Transition - Our World to the Age of Legends

[RobertAlexWillis]

Your visualization is hardly any form of emperic evidence...

 

LOL .. Um ... I don't think either of us has any "empirical evidence" either way on this question.  Your proposed progression requires the same type of assumptions, in basically the saame degree, as mine ...

 

But I apologize for "hijacking" your thread.  I was honestly addressing it in a way I thought applied, but I guess I was wrong.

 

The other major issue i have with our age being the 5th through 7th ages is quite simple. What happened to evolution? They have dinosaur bones in this world, so we know it went through the entire prehistoric shebang. Why are we thinking that the cycle of time spans only the arc of human society? Even if it does, wheres the 60,000 years of pre-industrial human evolution?

 

That issue exists whether our Age preceeds or follows the 3rd Age in the progression, because each of our Ages has some knowledge, albeit garbled, of the other.  If the reset is a true, total reset (no life, followed by full evolution) that would be impossible.

 

It would either be:

 

3rd----4th----5th----6th----7th----total reset (eveything lost)----Us----2nd

 

In which case they should have knowledge of us, but we should have absolutely nothing from them, because no story is going to survive a true total reset.

 

Or it would be this:

 

Us----6th----7th----total reset (everything lost)----1st----2nd----3rd----4th

 

In which case we should have knowledge of them, but they should have nothing from us, for the same reason.

 

So, I think it has to be clear that there is not a total reset anywhere in the Cycle.  Personally, I don't think Jordan envisions evolution at all in this world.  There is a Creator.  He made it, and it goes through its cycles.  Yes, he says "its our world" but obviously its not really our world.  On a real planet, humanity could not actually survive a cataclysm as severe as the Breaking is actually described as being.  That much geological upheaval in a period of mere centuries would result in such drastic changes in atmospheric, meteorological, oceanic, and other conditions, that nothing higher than a few plants and insects would survive.

 

Now ... 

 

The basis, from the books, which I used to put "our" Age closer after the 3rd Age than before it is a comparison between the level of detail that our myths have regarding "actual" events in Randland, compared to the level of detail that Randland's myths have regarding "actual" events in our world.  To give two examples among many:  The legend of "The Sword in the Stone", which proclaimed the lineage of the one who drew it out, is a whole lot closer to the "truth" than "Lenn" flying to the moon in the "belly of an eagle made of fire".  The direct correlations between Mat and Odin (getting hanged, the hat, losing his eye, the ravens, etc.) are much more specific and accurate than "Mosk the Giant" with his "Lance of Fire".

 

Now ... there are several potential reasons for this.  We get Mat's story in great detail, and we have Odin's story in great detail, so its easy to compare them for details.  But although we have our current events in some detail, we don't have the "Mosk the Giant" story as anything more than a line or two.  Jordan had to do it that way ... he's not telling the story of Mosk the Giant ... but it impairs our ability to assess the extent of real detail available regarding them about our Age.

 

Of course, it may also be that he didn't supply detail because there simply isn't much detail regarding our Age in their Age, in which case the basis for my comparison stands.  We would be further in their past than they are in our past, putting us "after" them in the cycle.

 

Another reason is that the abilities of Min, Perrin, and Hurin also correspond fairly closely to other legends of our anquity in some detail(especially druidic, shamanistic, and animistic traditions), indicating that both the 3rd Age and the Age that follows it are fairly recent in our past (fairly recent on the scale of Ages, obviously, not "last week").

 

Assuming, just for a second, that Ages last 3 thousand years, then you are telling me we won't have developed habitation on other planets in 6,000 years???

 

Well, if we did, they either chose to stay away permanently, or something wiped them ALL out, because they certainly aren't in contact with Randland.

 

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Personally, I think Jordan just chose not to really deal with all of this ... I haven't seen anywhere that he has said that he even has the whole cycle of Ages mapped out.  All he's ever said (I'm pararphrasing) is that "time is a circle" and "our Age is both before and after the 3rd Age".

