Now this disturbed me - numbers

[Muad Cheade]

You all make me laugh !!  I love this series very much, dont get me wrong I know you all do as well, otherwise you wouldn't argue so much about it.  At his core, Jordan was a master entertainer.  He was a gleeman.  What does Thom always say, that he can make feel like you are the hero, smell, see and live in his tales.  These books are bogged down enough with useless drivvel (i.e. womens cloths).  Are you trying to say he should have been MORE indepth?  A good entertainer tells the story that wants to be heard.  More information about numbers, farms, "logistics" while maybe interesting in an academic sense is NOT good story. 

 

I can see there there are a few people who know enough about the logistics side of our own history and war.  For you few, what would you have rather had.  A lush immersive world that you could feel a part of, or a history book listing dull figures with no soul or spirit?

 

No! No more indepth! There are enough indepth scenarios already! ;) I would have been mollified if he had chosen less numbers when telling the Shaido story. The too large army made me not see the scenes but distrust the probability of said Shaido Story. ;) That part of the Gleeman yarn seems to be the one where the gleeman was falling down drunk. Don't make sense. !  :o  ;D

 

You have to remember that the Shaido brought their entire clan, warriors (too lazy to write the Old Tongue name), blacksmiths, women, children, etc. That is why their number is so high.

 

True, that. But the totally ... big wad of Shaido, pouring out of the Wastelands.. They should have flattened everything.. Oh, well. I still love the books, and I also love to discuss these things. It keeps me going on. It makes me read in other ways. Can't wait to read TGS! :)

 

Yeah, but Rand had a biger wad of Aiel, Tairen and Cairhienin soldiers. After that, they were devastated by the Asha'man. After that, they were split into multiple groups by Sammael, and after that, they were finally beaten by Perrin and the Seanchan. So they started off big, but every time they were defeated, they lost large groups of warriors. And I know! It's killing me. Two days left but it feels like eternity. I'm thinking of breaking into a Barnes and Nobles store.

[magnutz]

You have to remember that the Shaido brought their entire clan, warriors (too lazy to write the Old Tongue name), blacksmiths, women, children, etc. That is why their number is so high.

 

True, that. But the totally ... big wad of Shaido, pouring out of the Wastelands.. They should have flattened everything.. Oh, well. I still love the books, and I also love to discuss these things. It keeps me going on. It makes me read in other ways. Can't wait to read TGS! :)

 

Yeah, but Rand had a biger wad of Aiel, Tairen and Cairhienin soldiers. After that, they were devastated by the Asha'man. After that, they were split into multiple groups by Sammael, and after that, they were finally beaten by Perrin and the Seanchan. So they started off big, but every time they were defeated, they lost large groups of warriors. And I know! It's killing me. Two days left but it feels like eternity. I'm thinking of breaking into a Barnes and Nobles store.

 

Yeah, that too. Even more people. Where to fit them all? :)

[HighLordXanthus]

Two days left but it feels like eternity. I'm thinking of breaking into a Barnes and Nobles store.

 

DONT give me ideas, my mom works for a Barnes and Noble LOL

[Bob T Dwarf]

I really doubt that you'd need 10 farmers for every other person.

 

Then please check a history book.  Until the last half of the 19th century, due to how labor intensive farming was, 90+% of the world's population subsisted on farms.  By the beginning of the 20th century, thanks to increasing automation and a farmer's ability to thereby work more land, that percentage had declined to about 80%.

 

In the 17th century farming was incredibly hard.  Most years many farmers weren't able to produce enough food to feed their own families.  That's why the percentage of people who farmed had to be so high.  Only some subset of that 90% ever had any surplus to sell.

[Thorn]

Obviously Westlands farmers are still using exceptionally productive varietals developed in the AoL. (*waves hands*)

[WWWwombat]

I really doubt that you'd need 10 farmers for every other person.

