Geography in the Age of Legends

[Guest The Thin Inn Keeper]

your thinking to far ahead, what we see in the map in the books is what it's like after the Breaking, it could be very possible that the AOL world looks like what our map with a few millenias of drift.

I thought the Ages were comparatively short, i.e. that there hasn't been time for "a few millenias of drift".

we do have to count in various natural disasters lime floods, and volcano eruptions plus earhtquakes either sinking or raising some land.

All of which are created by plate tectonics over a period of hundreds of thousands of years... which, if I recall is longer than the timeframe of the Ages.

small Power-related accidents when it is first discovered.

What? That were powerful enough to speed up tectonic movement?

 

Or powerful enough to replicate tectonic movement?

 

If the energy repeatedly released during the testing of nuclear bombs isn't enough to rapidly split up plates, then I doubt we'll see anything similar when the Power is first discovered. I mean, Rand (the Dragon) hasn't exhibited anywhere near that level of power.

 

- And when the power is first discovered, there'll be no angreal of any kind. Well, there will be ... but nobody'll have a clue what they are...

Musk and merk are Russia (or Moscow) and America, there spears of fire that reahc around the world are missles.

And the survival of such stories suggests that they occurred thousands, rather than millions, of years ago.

 

- We don't have any stories a million years old. Hell, Western civilization's myths are all recently new (around 2,000 years old at most).

 

If the stories occurred thousands of years ago, then continental drift can't have reshaped the world.

 

Which, surely, means that the reshaping of the world during the Breaking would / will have to be / have been immense. On a scale that we haven't seen before.

 

Given that the Choden Kal have been wrecked ... well, we'll see.

[Mr Ares]

your thinking to far ahead, what we see in the map in the books is what it's like after the Breaking, it could be very possible that the AOL world looks like what our map with a few millenias of drift.

I thought the Ages were comparatively short, i.e. that there hasn't been time for "a few millenias of drift".

The third Age has lasted millennia, so a few millennia of drift is all it has had time for.

 

Musk and merk are Russia (or Moscow) and America, there spears of fire that reahc around the world are missles.

And the survival of such stories suggests that they occurred thousands, rather than millions, of years ago.

Indeed. And Thom dates his earliest stories to the Age before the Age of Legends. Hence, the First Age. So, the 1st Age should be our own, with only fairly minor changes between then and the Breaking, which shook the world up dramatically.

 

As for the ocean between "the westlands"/Europe and "Shara"/Asia in the AoL, mentioned by CUBAREY, we do not really know where this ocean would have been located in realtion to our own world/that of the AoL, given the dramatic nature of the changes brought about by the Breaking. The Westlands, at the very least, are larger than Europe.

[ROB_88]

I thought the Ages were comparatively short, i.e. that there hasn't been time for "a few millenias of drift".

well, the third age has been around for 3 millenias already, and i'm guessing that the AOL was even longer mainly because no one can remember wars at all until the war of Power

 

All of which are created by plate tectonics over a period of hundreds of thousands of years... which, if I recall is longer than the timeframe of the Ages.

the tectonis plates do move all the time, not just once every hundred thousand year, there are earthquakes pretty often in places like california i think, and some part of japan, if it's really big the shockwave could theoretically sink it all in a few days.

 

 

small Power-related accidents when it is first discovered.

What? That were powerful enough to speed up tectonic movement?

 

Or powerful enough to replicate tectonic movement?

i never said anything about them causing actual tectonic movement, just sinking and raising of the land, which i think we have seen is possible a few years back, what was it called again? ah, now i remember, the Breaking

 

 

Musk and merk are Russia (or Moscow) and America, there spears of fire that reahc around the world are missles.

And the survival of such stories suggests that they occurred thousands, rather than millions, of years ago.

 

- We don't have any stories a million years old. Hell, Western civilization's myths are all recently new (around 2,000 years old at most).

well, again. no one said anything about millions, i said a few millenia which means a few thousand years

[Guest The Thin Inn Keeper]

the tectonis plates do move all the time, not just once every hundred thousand year

They do indeed.

 

At the rate of about 3cm a year in the case of whatever one encompasses the Atlantic Ocean. So where are the similarities between Randland and ours?

i never said anything about them causing actual tectonic movement, just sinking and raising of the land, which i think we have seen is possible a few years back, what was it called again? ah, now i remember, the Breaking

So who's going to be wielding such huge amounts of the Power?

well, again. no one said anything about millions, i said a few millenia which means a few thousand years

Shoot... What stories have lasted, oh, 3,000 years?

 

Precious few.

[ROB_88]

the tectonis plates do move all the time, not just once every hundred thousand year

They do indeed.

 

At the rate of about 3cm a year in the case of whatever one encompasses the Atlantic Ocean. So where are the similarities between Randland and ours?

i did not say that Randland and our geography was exactly similar, i said that it is very possible that the AOL world was very similar to ours counting in tectonic movement, but noone but Jordan hinself can say that it was or wasn't.

 

i never said anything about them causing actual tectonic movement, just sinking and raising of the land, which i think we have seen is possible a few years back, what was it called again? ah, now i remember, the Breaking

So who's going to be wielding such huge amounts of the Power?

who knows? whoever might be around to make those first few mistakes, and we don't know what might happen just because someone would make a mistake while learning or just taking in to much like at the end of Manetheren.

 

Shoot... What stories have lasted, oh, 3,000 years?

