The Seventh Age

[Galeros]

Anyone wonder what the Seventh Age is like? Is the One Power gone again and everyone uses advanced technology instead? Or is the One Power completely dominant and they use it for everything like in the Age of Legends? A combination of advanced technology and the One Power? Or is it something else?

 

This thread is for pure speculation. :)

[Roxinos]

The chances are that the Seventh Age has no channelers. The First Age is the Age in which the first channeler appeared, so before that there had to be no channelers. It could be our Age. It could be a more utopian Age after us.

[Osan`gar]

The chances are that the Seventh Age has no channelers. The First Age is the Age in which the first channeler appeared, so before that there had to be no channelers. It could be our Age. It could be a more utopian Age after us.

 

i disagree... everything in the world of the wheel of time ultimately revolves around the one power. as advances are being made in its use people will rely on it more than science. although science will continue to advance it will be a slow process and will never defeat the lure of the one power which afer all provides a vast amount of very versitile power.

[Roxinos]

You disagree?

 

It's simple logic.

 

For the most part, it is thought that the First Age was the Age wherein channeling was "first" discovered (of course, that being a subjective viewpoint, since there are no beginnings nor endings to the turning of the Wheel of Time). Therefore, there could not have been channeling in the Age just prior to the First Age which was the Seventh Age.

 

Regardless on the numbers of the Ages, there was a point where no one could channel. There was a point when someone learned to channel.

 

Also, The Wheel of Time is supposed to be our universe. Do you know anyone who can channel right now?

[DemandredFO]

I agree with Roxinos, no channeling in the 7th age, maybe the 6th, because it has to be forgotten to be rediscovered.

[Osan`gar]

 

The Wheel of Time is supposed to be our universe. Do you know anyone who can channel right now?

 

you forget that this turning of the wheel is supposed to be like no other. that this is the final confrontation with the dark one. human kind will either be in thrall to or free of the shadow once and for all. any future is possible. however not knowing what RJ had in mind for the future let me offer the caveat: if tarmon gaidon is extremely chaotic and destructive people who can channel may die in mass numbers or be stilled thus putting the power out of mind for a turn or two of the wheel; but if a single trained channeller lives through TG S/he will train others and perpetuate themselves. the genie is well and truly out of the bottle. besides you forget the ones with the inborn spark. they will not quit being born just because no one lives to teach them. the powere is here to stay! 8)

[Roxinos]

That's a moot point. Sure, I'll say speculatively that it could happen, but it certainly didn't happen the past turning of the Wheel and there's no reason to believe it is going to happen this turning.

[MikeRiley]

I took the sudden new weaves figured to mean an eventual return to the Age of Legends. The new Healing, healing severed channelers, traveling and all. You know, the happy return to peace ending like we see in Lord of the Rings.

 

Also, did Robert Jordan say this is supposed to be the last Last Battle? I can see Rand thinking he finished the age old fight once and for all, with the Dark One making plans in silence for his eventual return in the next cycle. Just because the character believes something doesn't make it true. There'll be celebration for a brief period, then wars cleaning up the shadowspawn mess and reclaiming the Blight, screwing with the Seanchan way of life (no collared channelers) and then everybody will forget about the Dark One as the generations pass.

 

Of course I could be very wrong and the backlash to the Bore being unbored will remove access to the source for the next few ages. There would have to be one where people forget about war and the Dark One (swordplay was a tame sport), and then it would open up and people would begin learning to channel again followed by a new Age of Legends. It would remove the need for a drawn out war between the Seanchan and the White Tower as a'dam wouldn't do anything.

[Nightstrike]

RJ said that there was nothing special about this turning of the Wheel. The DO will most likely be in a whole "prison" (at least "outside of the rest of the world", since I don't see it as him being in a prison). The drilling of the bore will be unmade. The Wheel still in function. Business as usual. And no immediate return to the "age of legends". There's a time, before that (into the future), when no channelers walk the earth.

 

 

 

[Mr Ares]

i disagree.

You disagree with the facts, then. Time is a Wheel. People can't always channel the OP (our Age, for example). For it to be discovered, it must go away and come back again.

 

you forget that this turning of the wheel is supposed to be like no other.

No.

that this is the final confrontation with the dark one.

No.

human kind will either be in thrall to or free of the shadow once and for all.

No.

besides you forget the ones with the inborn spark. they will not quit being born just because no one lives to teach them.

