New Era

Fourth Age


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Axel
Posted: Jul 26 2004, 04:58 PM
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Zinuk, The DO doesn't need to be directly involved to have an effect. The devastating wars, the final collapse of civilization, the Dark One's hand at work?

If the 1st Age is our age, then we need to do some serious rethinking. That is assuming that it is. The scattered references to modern times could be leftovers from up to 3 ages prior (using Aleshandre's system) From the Third Age that could take us as far back as the 7th.


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Zinuk
Posted: Jul 26 2004, 06:34 PM
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QUOTE (Axel)
Zinuk, The DO doesn't need to be directly involved to have an effect. The devastating wars, the final collapse of civilization, the Dark One's hand at work?

Not if his prison is whole again. He could not touch the world during the AoL and that was why it could get so perfect. The collapse only came because his prison was bored and so he could touch the world again. If he is to be responsible for the final collapse of civilization, then his prison must not be whole and so we need to find an explanation as to how it came to be whole during AoL.

In fact, while the DO's prison is whole, it is just like if he didn't exist, and so cannot touch the world.
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Sharn Penndroen
Posted: Jul 26 2004, 07:44 PM
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Just because the Dark One was sealed doesn't mean there is no evil around. It is believe that Lanfear knew exactly what she was doing when she freed the Dark One. She did so because of a hunger for power not because of the DO's influence. When she told Rand that she loved him he said, "You loved power." There are some evils that are independent of the Dark One.


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Zinuk
Posted: Jul 26 2004, 10:14 PM
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Exactly. But if Lanfear didn't trigger the DO, she would have died without her evil causing any major problems, as she would certainly not be the first of her Age to like power.

Anyway, for an Age of peace, harmony and technology (with or without the Power) to break appart, there need to be a reason, a major event that triggers the wars that end the Age. I can think of two of them.

The first reason I can see is the intervention of a great evil. That's the scenario of the end of AoL; and such a great evil could not be anything short of the DO.

The second reason I can see is a major technology breakthrough that cause division between humanity, leading to war. One example I have in mind is the possibility to transfert human souls to machines bodies. Some will think it is a great progress while others will see it as a blasphemy to the Creator. Two camps would form and shorly afterwards, war declare.
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TwangCat
Posted: Jul 27 2004, 04:02 AM
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There can also be no creator. RJ says that religion in the form we know it only arrises when there is no direct proof of the god. So it is possible that the sealing done in the end of the 3rd age is so complete it blocks out both the creator and the dark one.

Also in reviewing the links it says it came from the age before the AoL or even perhaps the age before that. I think since we as a fan base have already created the AoD perhaps we should work within that. Although how the portal stones came from either AoD or our age I haven't a freaken clue.
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Sharn Penndroen
Posted: Jul 27 2004, 06:48 AM
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Keep in mind that an Age is a very long time, thousands of years. So besides just "our time" it extends to "as far back as we have a history." By the very definition of the Ages, if we have it as our history than it is still part of our Age. Things a little more fuzzy, like dinosaurs, Adam, Eve, anything pre-Noah in biblical terms, we might could consider to be the Age before ours, or the 7th age of the previous cycle. The Flood would be end of the 7th Age and begining of the 1st. The 1st age could also extent for another 1000 years from out time. Somewhere along those lines we develop Portal Stone and bring in Ogier. Maybe the Ogier are aliens. Maybe they found Ogier at Roswell and have been developing the Portal Technology. David Blaine is definitely a channeler, and if the Dark One's prison weren't sealed than I would say that he is a Forsaken.

The Creator can't be blocked out by the seal on the Dark One. The Creator made that seal to block out the Dark One. The Creator is definitely always a force weather people want him to be our not because he stands outside the timeline. He is not temporally linear. He decides and makes the Pattern in the Weave. Ta'vern are around to make sure the pattern he wants is made. Therefore it is irrelavant weather or not the people believe in him or not. He doesn't draw power from the faith like a DnD god. It is like saying the painting doesn't believe in the painter. The painter is still there and he paints away making the painting as he sees fit.


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Axel
Posted: Jul 27 2004, 02:36 PM
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Zinuk, you are ignoring a major reason for the inevitable collapse of any society that reaches a utopian plane. Human beings. People are selfish, self-centered, power-hungry, spiteful, need I go on? The more power they gain, the more dangerous they are. And a society where everybody has a great deal of power, where every group of fanatics can gain access to firepower greater than that of nations during the cold war. Where those great nations can unleash horrors unthinkable. With only one exception whenever man has developed new technologies for killing more of his own kind at once than ever before he as always found a way to do it.
The DO doesn't need to do anything for society to collapse, mankind will do that himself. The DO just needs to sit back and enjoy the show.

Why are we assuming the Ogier come from the portal stones? Could not they be the products of genetic engineering? If that were the case then every turn of the Wheel could lead to a new race being created.