 

All this said ... there's nothing close to the level of detail we'd need to come up with anything authoritative.  All of this is simply opinion, and all you are entitled to your wrong ones.  ;)

[Tyrell]

I thought I heard Lanfear mention travelling (big T or little t, I don't recall) at some point, of course I could be 100% wrong. But even if there were other planets out there (which there doesn't nessecerily have to be, the Creator created it, he could have Spoon shaped planets with gravity that worked if he wanted 'cause of magic y'know?) and during the AoL or another age they were colonised, I assume they would not have been able to stay out of the war of power in the AoL or any other light/shadow conflict, maybe they all got toasted by crazy male Aes Sedai, or darkfriends, or aliens, or by the Dark One's favoured childeren - the Giant Space Monkies, who knows?

[Ealdur Tinuviel]

Well, if we did, they either chose to stay away permanently, or something wiped them ALL out, because they certainly aren't in contact with Randland.

 

 

Right, which is why I'm saying that we must be in the "6th/7th age," or else it must have been a total reset. As in everything collapsing into singularity.

 

Because I don't think much else could destroy some interplanetary culture to the point where they become Randlanders of the "3rd age."

 

So, here is the way I'm seeing it:

 

1st Age | 2nd Age (Age of Legends) | 3rd Age | 4th age | 5th age | 6th age| Us

 

OR

 

1st Age | 2nd Age (Age of Legends) | 3rd Age | 4th age | 5th age | Us| 7th Age --Total Reset--

 

But since it seems the objects from our Age have been found in the 3rd Age (Mercedes Benz ornament, anyone?), and as the globe looks relatively similar, then there must not have been some really devastating total reset, therefore we must be closer to the 1st age than the 5th age, and perhaps closer than the 6th age.

 

Unless we are the First Age, which I highly doubt because at some point something has to happen to destroy all of our technology, if we are to become dependent on OP to create technology.

 

One would think that in the 1st age man regrouped and repopulated after the nuclear war that ended the 7th age, and eventually the arrival of the Ogier led to the creation of the Portal Stones, and the discovery of the Finns and the beginning of the 2nd age.

 

 

[Thorum]

My theory was always that ours = first age, with the transition between ages 7 and 1 being the Big Bang.

[Ealdur Tinuviel]

Could be true, but I feel that there needs to be some time of transition in which people lose their technology.

 

Because, IMO, as long as there is technology, people would never discover the OP. They would have no use for it.

[Tyrell]

nuclear war - bye bye most everthing.

[RobertAlexWillis]

OK ... I'm gonna try to do this real slow.

 

There cannot be a total reset, in the sense of Big Bang/Big Crunch, or in the sense of all life dissapearing and re-evolving.

 

Why?

 

Because we know about them, AND they know about us.  That only works ... ONLY works if there is human life through all seven Ages and the "reset". 

 

If we came "before" them, and there was a total reset, then we would not have any legends that matched their events, because after them, but before us, everything would get wiped out: no memory.

 

On the other hand, if we came "after" them, then we would know about them, but they could not know anything about us, because after us, but before them, everything would get wiped out: no memory.

 

The fact that their legends come from our facts, and our legends come from their facts, means that there cannot be a total reset anywhere.

 

Now, that means one of two things.  Either:

 

1) We never actually colonize the stars, and Thom's "rulers of the stars" bit is a misunderstood memory of satellites in orbit and trips to the moon, or,

 

2) Jordan just really didn't deal with this completely.

 

And yes, Ealdur, I do think that our current "Age" could go 6,000 more years without colonizing any other planet.  Faster-than-light travel in the physical universe is a myth, a very attractive myth to science fiction, but not real, and without it, we can never colonize the stars in any practical amount of time (read "millions of years").  No practical plan for colonizing anything outside the Solar System has ever been envisioned.

[Tyrell]

I'm not going for the whole living on the stars thing really, but we already got FTL travel in randland, Travelling with a big T, with a sufficiently large circle / -angreal you could probably get one to mars, although Idunno if you could get one the 4+ light years out of the sol system. This is all completely pointless speculation though, since within the scope of the story I doubt we'll ever know and it'll never matter.

