A question and an Observation from The Great Hunt

[Garat Jax]

I’m just going through the books for the second time and as always I’m picking up on a lot more things than I did first time round. So I have a question and an observation for you all to think over. In The Great Hunt chapter 15 (titled Kinslayer) which is where Rand, Loial and Hurin have found themselves in a mirror world via the portal stone, they are still following the smell of Fain and the trollocs. Rand sees a very straight wisp of cloud in the sky and doesn’t mention it to the others because they are already stressed. I haven’t got the book to hand so that’s not a very precise discription but to me it sounded a lot like an airplane! Check it out see what you think.

 

Then my question, which is in the same chapter. While they are on the move they come across big burnt strips that are all going in the same direction. Rand thought they looked like they were made with a giant brush of fire (or something like that) does anyone have a clue as to what they are?

[Luckers]

I can't actually remember that, but i have a possible explanation. That world was effected by events in other mirror worlds, i.e. Rand was able to follow Fains trail. It could be a reflection of a universe in which a world like ours still occured because time moves slower. In those early books there were a number of references to things which allude to our world being the First Age of the wheel.

[bcxanth]

I think the problem we have here is just a complete lack of enough relevant information. We just don't know enough about that world, and its history, to be able to make even an educated guess. The only things we know about it are a) it's a very... pale world, because it's a "what-if" that had little chance of happening, b) it's almost completely devoid of life, excepting some apparent Shadowspawn and who-knows-what that might have been in hiding, and c) the big turning point was apparently the Shadowspawn forces defeating Hawkwing back in the day.

 

My personal theory? Worms. They've been hinted at, and one of the Foresaken at some points thinks about how it's a shame they will never grow to maturity. Or something like that. But we know that even the rest of the critters in the blight fear the larval form of the Worms. In a world where Shadowspawn rules, and they're sitting around with nothing better to do while waiting for the DO to break free, I imagine they'd fall to killing each other, and the strongest is all that would survive.

[Maverick]

yeah i know what you mean he says that there are criss crossed wispy clouds in the sky, too many crossing to be natural. definitley jet trails.

 

as for the burnt strips could be tarmac roads, they are black and may look as though the ground has been burned, only a suggestion

[rm1759]

I've always thought they were dragons in the sky, and that the worms are larval forms of dragons. the black lines in the ground are "strafing" runs from the dragons, possibly from hunting prey, or maybe people.

[bcxanth]

I've always thought they were dragons in the sky' date=' and that the worms are larval forms of dragons. the black lines in the ground are "strafing" runs from the dragons, possibly from hunting prey, or maybe people.[/quote']Yeah, that's pretty much what I was thinking too. And the burn marks stick around so long because the fire literally kills the land where it touches.

[torgo02]

I always thought the “straight as an arrow†black streaks were from orbital weapons. IIRC, all the streaks went the same direction, east/west. I could be wrong on that, but if I’m right, that sounds like a space based laser of some sort. I know that doesn’t fit in with Randland technology, but it is a very unlikely mirror of Randland, so who knows...

 

As far as the white streak in the sky... it does sound a lot like a jet plane con-trail. Maybe it’s an automated plane still aloft from the major shadow war? Indeed, it could be the source of the black streaks, since some of the streaks were described as recent.

 

I doubt we’ll ever know for sure, but it’s fun to speculate.

 

torgo

[Jedimuppet]

I always thought the “straight as an arrow†black streaks were from orbital weapons. IIRC' date=' all the streaks went the same direction, east/west. I could be wrong on that, but if I’m right, that sounds like a space based laser of some sort. I know that doesn’t fit in with Randland technology, but it is a very unlikely mirror of Randland, so who knows...

 

As far as the white streak in the sky... it does sound a lot like a jet plane con-trail. Maybe it’s an automated plane still aloft from the major shadow war? Indeed, it could be the source of the black streaks, since some of the streaks were described as recent.

 

I doubt we’ll ever know for sure, but it’s fun to speculate.

 

torgo[/quote']

 

I thought of it almost as a post holocaust world...more sci fi than fantasy.

J

[heartsbane]

mayby those clouds and the big black strips were made by the one power. Weren't the ishsammeal and rand battling the night before?

[bcxanth]

mayby those clouds and the big black strips were made by the one power. Weren't the ishsammeal and rand battling the night before?

They didn't really battle. They talked for a while in the fog, then Ishy made Rand's sword get really hot and burn him, causing him to drop the sword and brand the first heron into his palm. That was pretty much it.