Not neccessarily is it that long. Consider all the obviously exagerated legends of our time. Only a short time ago we have the American Tall Tales, barely 200 years old, many less. A little over a thousand years ago we have the legends of King Arthur, all of which are different. (you may note we see many paralells to King Arthur in the 3rd Age, maybe we aren't so far removed as you think) Consider the obvious exagerations in every modern religion. The Christmas story, the Jesus legend, Greco-Roman mythology, the Vadas, the Koran (barely 1400 years old), I think you see where I'm going. Almost everything from before Ancient Greece is based on what can be learned from ruins and fossils. Remember that much of what we know of history is from archeology, ironically the further back we go the less of history was known. Our age might not go so far back as you expect.


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Sharn Penndroen
Posted: Jul 27 2004, 05:42 PM
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But I think it is. You are correct to say that we have our own legends from not that far back, but many of those are mearly exaggerations. Heck, just as far back as 150 years we can talk about Davie Crockett and Paul Bunnion, but those are more stories than legends. My point is we still have definite historical records dating back 'til then. Also based on looking for major catastrophies, I'd have to say there is nothing in our history or legends that compares with the Flood during Noah's time. If we were living in the Wheel of Time world and RJ were the Creator, the flood would have marked the end of an age. I'd say that from the time of Adam to the time of Noah would have been the 7th age of a preceeding cycle. Or you could say that Adam and Eve's expulsion from Eden marked the beginning of our age. Leaving dinasaurs as either the 6th age (if the Flood marks the beginning of our age) or the 7th age (if the fall of Adam marks the beginning of our age.) I'm more likely to say that Adam - Noah would be the 7th age and dinasaurs would be the 6th age. This is because we don't even have legends of what went on during the dino-time. We just have left over physical evidence. Legends faded to myth.

The catastrophe that killed the dinos marked the end of the 6th age.

Adam and Eve's expulsion from the garden was an exiled from a paradisical mirror world. They were channelers and that was why they lived so long, but were shielded / severed as part of their exile. Years go by, during Noah's time the people are ripe from destruction, a flood comes... If Adam and Eve were not shielded / severed then there were channelers during that time and a human actually caused the Flood. After the flood there were no channelers, trained ones at least.

The Flood marks the End of the 7th age and the beginning of our Age. The 1st Age. Eventually we will rediscover channeling and make the Portal Stones and possible the Horn of Valere is made. A major battle goes down, Armageddon as prophesied in the scriptures by someone with the Lost Talent of Foretelling. After that time a period of unprecedented peace with begin, also prophesided in scripture.

This battle marks the end of the 1st Age and the beginning of the 2nd Age. That period of peace, or the Millenium, is what is known as the Age of Legends, during the 3rd Age. The scriptures say that during that time the devil (the DO) will be bound, and at the end of the millenium he will be released for a season to tempt the children of men. Those were prophesies also given through Foretelling that the Dark One would be released, The War of Shadow goes on, blah, blah, blah, world breaks, last male Aes Sedai dies, End of the 2nd Age.

3rd Age begins, it will go on until Tarmon Gaidon when the DO will once again be sealed away.

4th age will begin after that.

In my run down, I'm missing the end of 4th / beginning of 5th, end of 5th / beginning of 6th. Other than that I've got most of it in a nice little bow.

Ogier would have come either at the end of the 1st or the beginning of the second. At the End of the 5th age something should happen to kill of humankind and bring dinos to earth. I'm not sure what should happen between the 4th and 5th Age.

Does anyone have the BBoBA? Can you see if it says anything about the origins of the Ogier, please?


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Zinuk
Posted: Jul 27 2004, 05:54 PM
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QUOTE (Axel)
Zinuk, you are ignoring a major reason for the inevitable collapse of any society that reaches a utopian plane. Human beings. People are selfish, self-centered, power-hungry, spiteful, need I go on? The more power they gain, the more dangerous they are. And a society where everybody has a great deal of power, where every group of fanatics can gain access to firepower greater than that of nations during the cold war. Where those great nations can unleash horrors unthinkable. With only one exception whenever man has developed new technologies for killing more of his own kind at once than ever before he as always found a way to do it.
The DO doesn't need to do anything for society to collapse, mankind will do that himself. The DO just needs to sit back and enjoy the show.

That would be a reason as to why no society can grow into an utopian society, but not a reason as to why a utopian society (where everything is, by definition, perfect) could collapse.

See the AoL. If nobody had found the power emanating from the DO's prison, the whole society would never have collapsed, and for the same reason that it didn't collapse before. A society that manages to become utopian is a society that knows how to deal with all the problems you mention; in fact, it is a society that has solved all these problems, so it cannot be affected by them.

Either the collapse happens before the society becomes utopian, either a major event triggers the end of the utopian age.

That's how I see things.