[Ealdur Tinuviel]

RAW, we're in accordance with that one idea. Let me reiterate what I said:

 

1) In order for there to have been some interplanetary culture, there must've been a sufficiently devasting event (Big Crunch) for that culture to be fully destroyed.

 

2) But Randlanders have objects from our age.

 

3) Therefore, there cannot have been any kind of Total Reset.

 

4) Therefore, we must live in an Age closer to the time of Rand. As in, 6th or 7th.

 

Now, I admit that does seem to assume we could develop Faster Than Light travel, perhaps. Unless there were some other way. But I think, once you realize how far mankind has gotten in the last 10,000 years, and how we are growing in knowledge at an exponential rate, that if there were some way to colonize the galaxy, we could find out how in 6 K years.

 

Also, FTL travel is a myth, so far as we know. It might not really be. This is a bit of a stretch, but until we have a Unified Theory of Quantum Relativity, I don't think we'll really know for sure.

 

My thought was that the reconciliation of the two theories might provide for  some realization of flaw in one or both theories which might account for FTL travel.

 

But, I don't know.

[RobertAlexWillis]

OK ... given that we agree that there is no total reset, then I have to say that I disagree with your placement of our Age, based on a single object found.  If the Benz hood ornament can survive the Breaking, it can survive just about anything, so its continued existence doesn't prove anything about the timing.

 

The level of detail in the legends of the day, however, dictate that we are farther in Randland's past than they are in ours (making us closer in their future).  There are many more examples that can be compared and contrasted, giving a much better basis for placement than a single object of undetermined origin.

 

The truth is, unless RJ has a list somewhere in his notes, we'll never know.  Since I doubt he does, personally, we'll just have to agree to disagree.

[Ealdur Tinuviel]

Well, no, I wasn't basing my theory on the closeness of the Age on the visibility of the benz ornament.

 

I was basing my theory on the closeness of the Age through this chain of logic:

 

As already determined, there was no total reset.

 

Since in the First Age (or somewhere between the first and second ages, according to some people) there was a state of primitive culture, then at some point the civilization of the 7th Age must have been sufficiently destroyed to a point where it could re-develop into the 2nd Age (Age of Legends)

 

Since, according to you, the likelihood was that it was some form of meteor shower, then the age before the First Age must not have been sufficiently advanced to survive some kind of planetary cataclysm such as that.

 

Since we are a quite developed culture, if we were situated multiple thousands of years from the 7th Age, then it is likely we would have developed intersolar/galactic colonization, and so would be able to survive, still in an advanced state, any singly planetary cataclysm.

 

Therefore, we must be situated somewhere closer to the First Age, perhaps in the 7th Age.

 

Of course, this all is only in 3rd Age = The Wheel of Time Series books.

[Luckers]

Quote

Your visualization is hardly any form of emperic evidence...

 

LOL .. Um ... I don't think either of us has any "empirical evidence" either way on this question.  Your proposed progression requires the same type of assumptions, in basically the saame degree, as mine ...

 

But I apologize for "hijacking" your thread.  I was honestly addressing it in a way I thought applied, but I guess I was wrong.

 

Very true, though i do still think there is a difference between our two positions, mine being an attempt to explain specific events, and yours being a progression to allow for specific events. But meh.

 

And also, that hijacking comment came out much more harshly than it was intended. Sorry.

 

That issue exists whether our Age preceeds or follows the 3rd Age in the progression, because each of our Ages has some knowledge, albeit garbled, of the other.  If the reset is a true, total reset (no life, followed by full evolution) that would be impossible.

 

True, and i did go on to mention the theories dealing with that.

 

So, I think it has to be clear that there is not a total reset anywhere in the Cycle.  Personally, I don't think Jordan envisions evolution at all in this world.  There is a Creator.  He made it, and it goes through its cycles.  Yes, he says "its our world" but obviously its not really our world.  On a real planet, humanity could not actually survive a cataclysm as severe as the Breaking is actually described as being.  That much geological upheaval in a period of mere centuries would result in such drastic changes in atmospheric, meteorological, oceanic, and other conditions, that nothing higher than a few plants and insects would survive.