[Luckers]

Worms are landbound shapeshifters... im not sure we have any evidence to suggest that they caused such an effect. Really, all we have is that they are the only named shadowspawn other then the main. Additionally, it is not a world ruled by shadowspawn... in fact, the shadowspawn seemed to have wiped themselves out. Grolm and the like are non-dark creatures... indeed, Aes Sedai brought them back to our world to fight the dark in the war of power, thats how the seanchan have them.

[Jeppit Groccin]

I always thought the “straight as an arrow†black streaks were from orbital weapons. IIRC' date=' all the streaks went the same direction, east/west. I could be wrong on that, but if I’m right, that sounds like a space based laser of some sort. I know that doesn’t fit in with Randland technology, but it is a very unlikely mirror of Randland, so who knows...

 

As far as the white streak in the sky... it does sound a lot like a jet plane con-trail. Maybe it’s an automated plane still aloft from the major shadow war? Indeed, it could be the source of the black streaks, since some of the streaks were described as recent.

 

I doubt we’ll ever know for sure, but it’s fun to speculate.

 

torgo[/quote']

 

The only way I could see this being possible would be if the "orbital weapon" and con-trail are remnants from the Age of legends. Remember, they had a hell of a lot more technology back in AoL: Shock-lances, sho-wings, jo-cars, etc...

 

Is it so hard to imagine they put something in orbit before the Bore was drilled?

[Kadere]

Well the world they go to isn't the age of legends, it's simply a parallel "if" world, where the Trollocs won the Trolloc War. My guess would be that either the burn marks are from some creature which can now roam Randland, or come contaminating evil which burns away what it infects.

[Luckers]

Actually its where the trollocs beat artur hawkwing...

[Claes Borgström]

It might be many years after the fact, but while rereading The Great Hunt I got a bit of epiphany regarding the burnt ground and suspicious contrail Rand saw in the mirror world, which I felt like sharing.

 

The first divergence point of the mirror world Rand visited is stated to be that Arthur Hawkwing was defeated by the Trollocs, rather then the other way around. If this happened before Hawkwing sent his son Luthair over the Aryth Ocean this would mean that the continent of Seanchan remained under the control of the Armies of Night and their corrupt Aes Sedai rulers.

 

It is quite clear that the Aes Sedai in Seanchan retained some ability with creating ter’angreal, since one of them could invent the first a’dam and teach the making of a few other items of power such as the rings of the Bloodknifes. The crystal throne also feels like something more likely to have been created by the Aes Sedai tyrants of Seanchan rather then their more democratic predecessors.

 

If the Seanchan Aes Sedai where allowed to continue finding new ways to support their rule with the power and ter’angreal they might very well have reinvented something like the sho-wings of the Age of Legends to throw fire down on their enemies. This type of development would, however, be very unlikely to lead to the recreation of a globalized utopian society since the Aes Sedai were always conspiring against each other.

 

It is stated in the books that the tyrannical Aes Sedai of Seanchan destroyed all shadowspawn on their continent well before the arrival of Luthair. If they through the development of power assisted flight discovered the Westlands completely overrun by Trollocs they might therefor be motivated to destroy them with the power as a preparation for a possible colonisation. If their flight technology is limited to some sort of atmospheric orbit that would explain both the contrails and the fact that all the burnt areas stretched from east to west. The hypothetical colonies might even have been created in the southern parts the Westlands. The northern regions which Rand visits would be the last ones reached by Seanchan invaders from the coast, and the ground might have been tainted by the weapon used to fight shadowspawn and the blight.  

 

Based on old interview material it seems like Robert Jordan at some point planed to elaborate on this storyline, but that never happened. For the first time I at least feel I can see the point with those lose threads in the Great Hunt. 

[Sabio]

They did have a floating research city, also they traveled to other worlds etc... 

 

The Seanchan are alot like the Huns and other groups from our past. The Huns, Mongols both didn't think much if one brother killed another to be in line to rule.  A lot like the Seanchan royal family. 

 

Only main thing is since the Seanchan have such a low opinion of channelers they are less likely to let their Aes Sedai experiment with new weaves, try to make something.  Most of the stuff is probably pre conquest inventions.  Would trust something you view as a dog and something you hate to start trying to create items of power?  Mehr has it right, since the Senchan in may ways ended Aes Sedai trying to create things, they very well sort of hampered their society.

 

I think what Rand saw was a planet where the Trollocs won and they killed themselves out.  Since all they do is live to kill.  The Forsaken also have all the memories of the past age, so they could also of built things from the past age to help them.