Anyway, the scenario you have come by is coherent. As I said before, I just think that the DO should play an active role in more that just one age out of seven. The DO seems too important to me (after all, it's the most important being after the Creator). And if the DO does evil, every evil is not the DO's doing, so if a society collapse because of evil at work, that doesn't meen it is the DO's hand. Even if he appreciate the spectacle. He should play an active part in it.
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Aleshandre
Posted: Jul 27 2004, 06:48 PM
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I would like to point out that history is very simply put history. When ever there is no person left with living memory of a specific era, the era becomes legend, in that legends can be exagerated or accurate, depending on how it is told. We do know that history changes as years pass. For example, 20 years ago, Columbus discovered America and had 3 ships; the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria. Now, we "know" that Columbus discovered the islands that are now called the "West Indis" and that he had 4 ships, only 3 of which made it (the fourth turned back) and that the names were not the names that we have used for generations. Legend doesn't necessarilly mean that everything is exagerated, it means that the story changes over time and may be unrecognizable from the truth (remember, Birgitte said that half of the stories about her are barely recognizable to her and she lived them and some of them were someone else, but were attributed to her).
Myth is not that far departed from Legend. I am a direct descendant of Odin and Freya, through their first born son Balder and his wife Frigga. I know for a fact that there were people by those names and that they were the first rulers of all of Scandinavia. By sifting through the mythology, it can be determined that over hundreds of years, these people were elevated from rulers to the status of Legends then to the exalted status of gods. We are talking about 2 ages passing long before I was born and this directly from my own family history. Memory of the people themselves faded as their stories were told to the children, then grandchildren and by the time that the great-grandchildren were hearing the stories, the people with living memory of the events died, leaving memory fading to Legend. Legend is retold for a few generations, fading further to Myth. Now we still have the myths, but we know that there have been 2 Ages since Odin and Freya lived. Even now, the myths are fading, since very few people even know who Odin or Freya were despite the fact that we have days named for them Wednsday (Odin tagg) and Friday (Freya tagg). In a couple more generations, the Myths of my own ancesstors will be gone and all my grandchildren will have are names in their family records. The point is that the length of an age depends on the fading of memory to legend, to myth. We shouldn't hold so strictly to a single event of significance that "ends" the age, but whether there are people who have living memory of the event. Bearing this in mind, we can say that since the birth of Christ in our history, there has been at least one Age that has concluded, since no person has living memory of the event and the last generation that heard the story from those with living memory have died, so that puts 2 ages. between us and the birth of Christ. The Legend of King Arthur has had a simmilar course, as have several others. We are nearing the completion of another Age, if you use WWII as "the event", since those with living memory of it are dying at an increasing rate, leaving their memories to fade to legend.


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Sharn Penndroen
Posted: Jul 28 2004, 12:00 AM
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I don't really see it that way. An Age is much longer than a generation, or even a few generations. And even though the details vary there are major events that happen in each Age.


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TwangCat
Posted: Jul 28 2004, 04:13 AM
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well the easiest way to settle this. How long is the third age. It started with the breaking and ends with the last battle. we don't really know exactly when the last battle will be but we can all probably agree it will be within a hundred years max. So at most we can say the 3rd age is 3000 years. How does that factor into the numbers you guys are creating?
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Axel
Posted: Jul 28 2004, 03:41 PM
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Sharn, you are taking mythology at face value. We must assume that every religion suffers the effects of distortion through time. Likely there was no Noah, no Adam, and no Eve. The original tales were very different, now what were they?

At best our Age begins with the beginings of Western civilization. So I'd say the earliest is when the Myceneans moved to Greece and formed the city-states that became centers of culture.


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TwangCat
Posted: Jul 28 2004, 05:35 PM
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That does sound like a good time for our age to start. I think that leaves us with about another 500 years to blow ourselves up and seems possible.
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Niveus
Posted: Jul 29 2004, 05:38 AM
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QUOTE (Zinuk @ Jul 26 2004, 11:34 AM)
QUOTE (Axel)
Zinuk, The DO doesn't need to be directly involved to have an effect. The devastating wars, the final collapse of civilization, the Dark One's hand at work?

Not if his prison is whole again. He could not touch the world during the AoL and that was why it could get so perfect. The collapse only came because his prison was bored and so he could touch the world again. If he is to be responsible for the final collapse of civilization, then his prison must not be whole and so we need to find an explanation as to how it came to be whole during AoL.

In fact, while the DO's prison is whole, it is just like if he didn't exist, and so cannot touch the world.

even when whole the prison wasn't perfect leanfer coukd sence the DO and she made the bore to access the power.

If rand was reborn after a mere 3000 years why not the forsaken? why not Dark friends? and just as rand is very simiular to lewis therin so to would the other reborn and Evil would remain Evil so as they were bent to the dark ones will they would continue to work at his relaese there for he would still have an influence on the world all though inderectly


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