 

Here i disagree. I think RJ went out of his way to show evolution occured. His meteological accuracy nonwithstanding, he's fairly clear on the subject of evolution.

 

I thought I heard Lanfear mention travelling (big T or little t, I don't recall) at some point, of course I could be 100% wrong. But even if there were other planets out there (which there doesn't nessecerily have to be, the Creator created it, he could have Spoon shaped planets with gravity that worked if he wanted 'cause of magic y'know?) and during the AoL or another age they were colonised, I assume they would not have been able to stay out of the war of power in the AoL or any other light/shadow conflict, maybe they all got toasted by crazy male Aes Sedai, or darkfriends, or aliens, or by the Dark One's favoured childeren - the Giant Space Monkies, who knows?

 

It was Moghedian that mentioned the other planets, and it was not precisely clear since she was speaking in order to distract Nynaeve... so you know, she could kill her.

 

And remember. Space has a terrible power. The Space Robots are here to protect us from the terrible secret of space.

[RobertAlexWillis]

Here i disagree. I think RJ went out of his way to show evolution occured. His meteological accuracy nonwithstanding, he's fairly clear on the subject of evolution.

 

.... in what way?

 

In a world that can produce animal human hybrids like Trollocs, mutant throwbacks like Myrddraal, and dozens of other forms of Shadowspawn, the simple presence of dinosaur bones and a saber-tooth tiger skull does not prove that evolution occurred ...

 

You draw that conclusion because Jordan, somewhat facetiously, says that our world is an Age of the Wheel, and you think that evolution occurred in our world, so you put the two together.  But that is hardly evidence that is internal to the books, or even Jordan's statements about the books ...

 

I have a quote here ... I remembered it, but couldn't find it, so I didn't want to bring it out earlier, but now I found it, so ...

 

Oh, yes. I think of time in this world as fixed circular, but with a drifting variation. There are slight differences in the Pattern each time through so that if you thought of the Pattern as a tapestry and held up two successive weaves, you couldn't see any differences from a distance, only close up, but the more time turnings between tapestries, the more changes are apparent. But the basic Pattern always remains the same.

 

http://www.dragonmount.com/RobertJordan/?p=27

 

Jordan envisions time as as "fixed circular".  Not an upward trending spiral, as much as I like the kalpass concept your brought to everyone's attention.  Not a line that then feeds into a circle.  A fixed circle, with drifting variation, sort of like a Wheel on an axle that has a little room to wobble (but not much).

 

If evolution happened once, it would have to happen every time, and if it happened every time, there could be no two way memory on the Wheel, since that would be the equivalent of a total reset.  The World of the Wheel is a created world, in the classic sense of, "Oh look, I made a world and put beasties on it."

 

The fact that there were strange creatures in other Ages (even dinosaurs and saber-tooth tigers) does not mean that evolution had to occur.

[ksbsnowowl]

Just joined the forum, so in that sense I'm a noobie.  Been reading WoT for years.  Just started another read through after becoming disappointed with other works out there in the world.

 

Anyhow, a few "foundation" points, some of which have been mentioned to one degree or another.

 

Jordan himself was Episcopalian.  So it is quite evident that, whether he truly believed it or not, he was well acquainted with the concept of a Creator creating the world wholly formed, from nothing, instantaneously.  Thus, there is no millions-of-years-long evolution occurring in any of the cycles of the Wheel.  There is no "great reset."  The 7th Age will flow into the 1st age as effortlessly (or as cataclysmically) as any other Age transition has the potential of being.

 

Here i disagree. I think RJ went out of his way to show evolution occured. His meteological accuracy nonwithstanding, he's fairly clear on the subject of evolution.

Now, it has been a few years since my last journey through the series.  Aside from Rand in EotW mentioning a giant fish skeleton he and Mat found in the Mountains of Mist, and the dinosaur bones (and mural paintings) in the Panarch's Palance in Tanchico, what evidence do we have for Jordan showing that evolution occurred?