They will quit being born when the Wheel makes them, however. Same with wolfsiblings, Dreamers, people like Min, sniffers like Hurin, and all the other possible Talents. Time is a Wheel. They go away, they come back. Channeling will go, it will come back. It is not here now, it was in the past and will be in the future.

the powere is here to stay! 8)

No. Unless you ignore RJ and how the Wheel works.

 

I took the sudden new weaves figured to mean an eventual return to the Age of Legends. The new Healing, healing severed channelers, traveling and all. You know, the happy return to peace ending like we see in Lord of the Rings.

That would be the happy return to peace ending where the Shire is run by Saruman? Or where the Elves leave the world forever? Or where Aragorn dies? Happy is not quite the word I would use for the ending of Lord of the Rings. As for a return to the AoL, it will come around eventually. But long in the future, when it has been forgotten. Not in the next Age.

 

Also, did Robert Jordan say this is supposed to be the last Last Battle?

No.

[MikeRiley]

That would be the happy return to peace ending where the Shire is run by Saruman?

That's not the ending. It just happens to happen after the ring is destroyed. Call it part of the climax.

Or where the Elves leave the world forever? Or where Aragorn dies? Happy is not quite the word I would use for the ending of Lord of the Rings.

 

The elves leaving isn't exactly sad. They knew they would have to leave Middle Earth eventually and their purpose there ended with the end of Sauron, they simply went back to Valinor, you know, the peaceful happy undying lands? The "peaceful happy ending" refers to Sam sitting down with his family and all is going into a new peaceful age. There's a new age of kings and the age of wars ends, there's prosperity in the lands. I recall Aragorn's death in Arwen's vision but do not recall it happening anywhere else in the books, correct me if I'm wrong.

 

More towards the subject, the wolves remember a time when man ran with them on the hunt and that always sounded to me like a stone age setting, if the wheel was to turn again, wouldn't that mean some sort of near complete destruction of the human race before they revert back to it?

[Mr Ares]

The elves leaving isn't exactly sad.

It's not exactly happy, though. The world has moved on, a new age is beginning. They cannot go back to what was, and victory came at a great cost. Rivendell and Lothlorien are no more. Frodo is leaving the world, and Bilbo, and Gandalf. The Rings of Power are gone. The good guys may have been victorious, but it is tinged with melancholy.

I recall Aragorn's death in Arwen's vision but do not recall it happening anywhere else in the books, correct me if I'm wrong.

Appendix.

 

wouldn't that mean some sort of near complete destruction of the human race before they revert back to it?

A bit like the Breaking?

[MikeRiley]

Like the Breaking, yeah, but we already know that's not the event. The wolfbrothers were an ancient thing, from ages before. Maybe the world would see more of them now that the talent's resurfaced, but it'd all be after Tarmon Gai'don and before the Age of Legends comes again.

[nnokwoodeye]

Here are my thoughts about the seven ages.

 

I think rand age will end when the dark one and Mashadar would fight. Mashadar would win and would become the new dark one, but would be too weak from the fight to stop rand from sealing the bore. The old dark one would be severely wounded and would forget who and what it is, essentially becoming the new Mashadar (up until it would heal when the new rand would feed it the taint, seven ages later). The one power would be gone, either because all the channellers would be dead, or because access to it would be somehow impossible (rand overdoing the sealing of the bore?).

 

the appearance of new non one power abilities, like min visions, wolfbrothers and sniffers, make me think of a shamanistic society, and that make me think the forth age will be a prehistoric age where all of civilization had been destroyed by the result of the clash of the titans (the dark ones fight would create the grate flood?), and the world is inhabited by small tribes of hunter gatherers. This seems to contradict the scientific awakening that happen in rand schools, but I don't think that the new/old science is there to stay. I think rand age (especially toward its end) is  suppose to be some kind of an Amalgamation age that contain elements from all the other ages, kind of like all of history band together against the forces that wishes to unmade it. This is why science appear again, old AOL knowledge resurface, and why the 'prehistorical' abilities appear before their time.

 

Anyway, after the prehistorical age, history would begin "officially" and the fifth age would start with the invention of writing and permanent settlements. This age would continue until science would become methodical.

