There was a previous discussion about how can so many trollocs live/eat/survive

[Razor]

in the blight.

 

I came across this in the Q/A tour section of Gen WOT

 

Question: How many trollocs did the Dark One have access to?

 

9. Answer: [brandon] stated definitively that there are lots and lots of trollocs. The Dark One has access to either "orders of magnitudes more" or "an order of magnitude" more trollocs that can be supported in the blights (I can't remember whether there was an "s" there. Sorry). He wouldn't comment on how or where, but was very clear that there was going to be a big big trolloc army.

 

So are there lots of Trollocs somewhere where they can can be stored and enter the world where needed.  Perhaps Trollocs are involved in the Shara war and are being grown there.   Perhaps the land of the Madmen or a parallel world like where Rand and Selene met the Grolm.  They can't be transported by portal stones but the ways and perhaps portal stones would be in play.  

[Barid Bel Medar]

also, a quote from RJ

 

USAToday Chat - 5 January 2004

 

Holland: What do Trollocs eat and how do they get enough food in the Blight to sustain all those Trollocs?

Robert Jordan: Trollocs eat almost anything, including other Trollocs. They are omnivores with a tendency toward being carnivores.

 

So makke of that what you will.

[Random Man]

also, a quote from RJ

 

USAToday Chat - 5 January 2004

 

Holland: What do Trollocs eat and how do they get enough food in the Blight to sustain all those Trollocs?

Robert Jordan: Trollocs eat almost anything, including other Trollocs. They are omnivores with a tendency toward being carnivores.

 

So makke of that what you will.

Obviously, though, if you only fed trollocs to other trollocs, you'd quickly run out of an army. I would assume that they're warm-blooded and over a year would need to consume an amount of food equivalent to their entire body mass just to survive, unless they have REALLY efficient digestive tracts to where they hardly excrete any waste. Too bad we don't have any trolloc poop to analyze.

 

They most likely eat the throwbacks to the animal side (who die right away anyway and probably taste like chicken), the infirm and injured, and whomever pisses off the myrddraal. That still doesn't count for enough food to feed more trollocs than can be supported by the Blight. If I was a crafty Forsaken general, I'd look at all that empty, uncontrolled land in the Westlands and move my hordes to occupy some of it. There's tons of open land in the Black Hills, the Cairlain Grass, Shadow Coast, and so on. You destroy whatever villages are in your way, and then you can start setting up breeding farms. Trollocs really dig humans, but I probably wouldn't try to breed humans to feed a Trolloc army since it takes too bloody long for a human to mature. Better to use cows, pigs and sheep. And you can always have fists go out hunting among these isolated villages and such. Disappearances will likely be blamed on wild animals. You have your army hiding in plain sight, so to speak.

 

The big problem with using a region isolated from the Westlands to raise large trolloc armies, such as the Land of Madmen, is that at some point you'd have to bring all the Trollocs back so that they can be of use in battle. It's possible that there are Waygates in the Land of Madmen, but I doubt it because if so, the Ogier would have known about it and about any stedding over there. So you'd need thousands upon thousands of ships, and ships like the Seanchan vessels, to bring all those trollocs back over.

[Durinax]

well the trollocs do raid out of the blight, although not recently, and once a human has been used to make a myrdraal blade then the body goes to the trollocs, plus trollocs can go hunt worms if they want (as I recall they are fairly huge) and the trollocs who die in the attempt are eaten. The big question is the how long does a trolloc take to get to maturity, and are they born in litters or singles becasue if there is a substantial population of female trollocs then tehy could just squeeze out huge amounts of trollocs

[Kaman]

also, a quote from RJ

 

USAToday Chat - 5 January 2004

 

Holland: What do Trollocs eat and how do they get enough food in the Blight to sustain all those Trollocs?

Robert Jordan: Trollocs eat almost anything, including other Trollocs. They are omnivores with a tendency toward being carnivores.

 

So makke of that what you will.

 

The blight has some nasty creatures that could serve as food such as worms and undoubtedly many more species that a trolloc could eat if it were hungry enough.

[Duskfire]

Do we know for sure that Trollocs can't be moved via a portal stone? Perhaps thats where they are being kept; whole mirror worlds filled with Trollocs that are used from time to time. Using Portal Stones would certainly explain some of the rather fishy movements of some of them.

[farthammer]

Well we've supposedly seen Moghedien put in a vacuole by SH or Moridin, maybe they are storing them there.

[Durinax]

do we know the size of the blight?

[Barid Bel Medar]

I am not sure we can know the exact measurement of the Blight, at least it has not been mentioned, so one can only guess, with little accuracy (unless there is a quote somewhere specifying), but I think it is large, it spreads across the mainland, aiel waste and Shara (the Seanchan "Lesser Blight, i dont count, because Trollocs and such have been eradicated there, and we have no way of knowing if they have repopulated.)

 

ON another note, another quote that may help in the speculation of the nature of the Blight and how trollocs get their food and where they are "stored" (Brandons quote about more trollocs than the blight can hold)

 

A Crown of Swords book tour 9 October 1996, Dunwoody, GA - Erica Sadun reporting

 

 

Blight: you can not enter it from Tel'aran'rhiod because it is apart from NORMAL UNIVERSE and can not be touched. The Blight is not part of the normal universe.

 

Again, I say, make of that what you will.

[Durinax]

well that last quote couild be interpretted as just the DO's influence upon the area making it abnormal and thus outside of the pattern.

 

maybe stedding are the creators influence and thus cannot be reached :p

[DemandredFO]

I like the idea of portal stone worlds.  Which brings up if he has access to more trollocs how bout other shadowspawn a worm transformed, etc.  or maybe he's going to ask sauron to borrow some trolls.