 

Then please check a history book.  Until the last half of the 19th century, due to how labor intensive farming was, 90+% of the world's population subsisted on farms.  By the beginning of the 20th century, thanks to increasing automation and a farmer's ability to thereby work more land, that percentage had declined to about 80%.

 

In the 17th century farming was incredibly hard.  Most years many farmers weren't able to produce enough food to feed their own families.  That's why the percentage of people who farmed had to be so high.  Only some subset of that 90% ever had any surplus to sell.

 

I have no idea if that figure is correct, but even so, we're not talking about the world's population here, we're talking about the populations of countries analogous to those in the Westlands.  I bet that about half of the world's population works the land atm but that clearly isn't so for Europe or the U.S.  I don't have any texts on Early Modern Europe as I haven't taken any classes on it.  I could tell you a little about rice agriculture in Premodern Japan but I doubt you care about that.  I spent some time on google and found this:

 

http://docs.google.com/View?id=df5zwn4k_97cm4bh5d7

 

It's not a scholarly text or anything but Microsoft is pretty reliable from my experience.

 

As food output was increasing, the proportion of the population working on the land was falling. Although in absolute terms the rural agricultural population rose from about 2.78 million in 1700 to 3.84 million in 1850, this represented a fall in the proportion of the population in this category, from 55 per cent to 22 per cent.

 

That says 55% in England as of the end of the 17th century.  Feel free to give me some links or the names of your texts.

[richnewton82]

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[Bob T Dwarf]

I've looked at that text.  It's an exploration of how the nobility destroyed the peasant yeomanry who were most of the middle class of that time.  Forcing them off their land and into other forms of work.  Such as soldiering in the nearly incessant wars the nobility loved to wage, or crowding into towns to find work where they were more subject to constant pestilence, disease, and near starvation.

 

The yeoman farmer was a political pawn in the constant maneuvering between the nobility and the monarch.  Originally created by the crown as a means to keep the nobles poor and less fractious.  Then during the reign of a particularly weak and foolish king the nobles made their land-grab and got away with it, thus giving them the upper hand with the crown once again.

 

The basic thrust of the authors premise is that this forced population reduction enriched the nobles and gave rise to banking and other forms of capitalism.

 

But, 1700 is the start of the 18th century, and Jordan has said that Randland is a 17th century society without gunpowder.

 

IOW, still largely the domain of the yeoman farmer.

[Bob T Dwarf]

You guys have envisioned an empty small world. The world is large and filled with stuff, people, and places. A band of a couple hundred thousand Aiel would take MONTHS to travel across Randland. They did that before - in the Aiel War. It takes a long time to move across this map. How could they come across and just flatten it? Randland isn't 100 square miles its more like 5 or 6 million square miles.

 

Try maybe as many as 12 million square miles.  Maybe 15 million if we include the Aiel Waste.

 

Yes, lots of towns and villages get mentioned.  It also gets mentioned how few farms there are in the vicinity of any of them, how many of those farms are abandoned, and how much wilderness there is everywhere.

 

We never see enough farms to feed the people in those towns and villages and cities.  Nor enough to supply the huge armies.

 

Bashere, from a vantage point about a league ( 4 miles ) from the walls of Caemlyn observes Aymilla setting up camp astride the road to Tar Valon a mile closer to those walls.  The road to Tar Valon should be one of the most heavily traveled roads in Andor.  It should be lined, miles deep along both sides with farms and inns and villages and towns.  Bashere himself, and certainly Arymilla should not be able to turn around without tripping over some farmer's cattle or hogs or sheep or chickens.  There should be fences everywhere.  Neat fields under that snow where those farmers grow corn and wheat and barley and turnips and onions and carrots and beans and peas and who knows what else during the growing season.

 

But nope.  Bashere sets up his camp not more than a couple of miles off that road in open land.  Arymilla rides up, spreads out and plops down astride the road itself without so much as a, "Pardon me." to anyone.  And her allies are doing the exact same thing with every bit as much ease on every other road leading to Caemlyn.

 

Not realistic.  Won't wash.

