Now this disturbed me - numbers

[Bob T Dwarf]

A few points:

 

1) Presumably, Trolloc armies are supported by a "magical" Dark-One-powered infrastructure of some kind in the Blight, which produces their gear, and have digestive systems similar to pigs or goats, such that they can live off of almost anything and don't need extensive resupply systems. Think of them as more akin to a herd of cannibal buffalo in steel armor instead of as an army and a lot of their logistical issues boil away. Not all of them certainly --if nothing else, there's the question of producing all that armor-- but the Blight's been mostly undisturbed for 3,000 years, plenty of time to build up an infrastructure.

 

 

That's a big part of it.  Trollocs aren't societal nor cooperative, so who held them together for 3000 years?  Who planned for future needs?  Who supervised the work?  Smart as he ( thinks ) he is, and much as I like him, Narg just doesn't have the intellectual muscle for that.

 

The DO, the Forsaken, everybody was taken by surprise by the Sealing.  A setback like they suffered wouldn't have been on anyone's radar.  There would have been no contingency planning or mechanisms in place for an eventuality like the Sealing.  The Forsaken were all too besotted with their trinkets and toys and pleasures for that kind of heavy lifting.  Trollocs wouldn't have lasted long enough for Ishy to make one of his periodic returns from the Bore.

 

Hordes of self-sufficient Trollocs patiently waiting for the return of their masters defies logic and is simply magic.

[Mr. Micawber]

Bob, the only explanation I can think of is that Elan Morin set up the infrastructure during his periods of freedom.

 

And that the reason the Trolloc Wars didn't start for something like 1500 years after the First War was that it took him a *long* time.

 

Moreover, there has to be some kind of hierarchy among the Myrddraal for this to make even a little sense.

[Thorn]

Bob, the only explanation I can think of is that Elan Morin set up the infrastructure during his periods of freedom.

 

And that the reason the Trolloc Wars didn't start for something like 1500 years after the First War was that it took him a *long* time.

 

Moreover, there has to be some kind of hierarchy among the Myrddraal for this to make even a little sense.

 

Yeah, the best explanation is that the Myrrddraal and Ishamael set up infrastructure over the past 3000 years. We've seen some of this -- the Forger in Lord of Chaos --  but that's just for getting them organized into an armed fighting force, not for surviving & reproducing.

 

Also, we don't know exactly how unsocietal Trollocs are -- they may be as cooperative as, say, wild pack animals, at least capable of working together for mutual short-term survival. (We do know they're organized into tribes of some kind, who normally don't work together). We really don't know much of Trolloc society or of the Blight, but it's not unreasonable to suppose that Trollocs survived in the same way that goats or pigs survive in the wild without anyone doing large scale organizational planning for them.

 

Then when Ishy gets a smoke break, he organizes them and the Trolloc Wars happen. Again, this is probably handwaving by the standards of a historian, but it's acceptable I think for a fantasy novel, just like the Old Tongue falls apart if you look at is as scholarly linguist but still works well enough that I don't consider it a plot hole.

 

 

 

 

[Mr. Micawber]

Myrddraal control Trollocs.

 

I'm pretty sure Myrddraal live in their camps, perhaps not associating with the Trollocs, but using fear to keep them in line enough that they don't fall to killing each other.

[Bob T Dwarf]

In any fantasy, a certain amount of suspension of disbelief is necessary.  Jordan sketched out enough of a framework for channeling that it works conceptually.  Suspension of disbelief is not just possible but easy.

 

When it comes to any of the armies, Light or Dark, he never gave us any such even sketchy framework.  We're just asked to accept that despite the land everywhere being largely wilderness, with farms only clustered around settlements and cities, every nation and group can support huge armies.

 

During WWII, the population of the US was about 150 million.  We managed to field forces totaling about 10 million.  Only 1 in every 15 people.  We only managed that by rationing metals, energy, fuel, and food.  By putting women into the workforce in unprecedented numbers.  And that was with modern machine tools, a vast and rapid transportation network, and instant communications, none of which exist in Randland.