 

There is a small portion of the scientific community that believes in a younger earth.  Yes, they are mocked by the majority of the scientific establishment, but they are there.  Given Jordan's real-world religious affiliations, however, I don't see it as out of the realm of possibility that he chose to go with a "younger fossil record" approach for this imaginary world.  In fact, I see it as quite likely.  It would fit nicely with a concept of the world that reinvented itself geographically every few thousand years. (I am of the opinion that many of the Age transitions are violent and world-altering in a geographic sense.)

 

Mention of a single fish skeleton buried in the earth does not point to evolution, IMO.  Given the cataclysm and geographical upheaval of the Breaking, it would be quite easy for the bones and bodies of all manner of creatures to end up buried in the earth, through all sorts of layers, where modern science would point out that "these are millions of years older than these, because they are lower in the rock strata."

 

As to those wondering where dinosaurs fit in without a “reset,” well, we already know of strange creatures being brought to Randland from mirror worlds.  Perhaps dinosaurs will be brought back just prior to the disappearance of the Portal Stones (more on that in a bit.)  We know dinosaurs existed prior to current Randland, presumably prior to the Age of Legends, and prior to our own world.  Since we know that things of our time (John Glenn, Moscow, Mercedes-Benz) specifically influence stories and leave artifacts in Randland, and since presumably the occurrences of the novels influence our own myths, one can conceivably conclude that dinosaurs have to be brought back in at least once during each cycle.  Mirror Worlds and their sometimes exotic creatures are a reasonable explanation of how.  I’m not saying it is definite, just a strong possibility.

 

OK ... given that we agree that there is no total reset, then I have to say that I disagree with your placement of our Age, based on a single object found.  If the Benz hood ornament can survive the Breaking, it can survive just about anything, so its continued existence doesn't prove anything about the timing.

 

The level of detail in the legends of the day, however, dictate that we are farther in Randland's past than they are in ours (making us closer in their future).  There are many more examples that can be compared and contrasted, giving a much better basis for placement than a single object of undetermined origin.

I have an issue with the logic of these statements.  First, we know very little info for the stories relating back to our time.  Just because there is no detail given on which to judge them doesn’t mean that we should assume they are further from the truth of our own time than our own myths are removed from the happenings of Randland.  That seems to be what you are doing. If I’m wrong, please correct me.

 

Second, these are gleeman’s tales, and as such seem to have a more oral tradition.  Oral stories change from one telling to the next.  If there is a difference in cultural background and understanding, the changes and chance for misunderstanding become greater.  Imagine telling the story of astronauts traveling to the moon in a rocket to a bushman in Africa or a tribesman in South America who has never seen a modern city, or even a car.  Without a reference for modern technology, that story is going to be altered to make sense to the people who have no historical reference for the technology.  Either the initial storyteller (one who has a basic understanding of the technological aspect of the story) or the secondary storyteller (the tribesman who then retells the story, still having never seen a car or anything similar) is going to alter the aspects of the story they do not understand, so as to make sense of it, albeit in a fantastical way, using common elements from their own point of understanding.

 

Heck, look at Cortez’s arrival among the inhabitants of the Americas.  The indigenous people did not understand the technology of sailing vessels with large cloth sails – they believed Cortez to be arriving upon clouds.

 

Thirdly, there are many aspects of our own “modern” mythologies that are themselves more fantastical than riding on an eagle of fire, and as far as I can tell, they are not accounted for in the WoT story.  Odin had a tamed wild boar that he slew and ate every evening, and it regenerated back from death each morning.

 

Lastly, how can you discount the one physical object of our time showing up in Randland when there are no physical objects of distinctively Randland origin that appear in our own time?  That alone points to the fact that the time of the novels is farther in our own past than we are in its past.  Now add to that the fact that we know there are objects of the “Third Age” that are indestructible or damn near impossible to even move (the Portal Stones), and yet, we have no trace of them in our own time, and it becomes quite evident that the Age of Legends is closer to our own future than we are to the future of the Third Age.

 

Due to all this evidence, I personally believe that Jordan intended the modern age to be the First Age, or possibly the Seventh Age.  And I believe he intends that the modern age is nearing the end of whatever age it is in (before interstellar travel, etc.)