[Blackhoof]

Your right, Dwarf. The series would be much better if RJ told us in detail how many farms there were, how many supply wagons supplying the army there are, and spent lots of time telling us about the agriculture and infrastructure of the world instead of actually, you know, doing something with the characters. Either suspend disbelief, assume that there are more farms than you think, or stop reading the series. Your choice.  :P

[Bob T Dwarf]

Nobody, least of all me, is suggesting that he needed to go into exhaustive detail.

 

But, as I said earlier, if he could describe in great detail every bit of lace on every dress, he could have at least sketched enough of the countryside to give us a realistic view of how those towns and armies can be as large as he's made them.

 

He didn't.  The realistic feel of the series suffers as a result.

[richnewton82]

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[richnewton82]

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[Blackhoof]

Doesn't the map include a scale in miles? Without that it is almost impossible to accurately determine the size.

[Bob T Dwarf]

Randland from Falme to the Spine of the World is about 3200 miles, and from Illian to the Mountains of Dhoom is about 2400 miles.  Call it more like 7 million square miles according to the map.

 

This discussion, as far as I'm concerned, is not about what anyone imagines, but about what Jordan wrote.

 

The situation around Ebou Dar seems to be slightly more realistic.

 

When Karede goes to find Tuon, he leaves the city at noon along the Illian Road.  It's early March.  Less than 12 hours of sunlight.  He keeps his horse to a brisk walk ( "... he kept short of a trot even then.  Impatience was a vice when beginning a journey of unknown length." ).  Call it 5 mph, any faster than that and the horse will insist on trotting.

 

The farms gave way to woodlands and fields of scrub, and his shadow was lengthening in front of him, the sun was more than halfway to the horizon by the time he saw what he was looking for.

 

Call it three hours.  15 miles and he's far enough away from any habitation that it's now safe to meet up with Musenge and the Gardeners and other Deathwatch Guards he trusts.  But at least it takes that long before he leaves the farms behind, unlike the situation Jordan paints around Caemlyn.

 

 

[Dert]

 

 

With regrads to the sea voyage, 

 

every persons going to need around 4 litres of water  a day.  500,000 people (not including animals) are going to need at least 2 million litres of water a day.  So over a 30 day journey thats 60 million litres.

 

Thats 57600 metric tons of water. Which is also 60000 cubic meters in space required.  Just in water for people thats a lot of space and tonnage.

 

Trollocs are easier to picture, they eat each other.  They eat there own children which aren't fast/smart enough to avoid the cook-pot.

 

 

[Mr. Micawber]

 

 

With regrads to the sea voyage, 

 

every persons going to need around 4 litres of water  a day.  500,000 people (not including animals) are going to need at least 2 million litres of water a day.  So over a 30 day journey thats 60 million litres.

 

Thats 57600 metric tons of water. Which is also 60000 cubic meters in space required.  Just in water for people thats a lot of space and tonnage.

 

Trollocs are easier to picture, they eat each other.  They eat there own children which aren't fast/smart enough to avoid the cook-pot.

 

 

 

That and scurvy put a limit on sea voyages.

 

And that's *without* the provisions necessary for all the animals. Do you know how much elephants eat? Or even horses?

 

HMS Victory carried at least 800 men; and other First Raters were similar. The RN did not, however, carry around the hundreds of thousands - or even millions - of horses, mules, elephants (sorry, s'redits), and Seanchan-specific crazies that the Corenne plainly was sending over.

[Bob T Dwarf]

With regrads to the sea voyage,  

 

every persons going to need around 4 litres of water  a day.  500,000 people (not including animals) are going to need at least 2 million litres of water a day.  So over a 30 day journey thats 60 million litres.

 

Thats 57600 metric tons of water. Which is also 60000 cubic meters in space required.  Just in water for people thats a lot of space and tonnage.