 

Rather than one in fifteen being supportable, the number would be more like one in fifty in a seventeeth century society.  A 300,000 man army would require a supporting population of about 15,000,000.  Where have we seen any nation in Randland with a population of 15,000,000?  From what we've been shown, there can't be more than 20-25,000,000 in all of the Westlands.  Yet, somehow, Rand is expected to field an army totaling over 2,000,000 regulars and even more irregulars.

 

Sorry, but that just pegs my BS meter too hard and too loudly to be ignored.

[Bob T Dwarf]

Myrddraal control Trollocs.

 

I'm pretty sure Myrddraal live in their camps, perhaps not associating with the Trollocs, but using fear to keep them in line enough that they don't fall to killing each other.

 

OK, I'll buy that.  But those Myrrdraal had to keep the faith and hold everything together with no direction and no supervision from the time of the Sealing until Ishy finally turns up again to issue orders.  And, they have to keep doing that over and over again for 3000 years.  Narg too strong.  Narg too fearsome to dig rocks.  Haul rocks.  Melt rocks. Narg too smart for that.  Narg raid Borderlands.  Eat tasty children.

 

A tight, well trained, well organized, totally dedicated force ( which Trollocs and Myrrdraal will never be ) couldn't hold itself together in those circumstances for 3000 years.

 

It just doesn't wash.

[Mr. Micawber]

I didn't say it made sense, I said it was the only plausible explanation I could come up with  ;)

[Bob T Dwarf]

I didn't say it made sense, I said it was the only plausible explanation I could come up with  ;)

 

It's the only explanation that there is.

 

Magic.  Just pure magic.  Or BS.  Take your choice.

[Thorn]

 

A tight, well trained, well organized, totally dedicated force ( which Trollocs and Myrrdraal will never be ) couldn't hold itself together in those circumstances for 3000 years.

 

 

Did they, though? From what we know, I think Trollocs could be largely disorganized most of the time, and only recently re-formed into a major organized force.

[Bob T Dwarf]

Trollocs, even with Myrrdraal, wouldn't have lasted 50 years on their own.  They need to be carefully tended to survive at all.

 

Then there's the hundreds of thousands of settlers, troops, wagons, supplies, livestock ( both military and domestic ), etc, etc, that the Seanchan have supposedly ferried all the way across the Aryth Ocean in a few hundred 17th century galleons.  5000 19th century Clipper Ships couldn't have managed that.

 

Jordan simply had not even a basic understanding of logistics.

[Muad Cheade]

I dont really see WoT resembling early modern time, you far too few organizations for that. The idea of nationalism has hardly been born, maybe in Andor but I seriously doubt that looking at some of the cities/villages we have seen. Goals of militaristic actions has been small territory gains, very alike that of a feudal time and the aristocracy. Monarchy is still the ruling way of nations, so technically the french revolution havnt occured yet leaving us in the late medieval time.

 

The early modern period spanned from the late 15th century to the 18th. Nationalism wasn't born then either. Monarchy was the predominant form of government. The French Revolution occurred in the Modern Period, not Early Modern.

 

If you have a 10 millino population supporting a 3 million army in a society like this is impossible. The income of the remaining 7 million could not make up the cheers cost of an army that size. The army involves men, younger men mostly, and take away a bulk of the popultion that size leaves a tons of farms not being sufficiently taken care of, women, children and old people are left to tend for societies and villages. Manufacturing cant produce enough goods for an army that size since the industrial revolution hasnt taken place yet. Aristocracy usually got away cheaply from the king/queen leaving lesser places to tax heavily to support the army. You need good communication system, roads, preferably railroads which hasnt been invented yet...not even en army of one million could be supported by a popultion of 10 in an undeveloped society such as WoT. You give Napoleon Bonaparte as an example, his greatest army was 500.000 when he invaded Russia, and then he had recruited tons in the conquered areas of his empire, giving him a waste sustaining population for an army like that.