 

Precious few.

oh, i don't know. how about everything about the Roman Empire, the ancient Greeks, Cavemen, Mesopotamia (which incidently is greek for "land between the rivers" or "two rivers", but i digress), Babylon, the Shang Dynasty in China, the Illiad although it's only about 2500 years old so far. i can go on but i think were getting a bit off topic

[CUBAREY]

who knows? whoever might be around to make those first few mistakes, and we don't know what might happen just because someone would make a mistake while learning or just taking in to much like at the end of Manetheren.

 

Wish was a very powerful AS using an angrael and the damage was the burning an area the size of a city to the bedrock. Now compare that to the type of power that would have to be wielded for the Continent of Africa to be totally submerged.

 

Indeed. And Thom dates his earliest stories to the Age before the Age of Legends. Hence, the First Age. So, the 1st Age should be our own, with only fairly minor changes between then and the Breaking, which shook the world up dramatically.

 

And Thom dates those stories to the Age before the Age of Legends at the end of a long passage in which he definatively shows that people in the Third Age are unable to tell what part of stories and facts they all have heard about are accurate even those that supposedly occured as little as 1000 years ago (the facts surrounding Arthur Hawkwings exploits). Thus at best all we know is that Thom BELIEVES[/u] those stories came from the socalled First Age.

 

The Westlands, at the very least, are larger than Europe.

 

Really? Larger then the land encompassed from the Atlantic Ocean to the Ural Mountains?

 

 

 

 

[Guest The Thin Inn Keeper]

i did not say that Randland and our geography was exactly similar, i said that it is very possible that the AOL world was very similar to ours counting in tectonic movement, but noone but Jordan hinself can say that it was or wasn't.

Well, there's a great deal of difference between being "exactly similar" and looking nothing alike .... because Randland and our world look nothing alike.

who knows? whoever might be around to make those first few mistakes, and we don't know what might happen just because someone would make a mistake while learning or just taking in to much like at the end of Manetheren.

Right. And as I pointed out earlier, the first few mistakes won't involve angreal ... because they won't understand what they are.

 

So... given that Rand's the most powerful channeler out there ... how, exactly, could he shape the world ... without an angreal?

And Thom dates those stories to the Age before the Age of Legends at the end of a long passage in which he definatively shows that people in the Third Age are unable to tell what part of stories and facts they all have heard about are accurate even those that supposedly occured as little as 1000 years ago (the facts surrounding Arthur Hawkwings exploits). Thus at best all we know is that Thom BELIEVES[/u] those stories came from the socalled First Age.

Cuba's explanation of the problems with the stories is much more coherant than my rambling.

 

Taking Mosk and Merk for example, if you weren't looking for connections between the WoT world and our world, you'd never have got that. ICBM wielding states are turned into Giants with fiery spears?

[ROB_88]

i did not say that Randland and our geography was exactly similar, i said that it is very possible that the AOL world was very similar to ours counting in tectonic movement, but noone but Jordan hinself can say that it was or wasn't.

Well, there's a great deal of difference between being "exactly similar" and looking nothing alike .... because Randland and our world look nothing alike.

 

again, i did not say RANDLAND loked like our world, i aid that it's possible that the AOL world looked alot like ours

[Mr Ares]

The Westlands, at the very least, are larger than Europe.

 

Really? Larger then the land encompassed from the Atlantic Ocean to the Ural Mountains?

As near as I can determine, yes.

 

i did not say that Randland and our geography was exactly similar, i said that it is very possible that the AOL world was very similar to ours counting in tectonic movement, but noone but Jordan hinself can say that it was or wasn't.

Well, there's a great deal of difference between being "exactly similar" and looking nothing alike .... because Randland and our world look nothing alike.

That would be because of the Breaking. Unless you have a map of the world prior to the Breaking to compare with our own world, I don't see how you can say with such certainty that they look nothing alike.

[hapazard]

The Westlands, at the very least, are larger than Europe.

 

Really? Larger then the land encompassed from the Atlantic Ocean to the Ural Mountains?

As near as I can determine, yes.

 

 

 

And how exactly did you come to this conclusion? I find Europe, in dimensions, larger than the Westlands.

 

How so? Well by using the trip Rand and Mat took from Whitebridge to Caemlyn in The Eye of the World for scale. The walk took 16 days(http://www.users.bigpond.com/steven_cooper/tl0998.htm#book1, the WOT Timeline). At maximum they could have walked 50 km/ day --> 5 km/h, 10 h/day. (Probably much less as Mat was sick and they had to stay to work for food but lets make it 50)

 

The total distance between Whitebridge and Caemlyn would then be 800 km. On my WOT map this translates to 4 cm, the whole width of the westlands from Falme to the Spine of the World to 30 cm and the higth from Moutains of Doom to Illian to 25 cm. Using the Whitebridge-Caemlyn-16-day-walk scale this translates to a east-west span of 4400 km and a north-south span of 3200 km.

 

So, how does this compare to Europe, well the distance from the west coast of Irland to the Ural mountains is aboute 4800 km and the distance from northern Norway to the south of mainland Greece aboute 3800 km.

 

Europe is slightly larger dimension-wise than Westland, although Europe is interspersed with water which makes the land area of the Westland bigger.

[Mr Ares]

The walk took 16 days

They didn't walk the whole way. Did you take that into account? And my method was simple: I found a map with a scale. I measured it. The one I found was an online recreation of the one from the BWB. 3,000 miles, from the Aryth to the Dragonwall. 2,000 from the Sea of Storms to the Blight. That's 6,000,000 (six million) square miles. According to Wikipedia, Europe is about 3.9 million square miles. So, unless wiki is wrong, or the scale is, the Westlands are substantially larger. This doesn't count the Blight, or the Waste, or Shara.