 

Oh, and as to the Mercedes-Benz hood ornament surviving a ridiculous amount of time, perhaps it was made as a test implement in making Power-forged items (such as Power-forged blades that never rust, corrode, or break).  I can imagine someone experimenting on a hood ornament simply because it was a handy piece of metal.  This of course would place our Age ending with the discovery of One Power use while modern companies and technologies were still in use.  It’s possible that it was a minor oversight on Jordan’s part, but I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt.

[Ealdur Tinuviel]

Just joined the forum, so in that sense I'm a noobie.

 

No, you are not a noobie. You are a newbie. The difference is a noob is a person who should acts like a newb by making newbish mistakes, but should know better. A newb is someone who is new to something.

 

Regardless, I'll let RAW defend himself.

[RobertAlexWillis]

Just because there is no detail given on which to judge them doesn’t mean that we should assume they are further from the truth of our own time than our own myths are removed from the happenings of Randland

 

Actually, that is itself a possible indicator of the time difference.  Less detail in the myths and legends would tend to mean that the memories have had longer to fade, and therefore that more time has passed.  However, I freely admit that it is not proof positive, merely an indication, and I admitted this from the start.

 

To indulge in the frequent past-time of quoting myself, this is from my first post in this thread:

 

The reason that I place us more closely after the Third Age than before it is that the mythology of our current world seems to have much more detail (specific correlations between Mat and Odin, Rand and Tyr, and a myriad of others) than the Third Age seems to have of us.  That would tend to indicate that the Third Age is closer in our past than we are in its past.  Of course, we never see the actual stories connected to Mosk and Merc, or Alsbet, or Matarese ... if we did, then perhaps the opposite would be true.

 

I added red to the important part.

 

Second, these are gleeman’s tales, and as such seem to have a more oral tradition.  Oral stories change from one telling to the next.

 

Yes ... and they would tend to become less accurate over longer periods of time, thereby underscoring my point.  Thank you.

 

Thirdly, there are many aspects of our own “modern” mythologies that are themselves more fantastical than riding on an eagle of fire, and as far as I can tell, they are not accounted for in the WoT story.  Odin had a tamed wild boar that he slew and ate every evening, and it regenerated back from death each morning.

 

The issue is not how "fantastical" the stories become, it is how many specific correlations can be made between events and the stories, the level of detail that remains accurate.

 

After all, a "true" telling of 3rd Age events is fantasy in our Age.

 

Lastly, how can you discount the one physical object of our time showing up in Randland when there are no physical objects of distinctively Randland origin that appear in our own time?

 

Um ... how do you know that no physical objects from Randland appear in our own time?  According to the mythology of the Wheel, half of the things we dig up in ancient mythological sites could be from the third Age.  If you dug up an angreal in an Age when no one could channel, it would just seem to be some small ancient statue, right?

[elmis]

Does every age have to be around the same number of years?

 

I don't agree with RAW that the AoL and our age is the same, however there is no evidence that (I know of) either way, so it's a valid theory. The books age, the third one, most certainly seems to end around the 3000 mark, plus/minus a few centuries.

 

I always figured that Lews Therin and the others were the 'last' of a long line of Aes Sedai, in a world highly focused on power-tech, and as such mostly people with the gift of channeling were in those kinds of positions, researchers and so forth. It's not too far fetched to assume that development into new tech goes somewhat slower, when the people involved with that sort of thing lives for 6-7-800 years. And given the lifespans for those people, I'm also thinking that the AoL had been developing and forming for thousands of years, much nearer the 10 000 mark, than the 3000 one.

 

Thoughts on that?

[professorskar]

This is my first post here, and the subject of this topic is something that's always interested me about the series, and I've had many a debate (although not nearly as in-depth as this one) with friends about it.