True he raised another big army before his loss in Leipzig, an that was because the drafting system had been invented in France, given them a huge advantage towards the rest of Europe.

 

Not even in modern times today can you support an army that size, the cost is simply too great to uphold in the long run.

 

You're mistaking the armies of of the WoT as standing armies. They are not. Most nations' armies are simply a core of professional soldiers (like the Andoran Queens Guards, Ghealdan Legion of the Wall, Illian Companions, Tairen Defenders of the Stone, Mayener Winged Guards, etc), nobles and their retainers, and massed levies of commoners. During war these commoners are drafted but after the war, they are sent back to their homes. The economic impact of declaring war is negligible because the levies of commoners are not a standing army and do not have to be supported extensively. That's why most nobles do not like infantry. They think of them as non-professional soldiers and not well trained.

 

 

A tight, well trained, well organized, totally dedicated force ( which Trollocs and Myrrdraal will never be ) couldn't hold itself together in those circumstances for 3000 years.

 

 

Did they, though? From what we know, I think Trollocs could be largely disorganized most of the time, and only recently re-formed into a major organized force.

 

Trollocs do not have to be highly disciplined to raid across the Blightborder and I'm pretty sure Myrdraal can reign them in. Myrdraal in the books are said to be cunning and a good sense of tactics, so them keeping the trollocs semi-unified is believable.

 

And also, I believe after the Trolloc Wars, their number was severely reduced which means a lower number to control. Also, toward the end of Hawkwing's reign, the Trollocs invaded and were again defeated at the Battle of Talidar. So there's a periodical ebb and flow of trolloc numbers. The fact that the Blightborder has been quite for a while is kinda scary though.

 

Trollocs, even with Myrrdraal, wouldn't have lasted 50 years on their own.  They need to be carefully tended to survive at all.

 

Then there's the hundreds of thousands of settlers, troops, wagons, supplies, livestock ( both military and domestic ), etc, etc, that the Seanchan have supposedly ferried all the way across the Aryth Ocean in a few hundred 17th century galleons.  5000 19th century Clipper Ships couldn't have managed that.

 

Jordan simply had not even a basic understanding of logistics.

 

How could they not have? Trollocs fear Myrdraal and Myrdraal have above-average human intellect. Also, I don't doubt Black Ajah and knowledgeable Darkfriends supporting them here and there. and finally, did the Trollocs not worship Ba'alzamon? I doubt they would disobey even one of his orders.

 

As for the Seanchan, they used the Sea Folk Islands they had conquered as regrouping places. Aile Somera for example. Undoubtedly, the Corenne used them too. Also, we don't know if there are any other islands on the Seanchan side of the Aryth Ocean.

 

Columbus' ships were caravels, ships that are definitely smaller than the Seanchan ships. If Columbus could cross the Atlantic with smaller ships when he did not know where he was heading, I'm pretty sure the Seanchan could when their situation was the complete opposite of his.

 

Before you make such comments of Jordan, you need to check your own ignorance, Bob T Dwarf.

[Bob T Dwarf]

Before you make such comments of Jordan, you need to check your own ignorance, Bob T Dwarf.

 

And, you need to check your assumptions.

 

I didn't say they couldn't make the crossing.  I said the number and size of the ships they have couldn't carry what they supposedly did.

 

Let's be charitable and guess that it takes a month to sail across the Aryth Ocean.  How many sailors does it take to sail a galleon?  How much food and water do they need just for themselves?  How much additional cargo could they carry?  How many raken?  How many to'raken?  How much food does it take to keep a to'raken alive for a month?  A grolm?  They've supposedly got about a half million troops.  Hundreds of raken and to'raken.  At least a few dozen grolm.  Thousands of settlers.  With wagons that are well stocked with everything they need to setup a successful homestead - when they roll off the ships.

 

They simply don't have the number of keels.  The needed capacity.

 

Nothing about any of the force levels anywhere in Randland has any logistical credibilty.

 

 

[Mr. Micawber]

To put it this way, to put an AEF together in France during the Great War required thousands of ships. And I don't think we got more than half a million over until around the time of MICHEL.