 

So, let's take 57600 and spread it among 1000 ships.  That's 57.6 metric tons of water per ship.  At just over 2 pounds per liter, or, call it 8.5 lbs per person per day.  The volume per ship required would be 60 cubic meters - call it 4 meters long by 4 meters tall by 4 meters wide, or 4 meters wide by 1 meter tall by 16 meters long.  That would support the requirements for 500 people per ship - but that would have to include the crew also and not just the passengers.

 

I'd guess you'd need to double that to account for the water requirements for all the livestock.  So, 5 meters wide by 1 meter tall by 25 meters long.

 

Now, does anybody want to take a swing at the volume required for thousands of conestoga type wagons?  How much cubage does a to-raken require?  A lopar?  We know the one Suroth has is ten feet tall.  How about a grolm?

 

One other thing to keep in mind - the Victory was a late 18th century/early 19th century ship.  Is it accurate to assume that 17th century technology could successfully build a ship that size?

[magnutz]

RJ did leave such things out of the picture. Numbers and stuff. It does seem, to me at least, that it is not the only instance. I think he begins this when our heroes stumble headlong into Shadar Logoth. They literally run into the bloody town. In later books the city is described as immense with domes that could house entire villages. But our good farm boys run through some trees and suddenly find themselves infront of the city... It would have been visible from far off. So, the numbers and the size - two things not really done well. ;)

[Alghar Khan]

I think he begins this when our heroes stumble headlong into Shadar Logoth. They literally run into the bloody town. In later books the city is described as immense with domes that could house entire villages. But our good farm boys run through some trees and suddenly find themselves infront of the city... It would have been visible from far off.

They were in a forest that had been untouched by humans for a very long time. Probably a thousand years or something like that. How far could you see in such a forest, if you were on the run from something?

[Mr. Micawber]

 

One other thing to keep in mind - the Victory was a late 18th century/early 19th century ship.  Is it accurate to assume that 17th century technology could successfully build a ship that size?

 

The first and second Royal Louis and the second or third (can't remember which) Le Triomphant were at or over the number of guns of Victory, and using pretty much the same pounders.

 

It was *possible* to build real First Raters in the 17th Century, or at least the second half of it, but what really changed naval warfare was the introduction of a more-or-less standardized Third Rate class of 72-76 guns (the "74s") that made up the bulk of the Line. First Raters tended to be Flag Ships.

 

No navy in the 18th Century had more than a very few number of First Raters around, I believe there were only two to three in commission at any given time in the RN through the Napoleonic Wars, and probably only a dozen First Raters at any given time in the world.

[magnutz]

I think he begins this when our heroes stumble headlong into Shadar Logoth. They literally run into the bloody town. In later books the city is described as immense with domes that could house entire villages. But our good farm boys run through some trees and suddenly find themselves infront of the city... It would have been visible from far off.

They were in a forest that had been untouched by humans for a very long time. Probably a thousand years or something like that. How far could you see in such a forest, if you were on the run from something?

 

I'd see Shadar Logoth in any case - because it's HUGE! ;)

[Alghar Khan]

Not if your view is obscured. Unless you have x-ray vision. Or, if it's dark, owl-vision. :D

[magnutz]

Not if your view is obscured. Unless you have x-ray vision. Or, if it's dark, owl-vision. :D

 

It'd have to be a very very large forest.. The way the city is described in later books it isn't something that is easily concealable. ;)

[bigWalt]

With regrads to the sea voyage, 

every persons going to need around 4 litres of water  a day.  500,000 people (not including animals) are going to need at least 2 million litres of water a day.  So over a 30 day journey thats 60 million litres.

 

Thats 57600 metric tons of water. Which is also 60000 cubic meters in space required.  Just in water for people thats a lot of space and tonnage.

 

Trollocs are easier to picture, they eat each other.  They eat there own children which aren't fast/smart enough to avoid the cook-pot.

At sea there is no shortage of water, the're floating in it for gosh sakes all you need is some one who channels(damane) and knows the flows for filtering salt water into fresh pottable drinking water.  Problem solved.