 

I think the simple explanation is this...our world is real, and the Wheel of Time world is one imagined by one man, meaning our world will always be way too complicated to neatly fit into one of the Wheel of Time Ages.  Also, the idea of our world being an Age--or at least, which Age it is--I believe is intentionally vague, with very little evidence to support it one way or the other.  So, by default, there is no right answer and all of this debating is pure speculation.  But such speculation is fun, so here I am :p

 

Anyway, a slight disclaimer.  I consider myself to be a huge Wheel of Time fan, but my knowledge of the series is fuzzy at the moment.  I haven't read the series in full since before Knife of Dreams came out, and I recently started rereading it again.  I started with New Spring to be chronologically correct, and I'm now around less than a hundred pages away from finishing The Eye of the World, so some of my  memories are quite hazy, and my theories might not be as fleshed out as some of the (very interesting, by the way) ones I've already read in this topic.

 

That being said, the following is all based on the assumption that the Age taking place in the books is the Third Age, with the Age of Legends being the Second, and next to nothing being known about any of the other Ages (what little we know of the Fourth Age are writings pertaining to the Third anyway).

 

Firstly, I think the idea of each Age being the same length should be thrown out the window.  Just because the Third Age lasted 3,000 years doesn't imply that all of the Ages do.  There's really nothing to indicate if that's true one way or the other.  All I can really say on this is I always got the impression (hardly proof there) that the Age of Legends probably lasted longer, in order for everything to become so utopian.

 

You guys seem to reject quite thoroughly the idea of a "fixed reset," but I think there's some credence to support this theory.

 

Especially if Jordan tends to support the idea of time as a "fixed wheel," it stands to reason that the Wheel is infinite.  That would mean there was no first turning.  If that's the case, then the world would have to be created multiple times.  For this reason, I've always assumed that our world would be the First Age.  Every time the Seventh Age ends, the world is destroyed, and recreated in the first with the Dark One being imprisoned.  But, by the way people talk about creation, they speak of it as the Creator creating the Wheel itself and imprisoning the Dark One.  If this is the case, then the world isn't infinite (having a definitive beginning...when the Creator created the Wheel).  This would mean that there is a definite amount of times the Wheel has turned, as in "this is the X time it has been the Third Age."  I have always thought of the Wheel as infinite, and if it is, then the world has been destroyed and created multiple times.  Perhaps the Dark One is freed at the end of every Seventh Age, and imprisoned at the beginning of every first.  Perhaps the Dark One manages to destroy the Wheel itself at the end of every Seventh Age, giving a reason for the Wheel itself to be rebuilt and the Dark One imprisoned in the first place.  After all, Ishamael references times where Rand (or rather, his soul) joins the Dark One, and it seems as if (at least in the Third Age) if Rand did this, there would be no hope for the Light winning the Last Battle.  Maybe the version of Rand/LTT's soul which turns evil is the incarnation of the Seventh Age, but who knows.  It could have happened multiple times in the various turnings of EVERY Age, and this is assuming Ishamael isn't outright lying, or even that his theory about the "Dragon Soul" and him facing off hundreds of thousands of times is correct.

 

Anyway, part of the reason I think that modern times would be the First Age, is because, through science, we can determine the age of the universe.  We can look back and tell when our world was formed, when life evolved, etc.  The other Ages can only go back as far as the last Age.  We can see a definite beginning to the universe.  Although, this is hardly a flawless argument.  Our scientific discoveries could very well be wrong, if reality operates as it seems to in the Wheel of Time.

 

As for people thinking that technology must decline before channeling can exist, I don't see any reason why that has to be true.  If anything, the opposite would probably be true.  With the One Power being common, there's no reason for technology to progress.  With technology already in place before the discovery of the Power, ie our Age, if somehow the Power were discovered, the existing technology would be incorporated into it (like what happened in the Age of Legends, a time where technology and the Power were used in unison).  As said before, if our Age is the first, the event that would end it would most likely be the discovery of channeling.

 

Anyway, I can't stick around to write more at this moment, but this is a very interesting topic, and I hope I added to it at least a little bit, hopefully the debate will continue.

[safwd]

I just wanted to say that i really love The Wheel of Time. And i thought i had a pretty good idea on what was going on in the books.

 

Any you guys scare the hell out of me, and sometimes make me feel like i have NO IDEA what is going on in these books.

 

I love reading your stuff, most especially Luckers and RAW, but if i tried to go as deep as you guys do my head would explode.