 

I use this example because the vast majority of heavy equipment used by the AEF was French or British in origin, while horse-drawn vehicles were were still the principal means of supply transportation, and the AEF didn't have to ship over grolm or to'raken or lopar.

 

The mass movement of the Seanchan can only be explained via handwaving.

[Thorn]

 

Let's be charitable and guess that it takes a month to sail across the Aryth Ocean.  

 

This is actually a really good question. We know sailing ships in Randland can move extraordinarily fast if they have channelers aboard controlling the weather. The Seanchan fleet may've been able to move across the ocean very quickly, given damane.

 

Lack of prior conflict between the Seanchan and Sea Folk is a bigger issue. The One Power can "legitimately" handwave away a lot of logistical issues. It can't handwave away the Sea Folk just never sailing that way in 3k years.

[Mr. Micawber]

Oh, and the Seanchan brought over tons of material, to set up homesteads, towns and the like; they brought over printing presses for Christsakes.

 

And they did this in ships that probably resemble Zheng He's Treasure Fleet.

 

It's just not possible to have that kind of mass movement over empty ocean with pre-industrialized technology.

 

The ships being used in 1917-19 were steamers.

[Muad Cheade]

The Seanchan have been preparing for the Return for hundreds of years. It's been repeated often in the books. I'm pretty confident they would be able to assemble the resources, provisions, equipment, etc for a large undertaking in that vast period of time.

 

Zheng He's ships were said to be about 390 by 160 feet (give or take a few feet on both). They were also able to hold 1,000 or more people. If both the Hailene and the Corenne had close to 1,000 of those ships (also remember the captured dozens of Sea Folk ships) that is more than enough to transport the large numbers of people.

 

 

Let's be charitable and guess that it takes a month to sail across the Aryth Ocean. 

 

This is actually a really good question. We know sailing ships in Randland can move extraordinarily fast if they have channelers aboard controlling the weather. The Seanchan fleet may've been able to move across the ocean very quickly, given damane.

 

Lack of prior conflict between the Seanchan and Sea Folk is a bigger issue. The One Power can "legitimately" handwave away a lot of logistical issues. It can't handwave away the Sea Folk just never sailing that way in 3k years.

 

The Sea Folk stopped crossing the Aryth Ocean because many of their ships that did never returned. That is why they did not know or anticipate the Seanchan.

 

And Egeanin has often talked about the usefulness of damane on ships so good point.

[Thorn]

 

The Sea Folk stopped crossing the Aryth Ocean because many of their ships that did never returned. That is why they did not know or anticipate the Seanchan.

 

 

Yeah, that doesn't seem realistic to me; the Sea Folk have windfinders, and I find it unrealistic that if the Seanchan had a shipping industry large enough to build the Corenne (and they did -- the map in the BBoBA shows Seanchan is cut into a zillion different fragments, so most trade is probably by water) then at some point a Sea Folk ship would've faced a Seanchan ship, won, and returned with detailed knowledge in the form of a prisoner or three. Maybe not often, but two seafaring nations, a thousand years, it would've happened at some point.

 

Most of the other issues above can be "legitimately handwaved" away with the One Power (cholera wiped out in Age of Legends, damane making ships travel quickly, etc.) but I don't find the Seanchan's complete invisibility prior to the Return to be believable.

 

edit: I can believe the Sea Folk never went over there deliberately. I can't believe they had no clue at all what was going on. If nothing else, a certain fraction of ships would've gotten blown off course and then come back. Even if it was only one ship a decade, or one ship every fifty years, they'd still have more clue than they were represented to've in the books.

[Bob T Dwarf]

Zeng He plied coastal waters.  There were no deep water crossings.  His wide, flat bottomed treasure ships would not have survived in deep or rough water.  Current thinking is that those ships were retained by the Emperor to ferry what treasure he found and brought home upriver.

 

His initial fleet may have consisted of as many as 300 ships, with approximately 28,000 people aboard.  That's an average 93 people per ship.  And, they could put into shore every few days and replenish their food and water.

