The One Power, Ogier & Ter'angreal

[Luckers]

So, humanity seems relatively certain in their assertation that the One Power has two halves, but that assertation has always bother me... after all its not like we have a third sex, so how can we be certain that their arn't other powers in the Power? Certainly we have seen effects that arn't the work of the One Power, like Ogier Treesinging, or the Nym's... 'treedancing'?. Is that the work of a third power?

 

The other issue that has always troubled me is the function of certain ter'angreal. We know ter'angreal as a whole use the power, and yet we have seen numerous ter'angreal function without any access to the power--not weaves, not the sensation of drawing on the power, not anything. At first i thought that maybe it was just gender issues, but we've seen some of these ter'angreal work in the presence of both male and female channelers, and at times the books have even specifically shown the lack of the power.

 

For some this makes sense... they react to the power, and it is that reaction that causes the effect, like Cadsuane's swallow, or Nynaeve's saphire ring. But for others... like, how does the 'anger' ring that Nynaeve wears, work?

 

Is it possible that these ter'angreal are using another source of the Power, or is it just that the assumption that ter'angreal all use the power is flawed? Maybe some of them rely on other physical effects... certainly the shocklance (shockhandgun?) that Asne uses seems to not use the power at all, as she specifies that its effects couldn't be sensed at all, and even inverted or revearsed weaves draw on the power in a way that can be sensed. It could be, of course, that that shockhandgun draws on saidin, and yet somehow i dont think so.

 

In that case are these items even ter'angreal, or are the Aes Sedai simply calling them that because they assume that anything capable of causing such an effect must involve the power in some way... or is all it requires to be a ter'angreal to have been made by the Power?

[GrandpaG]

You know the underline thing that people make to take you to another thread somewhere?  I think it's called a link?  That's similar to how I envision the non-channelling ter'angreal.  Just like I don't have to understand how a link is made or how it works, I can click on it and it will take me to the specified location.  Seems like magic to me.  A channeller created the ter'angreal.  It was specifically designed to work whether the user could channel or not.  It does utilize the one power indirectly.  Don't know if that makes sense or not?

[Luckers]

I don't know... something about it just doesn't seem right to me.

[Guest cwestervelt]

If I had to guess, I would say they had ways of masking the sensations that were given off.  Based on Rand's trip through time at Rhuidean, Power using deviced were quite common place.  I can see masking the noticeable effects as being something they would want to do simply to keep from itching all the time.

[Luckers]

Yeah, i can see how that might be an issue.

 

But what of the shockhandgun, would that be classified as ter'angreal. I get the feeling RJ was attempting to avoid refering to it as such... Asne never even mentions the word, and the conversation flow is obvious in the lack of it.

[callandor]

well, on the ogier treesinging, i think that they  utilize the one power, and like gramps said, it just is like a "link' to the power, and taps into one of the sources. ive noticed that a lot of the ter'angreal dont show what they are doing with the one power, like the porcupine and other things, and the only thing that people can tell what happened is the effect. i think when Faile came into the room with the porcupine she fainted or whatever and moirane had said that spirt was used, so it must've been using saidar.  maybe the ogier do treesinging using the power a little and nobody can see the weaves, or maybe the way the song is masks the weaves so that nobody can see it.

 

and the nym were created with the one power, so they can tap into one of the sources, and i guess its masked somehow too.

[TheRedSon]

Maybe the Ogier and the Nym (and Myrdraal and Gholum for that matter) have a different relation to the power than humans do.

[RobertAlexWillis]

I don't personally think there is any other aspect of the True Source out there, but certainly there are other sources of power.  I have always assumed that items like a shocklance are not ter'angreal, and are completely unrelated to the Power in their actual use, but that the research in physics that allowed that energy discharge technology to develop was assisted by the use of the Power.

 

The Age of Legends seems to have seamlessly integrated the use of the One Power with mechanical technology, either as a power-source or as a means of research.

 

In addition, beings like the Nym, the Ogier, the Dreamwalkers, Perrin, Mat, Min, Hurin ... even Padan Fain for that matter ... demonstrate that there are means to power other than the One Power.  The fact that they can do things, in my opinion, doesn't mean there's some untapped portion of the True Source out there, just that there's more than one path to power.

 

For that matter I've always been suspicious of the Portal Stones.  We know that some things that can be done with the Power can also be done without it (see Dreamwalking/entering Tel'aran'rhiod).  In some cases, can be done more comprehensively without the Power (again, Dreaming and Dreamwalking are the perfect example).  I've gone back and looked, and nowhere does it state definitively that the Portal Stones were made by Aes Sedai, or channelers of any kind.  Just because channelers found a way to use them in the Age of Legends doesn't mean that channeling is the only way to use them.  Given the association and overlap between the parallel worlds of the Portal Stones, the perpendicular worlds that are even harder to reach, and the pervasive nature of Tel'aran'rhiod (touching/surrounding them all) I've thought that the Portal Stones were developed using principles more like Dreamwalking, and that the Power just happens to be able to tap into them.

 

Which is, of course, slightly off topic, except as an example of the idea that there are paths to power besides the One Power.

 

As a final example for this post, I doubt the Tower of Ghenjei uses the Power to take someone who enters it into 'finn-land.

[callandor]

yeah, that probably uses finn magic.

 

im thinking though, that constructs like the nym and that were created with the one power can use some of it, or maybe even just a certain element, like spirit. or maybe just the way they were created can enable them to do things like a program. the program was created to do something, and it can d it on its own, or if someone tells it to. like spellcheck. sometimes if its a minor error, it'll correct it, but if its major, you have to tell it to correct it.

:-\

[Blackrose]

From what i understand a shocklance was just a normal weapon in the AoL, using not the OP but something like eletric. with all the mechanical stuff in the AoL so they mustic have found a way to generate eletric or some other means of powering that. im guessing lukers of Raw might be able to reason this out better than me

[callandor]

im gonna agree with that and say that it was more "shocking" with electricity.

[Luckers]

The shocklance seems to work akin to the electric effect Bethamin uses against Joline, and later Joline uses against Mat. The incitation of electrons to leap from their mediam to a positively charged medium. The fact that this effect works against Mat proves it is not, in itself, of the Power. Much like lightning it can obviously be caused by the power, but it also occurs naturally. In many ways it seems to me to be akin to the photoelectric effect, only instead of using electromagnetic radiation to incite the movement of electrons, it uses the power to lend them that energy.

 

Of course this gets us no further in whether the shocklance uses the power or not, except that it would not require the power to work (though it WOULD require a greater understanding (or perhaps manipualation is a better word) of the electron discharge and of technology in general than is casually availliable in our world. Focused long distance electrical weapons that can be set to specific levels of damage, and the power does allow for the method of that greater manipulation).

 

However, that being said i see no reason there could not be more aspects to the Power than we know about. The fact that two coincide with our genders doesn't infer that that is all there is.

[RobertAlexWillis]

However, that being said i see no reason there could not be more aspects to the Power than we know about. The fact that two coincide with our genders doesn't infer that that is all there is.

 

Except that the author has repeatedly said that is a theme of the Power.  That the two aspects of the Power work with and against each other like the two genders of humanity.

 

It seems much more likely to me that there are simply more forms of power unrelated to the One Power, than that there are more aspects to the One Power.  If that makes sense.

[Davram]

I agree with RAW.  Perrin's Wolfbrother power is something 'older' than the power. Nyms, finns, and Treesingers also seem to have different powers that seem unrelated to the One Power