The sixth age (our age) would end when the OP would appear, either by some kind of mutation (natural or artificial) or because of weakness in whatever barrier that might have denied access to it.

the seventh age would be the age the portal stones, the tower of Ghenjei, the male a'dam and all kind of experiments of the new OP abilities (these things might possibly be the results of some kind of Armament race). Eventually there would be a final global war (maybe between channelers and regulars) and then would begin the first age, that would be a post-apocalyptical age.

In this age, channellers would be crucial. A group without channellers won't have access to pure water, healing, and maybe even food and fire. Channellers would discover traveling that would allow them quick communication among vast distances and would essentially make them the glue that would keep humanity together.

Eventually the ogier would show up (from wherever they came) and would help the channelers to develop the Nyms who would heal the broken ecology of the planet and then the second age (AOL) would start.

 

[Mr Ares]

the dark one and Mashadar would fight.

Shame Mashadar was almost certainly destroyed when Shadar Logoth was.

 

the forth age will be a prehistoric age where all of civilization had been destroyed

What about the information provided in the books about the Fourth Age? Also, the Third Age was reduced to barbarism, but it didn't stay that way for its entire length. Why should the Fourth?

why the 'prehistorical' abilities appear before their time.

This is their time.

[Osan`gar]

i disagree.

You disagree with the facts, then. Time is a Wheel. People can't always channel the OP (our Age, for example). For it to be discovered, it must go away and come back again.

 

i never disagree with facts... or reality... perhaps you can explain to me how millions of people will sontaneously stop being able to channel.. the one power may not have always been part of human existance but i forsee no circumstance whereby the entirety of humanity will either spontaneously lose the ability to channel. or lose the memory that it is possbile. that being ssid i am not saying RJ was wrong... it is his world after all. but i simply can not wrap my head arround how something like this would be possible. what is the mechanism whereby humanity will lose this ability? how can the one power be lost so utterly that it is irretrievable???

 

 

[MikeRiley]

It might not be sudden, it could be as simple as people no longer being born with the ability. Or it could also be paired with a massive power surge in the final blows of the Last Battle that will burn out everybody on the planet. More likely people will just stop being born with the ability.

[Roxinos]

It might not be sudden, it could be as simple as people no longer being born with the ability. Or it could also be paired with a massive power surge in the final blows of the Last Battle that will burn out everybody on the planet. More likely people will just stop being born with the ability.

 

This, but to elaborate on the people ceasing to be born with the ability, I will speak.

 

Only a small percentage of the population can channel. The ability to channel is genetic. The Last Battle will cause another Breaking. People will be separated from one another, nations will be destroyed. It's likely that a great percentage of the people who can channel in Randland at the moment will die off in the Last Battle. That just leaves people being born as wilders and those born with the ability to learn.

 

Those who are wilders have a slim chance to live as it stands. So they can die off fairly easily without anyone around to teach them. Even if they don't, the chances of them teaching the next generation if they do survive is slim. People who are born with the ability to learn to channel cannot teach any generations.

 

So what eventually happens is that everyone in the world is a potential channeler. They can learn to channel, but there is no one around to teach them. And eventually, the memory of the One Power becomes a myth. The myth becomes a legend, and eventually even legend is long forgotten. It's the cycle.

 

But because a small percentage of the population is still capable of learning to channel, someone can learn to channel eventually. It's not that eventually the ability to channel will just vanish, it's that no one will know how to channel. The idea is that a small percentage of the population right now in our world has the ability to learn to channel. But they can't learn because there is no one to teach them.

[nnokwoodeye]

The current trend in randland seems to be that all the channelleres, sparkers and non-sparkers are gathered together for training. If all of them would fight in the last battle and 99% of them would die, it would take a very long time for the ability to resurface.

 

 

the forth age will be a prehistoric age where all of civilization had been destroyed

What about the information provided in the books about the Fourth Age? Also, the Third Age was reduced to barbarism, but it didn't stay that way for its entire length. Why should the Fourth?

 

If randland is indeed our world, prehistory have to fit somewhere since it doesn't make sense that every time our age come the archeologists keep finding the same Stone Age artifact without noticing that they were previously preserved by another high-tech civilization.

 

Falling from the AOL is not the same as falling from the third age. After the breaking there were still a lot of devices and books lying around. Gathering them up was hard, but not impossible. Considering the relative frailty of third age artifacts, another cataclysm would be more destructive (even if it would be less powerful).

 

The end of the third age is the era who is the most infrastructural vulnerable era, therefore, if there is a prehistorically age, it is logical to assume if would be the fourth.