 

The Mayflower with a total displacement of 180 tons did better than that, carrying 102 settlers plus a crew of between 25 and 30 to Plymouth.  That trip took 66 days.  They were ravaged by disease before arriving.  2 people died.  There was one birth.  They arrived with minimal supplies and would not have survived if not for the generosity of the natives.

 

The Aryth is probably our Atlantic.  Since the Seanchan would have been traveling with the prevailing wind, lets guess they could have made the crossing in 45 days.

 

Now let's further guess that only 100,000 of the troops under a Seanchan banner are really Seanchan.  Let's guess the total settlers at 50,000.  Total 150,000 plus all varieties of livestock and military animals.  All supplied to survive and flourish without the need to live off the land initially.

 

So, how many Mayflower sized ships would that take?  3,000 - 4,000 as a conservative guess.

 

Now let's take a guess at how long a wooden ship will last in a salt water and marine pest environment.  Without major overhaul.  25 years?  If they built 200 such ships per year, by the time the last of 4,000 was ready to sail, the first would have rotted away.  Preservation weaves might eleiminate that pesky problem.  Still, it would require incredible lead time to amass and provision such a fleet.  We have no indication that the fleet they arrived with was anymore than a few hundred ships.

 

So, how's that math working out for you, Muad?

[Mr. Micawber]

There are way more than 50,000 settlers.

 

Everything we see and hear from the Seanchan soldiers suggest that there are more settlers than soldiers, and in fact, at one point a Seanchan officers points out that the soldiers ought not to set themselves up as some kind of elite in opposition to the great mass of people from Home.

[Bob T Dwarf]

I agree.  I'm trying to be somewhat kind in my estimates.

 

Hand waving can explain a lot.  It can't explain 10-20 or more times the people than the Seanchan had bottoms to carry.

[Thorn]

 

The Aryth is probably our Atlantic.  Since the Seanchan would have been traveling with the prevailing wind, lets guess they could have made the crossing in 45 days.

 

 

I'm going to posit that they probably could've made it a lot faster than that. A fleet-full of Damane channeling could've altered wind and currents for a very fast transit, and I believe someone's done the math and calculated that the Westlands are significantly wider than modern Europe, which would make the Aryth comparably narrower than the Atlantic.

 

A modern cruise liner like the QE II makes the trip from New York to England in just under seven days (traveling between 20 and 34 knots, according to its wikipedia page). A spanish galleon, the internet tells me, managed an average speed of 8 knots; a modern replica of Zheng He's treasure boats can apparently sail at 12 "miles per hour" which I think would be about eight to ten knots depending on whether they mean nautical miles or not.

 

When you consider that the Seanchan would have perfectly favorable weather and currents for every minute of their journey, a very speedy transit becomes believable -- I could believe even as short as fifteen to twenty days.

[Bob T Dwarf]

Depends on how many natural laws you choose to violate.

 

Ships possess something called a waterline limiting hull speed.  Go faster than that and the ship "sails under," meaning the bow buries into the wave and never comes up.

 

For cargo ships, well sailed, that hull limiting speed as about 1 X the square root of the waterline length.  12 knots requires a waterline length of 144 feet at minimum.  If the ship has grass or barnacles on her hull, she won't go that fast even under optimum conditions.

 

People and animals require a certain minimum amount of space before crowding makes things unhealthy.  That too limits the number of people or animals any ship could carry.

 

Trollocs, Seanchan, national armies, they're all just magically the size they are.

[Muad Cheade]

Yeah, that doesn't seem realistic to me; the Sea Folk have windfinders, and I find it unrealistic that if the Seanchan had a shipping industry large enough to build the Corenne (and they did -- the map in the BBoBA shows Seanchan is cut into a zillion different fragments, so most trade is probably by water) then at some point a Sea Folk ship would've faced a Seanchan ship, won, and returned with detailed knowledge in the form of a prisoner or three. Maybe not often, but two seafaring nations, a thousand years, it would've happened at some point.

 

Sea Folk only have one Windfinder per ship. Seanchan have several per ship. If one Sea Folk ship faced one Seanchan ship, the A'than Miere ship would be destroyed. If that happened repeatedly over the years, all that would be known of the area across the Aryth Ocean is that if you cross it you die. That would curb any attempts to go over there

 

Jordan has said  Seanchan continent is larger than the Westlands and if you see the map, it's obvious. The majority of main cities are on the southern land mass and so trade is primarily by land. even from the map, any sea trade would be primarily on the western side of the continent/the Morena Ocean.

 

One thing that's weird is that the Seanchan continent is to the east of Shara and it's closer to Shara than to the Westlands, so it's a wonder why they didn't invade Shara first. Probably because the Westlands were Artur Hawkwing's and Shara wasn't.

 

Zeng He plied coastal waters.  There were no deep water crossings.  His wide, flat bottomed treasure ships would not have survived in deep or rough water.  Current thinking is that those ships were retained by the Emperor to ferry what treasure he found and brought home upriver.

 

His initial fleet may have consisted of as many as 300 ships, with approximately 28,000 people aboard.  That's an average 93 people per ship.

 

The Mayflower with a total displacement of 180 tons did better than that, carrying 102 settlers plus a crew of between 25 and 30 to Plymouth.  That trip took 66 days.  They were ravaged by disease before arriving.  2 people died.  There was one birth.  They arrived with minimal supplies and would not have survived if not for the generosity of the natives.

 

The Aryth is probably our Atlantic.  Since the Seanchan would have been traveling with the prevailing wind, lets guess they could have made the crossing in 45 days.

 

Now let's further guess that only 100,000 of the troops under a Seanchan banner are really Seanchan.  Let's guess the total settlers at 50,000.  Total 150,000 plus all varieties of livestock and military animals.  All supplied to survive and flourish without the need to live off the land initially.

 

So, how many Mayflower sized ships would that take?  3,000 - 4,000 as a conservative guess.

 

Now let's take a guess at how long a wooden ship will last in a salt water and marine pest environment.  Without major overhaul.  25 years?  If they built 200 such ships per year, by the time the last of 4,000 was ready to sail, the first would have rotted away.  Preservation weaves might eleiminate that pesky problem.  Still, it would require incredible lead time to amass and provision such a fleet.  We have no indication that the fleet they arrived with was anymore than a few hundred ships.

 

So, how's that math working out for you, Muad?

 

Fairly well. I see you got your information of Zheng He from Wikipedia. Apart from being notoriously innacurate, the same article says they could hold 500 to 1,000. If 1,000 ships could hold up to 1,000 people, animals, supply etc each, that's well over a million. That's not including the Sea Folk rakers that were captured.

 

According to your math, it would simply take 5 years to construct 1,000 ships at a rate of 200 a year. That's feasible as the  Seanchan could first gather the supplies, timber, weapons, selecting those who were going to undertake the journey etc before finally constructing the ships.

 

Okay...If there were 400-600 ships, that's still about 400,000-600,000 men, suldam, settlers, grolm, to'raken, etc. And your thought about the wood rotting away is irrelevant regardless of (realistic) the size.

 

Like my math?

[Mr. Micawber]

Zheng He's voyages were through East and South Asia, where he could put in to port regularly. Apart from Gavin Menzies, pretty much no one thinks that he crossed the Pacific.

 

The Seanchan are crossing an uninterrupted body of water thousands of miles long.

 

I'd say there's a difference between what his junks did and what the Seanchan do.

[Bob T Dwarf]

Your 1,000 per ship number is for the riverboats, not the Coasters.  You know, the ones that remained in China.

 

His first expedition consisted of about 300 ships and 28,000 men.  So, for 280,000 men he would have needed 3,000 ships.  For 500,000, he would have needed close to 5,000 ships.  That doesn't take into account all of the various kinds of livestock and their requirements.

 

A half million or more Seanchan just aint a happening thing given a few hundred ships and 17th Century technology.