 

As for the fourth age information we had... it doesn't really contradict a cataclysm. it could be that it was written in a time where everybody thinks that the third age was over (if rand will fake his death and would wait a few decades for the last battle), or it could simply be that a few of the survivors wrote it immediately after the destruction (just because there weren't enough people and knowledge to rebuild civilization doesn't mean that everybody would immediately forget how to write)

 

 

 

 

 

[CUBAREY]

Falling from the AOL is not the same as falling from the third age. After the breaking there were still a lot of devices and books lying around. Gathering them up was hard, but not impossible. Considering the relative frailty of third age artifacts, another cataclysm would be more destructive (even if it would be less powerful).

 

The end of the third age is the era who is the most infrastructural vulnerable era, therefore, if there is a prehistorically age, it is logical to assume if would be the fourth.

 

This is only your opinion. Moreover, the more technalogically advanced a civilization the more vulnerable it is from minor disruptions. A middle age civilization would only need for a few people who can read and write and have basic farming skills to survive. A civilization like ours depends on a relatively small number of highly skilled techinicains to survive. Kill off all the electrical engineers, computer experts, etc. (who make up maybe 5% of the total population) and society collapses. It does not matter that you have computer and electrical books if  there is no-one left to "interprete them".

 

As for the fourth age information we had... it doesn't really contradict a cataclysm. it could be that it was written in a time where everybody thinks that the third age was over (if rand will fake his death and would wait a few decades for the last battle), or it could simply be that a few of the survivors wrote it immediately after the destruction (just because there weren't enough people and knowledge to rebuild civilization doesn't mean that everybody would immediately forget how to write)

 

First and most importantly the Randlanders (and therefore our) understanding of the amount of chaos that will result from the end of the Third Age is colored by the total devastation at the end of the Age Of Legends. In fact, a more objective reading of the prophecies can easily find that the level of destruction and chaos at the end of the Third Age has already been largely achived. Second the last battle will happen when the Wheel wills it its timing can not be simply delayed by Rand simply hiding out for a few decades. Third, if you read the parts of the Fourth Age history that we have been made privy to closely you will discover that they tend to be written by authors who are important members of countries and/or orgainizations not known in the Third Age and not by a vagabond collection of Third Age survivors.

 

 

 

 

[nnokwoodeye]

Falling from the AOL is not the same as falling from the third age. After the breaking there were still a lot of devices and books lying around. Gathering them up was hard, but not impossible. Considering the relative frailty of third age artifacts, another cataclysm would be more destructive (even if it would be less powerful).

 

The end of the third age is the era who is the most infrastructural vulnerable era, therefore, if there is a prehistorically age, it is logical to assume if would be the fourth.

 

This is only your opinion. Moreover, the more technalogically advanced a civilization the more vulnerable it is from minor disruptions. A middle age civilization would only need for a few people who can read and write and have basic farming skills to survive. A civilization like ours depends on a relatively small number of highly skilled techinicains to survive. Kill off all the electrical engineers, computer experts, etc. (who make up maybe 5% of the total population) and society collapses. It does not matter that you have computer and electrical books if  there is no-one left to "interprete them".

 

True, that one of the reasons the third age hadn't become as advance as the AOL, but the existence of those books were inspirational. Sciencfic advancement is pretty much the right person having the right idea at the right time. Reading about a technology that you currently can't understand could still give you ideas about technologies that otherwise would have never occurred to you. Think about Fleming who only discovered penicillin because he forgot to close the window. If there were medical books from a forgotten advance civilization, the discovery could have happen sooner (well, it had happen sooner, penicillin was discovered many times throughout history, but you get my point).

 

The fourth agers ability to rebuild is depended on the number of survivors. If there would only be 20,000 survivors scattered around the entire world rebuilding would be very hard.

The third agers also had the aes sedai whose "built-in infrastructure"; allow them to build Tar Valon (that acted as an anchor for civilization in the first years) without the need of any large scale labor force.

 

Anyway if you don't think the next age would be prehistorical where do you think prehistory fit in the pattern?

 

As for the fourth age information we had... it doesn't really contradict a cataclysm. it could be that it was written in a time where everybody thinks that the third age was over (if rand will fake his death and would wait a few decades for the last battle), or it could simply be that a few of the survivors wrote it immediately after the destruction (just because there weren't enough people and knowledge to rebuild civilization doesn't mean that everybody would immediately forget how to write)

 

Second the last battle will happen when the Wheel wills it its timing can not be simply delayed by Rand simply hiding out for a few decades. Third, if you read the parts of the Fourth Age history that we have been made privy to closely you will discover that they tend to be written by authors who are important members of countries and/or orgainizations not known in the Third Age and not by a vagabond collection of Third Age survivors.

 

as far as we know the wheel intend rand to go into hiding (it keep impling to people that rand would go into blind begger mode) and the last battle won't be any time soon.

 

By important members of countries I assume you mean the Chief Historian at the Court of the Sun.

Well, imagine that a few of the survivors used to be nobles; you don't see them trying to maintain a facade of continuity? The "court" could very well be a very small tribe first reminiscing on better times, and later, when all the original members died, the new people simply forgot what the true meaning of court (essentially using that word the same way we use the word tribe).

 

[Mr Ares]

perhaps you can explain to me how millions of people will sontaneously stop being able to channel.

The Wheel. Apparently, it weaves as it will. Perhaps you would explain how wolfbrothers stopped existing and now suddenly do again? Actually, I've explained that, as well.

the one power may not have always been part of human existance but i forsee no circumstance whereby the entirety of humanity will either spontaneously lose the ability to channel. or lose the memory that it is possbile.

You've heard of the Wheel of Time, right? This idea of time being a Wheel? Cyclical? Things go away, they come back again? No beginning or ending? Bore must be made whole so it can be Bored again, knowledge of the Power wasn't always here so it must go away so it can come back. It's the foundation of the series. Time=Wheel. These events take place both in our past and in our future, because you can look both ways along a Wheel. And memory fades to legend, to myth, long forgotten by the time the Age that gave it birth comes around again.

 

The current trend in randland seems to be that all the channelleres, sparkers and non-sparkers are gathered together for training.

No. It doesn't. If the pop[ulation of the Westlands is as small as 1 million, say (and it is likely much bigger), that would leave 10,000 channelers. Half men. There aren't that many Asha'man, nor is there the time to recruit that many. There will likely be an awful lot of channelers slipping the net. Not to mention the Seanchan and the Ayyad.

 

If randland is indeed our world, prehistory have to fit somewhere since it doesn't make sense that every time our age come the archeologists keep finding the same Stone Age artifact without noticing that they were previously preserved by another high-tech civilization.

Somewhere prior to our own Age. If we are the 1st, then an early part of the 1st or maybe the 7th.

 

Falling from the AOL is not the same as falling from the third age.

Right. Not as far to fall, so easier to recover, in the 3rd.

 

As for the fourth age information we had... it doesn't really contradict a cataclysm.

It does.

(if rand will fake his death and would wait a few decades for the last battle)

Why is the Shadow sitting around for a few decades? They have months, at best, before the LB. Also: "—Anonymous fragment of a poem believed

written near the end of the previous Age, known by some as the Third Age. Sometimes attributed to the Dragon Reborn." This indicates some time has passed. Doesn't really fit with your prehistoric Age, does it?

 

The fourth agers ability to rebuild is depended on the number of survivors. If there would only be 20,000 survivors scattered around the entire world rebuilding would be very hard.

And if Seanchan and Shara are pretty much untouched by TG, even if suffering through civil wars of their own?

 

Anyway if you don't think the next age would be prehistorical where do you think prehistory fit in the pattern?

We don't know enough about most of the Ages to say. However, prehistory, as already mentioned, may be part of an Age, not just an entire Age.

 

as far as we know the wheel intend rand to go into hiding (it keep impling to people that rand would go into blind begger mode) and the last battle won't be any time soon.

No, all indications are that it is imminent.

 

By important members of countries I assume you mean the Chief Historian at the Court of the Sun.

Well, imagine that a few of the survivors used to be nobles; you don't see them trying to maintain a facade of continuity? The "court" could very well be a very small tribe first reminiscing on better times, and later, when all the original members died, the new people simply forgot what the true meaning of court (essentially using that word the same way we use the word tribe).

Chief Historian implies more than one. So this is a prehistoric, hunter-gatherer society, with historians and courts, in name only because some nobles were so deluded that they kept titles, etc. when faced with disaster, but managed not to get wiped out? Wasn't this part of a Douglas Adams book?

[CUBAREY]

Sciencfic advancement is pretty much the right person having the right idea at the right time. Reading about a technology that you currently can't understand could still give you ideas about technologies that otherwise would have never occurred to you. Think about Fleming who only discovered penicillin because he forgot to close the window.

 

A 15th century european doctor reading an Inca manuscript that talked of brain surgery would not have been able to duplicate the surgery. A few might try and kill their patients after that doctors would not do brain surgery until the societies knowledge of sceience and technology would develop to a level at which they could undertand the concepts in the manuscripts.

 

That it took Fleming a 20th century doctor to accidentally discover penecillon points to the fact that early generations of doctors did not have the scientific knowledge (about tiny creatures call germs and anti-biotics) to even begin to develop anti-biotics. Indeed, the whole concept of germs and small unseen organisms would have seemed to mirror the myths of nymphs etc., which medievel doctors had discarded. Therefore, they would have seen a medical book discussing anti-biotics as so much fantasy.

[nnokwoodeye]

 

The current trend in randland seems to be that all the channelleres, sparkers and non-sparkers are gathered together for training.

No. It doesn't. If the pop[ulation of the Westlands is as small as 1 million, say (and it is likely much bigger), that would leave 10,000 channelers. Half men. There aren't that many Asha'man, nor is there the time to recruit that many. There will likely be an awful lot of channelers slipping the net. Not to mention the Seanchan and the Ayyad.

 

I seem to recall that one aes sedai commented about how she was shocked to discover that the Asha'man have enough men to send recruiting parties to even the most remote villages. All the female channellers of Seanchan have already been drafted, and the ayyad entire culture is based on using careful breeding to isolate and separate channelers from the main gene pool.

I agree that if the last battle would happen right now there still going to be channellers who wouldn't participate in the LB but their numbers would be relatively low (most of them would probably be Seanchanian men), but it still enough for the ability to disappear.

 

 

Anyway if you don't think the next age would be prehistorical where do you think prehistory fit in the pattern?

We don't know enough about most of the Ages to say. However, prehistory, as already mentioned, may be part of an Age, not just an entire Age.

 

Could it be just part of an age? It is an interesting question. We don't really know what make an age an age, but I think there should be a general theme. For the AOL it was the OP. for the third age it was the DO, isn't an almost animalistic society such a big theme that it would make anything even slightly different from it an obvious other age?

 

By important members of countries I assume you mean the Chief Historian at the Court of the Sun.

Well, imagine that a few of the survivors used to be nobles; you don't see them trying to maintain a facade of continuity? The "court" could very well be a very small tribe first reminiscing on better times, and later, when all the original members died, the new people simply forgot what the true meaning of court (essentially using that word the same way we use the word tribe).

Chief Historian implies more than one. So this is a prehistoric, hunter-gatherer society, with historians and courts, in name only because some nobles were so deluded that they kept titles, etc. when faced with disaster, but managed not to get wiped out? Wasn't this part of a Douglas Adams book?

 

So that where I got this idea from  :D, I was wondering about that.

[Mr Ares]

I seem to recall that one aes sedai commented about how she was shocked to discover that the Asha'man have enough men to send recruiting parties to even the most remote villages.

Their numbers are closer to 1,000 than 5,000. Wotmania's FAQ says possibly over 700, most likely between 600-700.

All the female channellers of Seanchan have already been drafted,

And most of them are in Seanchan, away from the Shadow's attacks in the LB.

and the ayyad entire culture is based on using careful breeding to isolate and separate channelers from the main gene pool.

And unless they get involved, they are also out of the way of the fight. So large numbers of channelers out of the way of TG, still others an untapped resource.

I agree that if the last battle would happen right now there still going to be channellers who wouldn't participate in the LB but their numbers would be relatively low (most of them would probably be Seanchanian men), but it still enough for the ability to disappear.

No. It would take time they don't have to get 700 or so up to 5,000 or more.

 

Could it be just part of an age?

Yes.

We don't really know what make an age an age, but I think there should be a general theme. For the AOL it was the OP.

Was it? Why not peace?

for the third age it was the DO,

Or recovery? 1,000 years recovering from the Breaking, same from the Trolloc Wars, same from the Hundred Years, 20 years recovering from the Aiel War.

isn't an almost animalistic society such a big theme that it would make anything even slightly different from it an obvious other age?

No.

 

So that where I got this idea from  :D, I was wondering about that.

In your theory, is the currency used the leaf? Does your tribe plan on massive deforestation to bring about deflation?