[A. Pseudonym]

They're getting extra Trollocs through the Portal Stones... if Trollocs can travel through Portal Stones.

 

:-[

[Barid Bel Medar]

Yeah, parallel worlds seem likely, although the one problem with that is it would be a pretty big thing to just "slip" in at the end.

 

But i agree with the basics of it, although I am not sure how that could happen. Do they just have Moridin waiting at a Portal stone transfering numerous trollocs into this world? I think that it will be something a little different, easier, than portal stones, seems a bit of an effort.

 

Perhaps the DO, being able to unravell the pattern, and the quote about the Blight not being in the "normal Universe" means that a "thinness" not unlike the bore itself, allows entry into other worlds ?

 

Not convinced on that myself, but there it is.

[Duskfire]

Yeah, parallel worlds seem likely, although the one problem with that is it would be a pretty big thing to just "slip" in at the end.

 

But i agree with the basics of it, although I am not sure how that could happen. Do they just have Moridin waiting at a Portal stone transfering numerous trollocs into this world? I think that it will be something a little different, easier, than portal stones, seems a bit of an effort.

 

Perhaps the DO, being able to unravell the pattern, and the quote about the Blight not being in the "normal Universe" means that a "thinness" not unlike the bore itself, allows entry into other worlds ?

 

Not convinced on that myself, but there it is.

 

It is a pretty big thing, but if it turns out it is Portal Stones, I imagine alot of readers - and characters - would go "Ooooh, that makes sense." It wouldn't be completely out of the blue, which is one of the things I love about WoT. How the way to cleanse Saidin has foundations in the firts book, stuff like that. RJ always implies details early on which become importance. Portal Stones would fit that bill.

[farthammer]

Well with PS it seems it's not just a matter of where but also when, for example when Rand and his party lost so much time getting to Falme.  So if say Moridin was using them for Trollocs maybe he could rig up a way to fedex batches of them into what would be the future from his perspective, but near instantly from Trolloc perspective.

[Duskfire]

Well with PS it seems it's not just a matter of where but also when, for example when Rand and his party lost so much time getting to Falme.  So if say Moridin was using them for Trollocs maybe he could rig up a way to fedex batches of them into what would be the future from his perspective, but near instantly from Trolloc perspective.

 

That was only that one time because Rand did something wrong (what that was though who knows.) When he used the one to get from tear to Rhuidean, IIRC there was hardly a gap at all.

[farthammer]

I'm honestly not sure what you are pointing out?  I think maybe you interpreted me saying PS will always punt you well into the future, as int he Falme situation.  What I meant was just that such a thing is a possibility, and in the case of Rhuidean it happened to be that the amount of time which passed for those traveling was pretty close to elapsed real world time.

[Sentinel78]

Moving via Portal Stone requires a LOT of power, Rand almost burnt himself out in Shadow Rising moving a few hundred people and wagons to Rhuidean and he had the fat man angreal at that point.  Unlimited imaginary Portal Stone worlds to breed Trollocs just seems cheap somehow, but then again the grolm and other Seanchan beasts supposedly came over via Portal Stone.  Still, I just don't think they'd be able to ferry over millions of Trollocs that way.

 

This is almost a sci-fi solution, but remember that Moghedien mentioned to Nynaeve that Portal Stones can take you to other worlds, and that the Ways can as well.  Perhaps Moridin either linked the Ways to a different 'breeding' world.  Nothing explicit suggests that the Ways in the Blight are the entry point for the Trollocs either in Book 1 or the raid in Knife of Dreams.  They could, in theory, enter the Ways from just about anywhere in the universe.

 

I'm just saying this is more plausible than Portal Stones in parallel worlds or universes... I doubt this is what's happening either.  More likely, the Dark One's increasing influence is just making them breed faster.

[Dakota]

I like the vacuole idea mentioned earlier.

Think about it.  Say the Blight can support an army of 100,000 trollocs.  You build up an army of that size, and move them into the vacuole.  Then you build up another army of 100,000.  It might take thirty or forty years to make an army of this size, but when you let the first army out, they've only been waiting inside for five minutes.

Think of how many 100,000 strong armies you could build up in such a way over 3000 years.  Maybe if say, the army was moved in each time Ishamael was temporarily freed from the prison?  We have no idea how much of the power it takes to create and open up a vacuole big enough for 100,000 trollocs to stand there and wait for five minutes.  Even if an army was built up this way only as far back as the Trolloc wars, who knows how many can be waiting in stasis, ready to leap out and start killing.

[Durinax]

I like the vacuole idea mentioned earlier.

Think about it.  Say the Blight can support an army of 100,000 trollocs.  You build up an army of that size, and move them into the vacuole.  Then you build up another army of 100,000.  It might take thirty or forty years to make an army of this size, but when you let the first army out, they've only been waiting inside for five minutes.

Think of how many 100,000 strong armies you could build up in such a way over 3000 years.  Maybe if say, the army was moved in each time Ishamael was temporarily freed from the prison?  We have no idea how much of the power it takes to create and open up a vacuole big enough for 100,000 trollocs to stand there and wait for five minutes.  Even if an army was built up this way only as far back as the Trolloc wars, who knows how many can be waiting in stasis, ready to leap out and start killing.

I doubt they would have done this though, because didnt someone say that vacuoles can break away from the pattern and become lost forever

[farthammer]

That seems to be the risk presented in the story, but people have still used them.  If they'd risk one of the forsaken in one, I can't see why they'd care more about losing Trollocs.  They are just a supply of cheap idiot soldiers it doesn't seem worthwhile to amass gigantic numbers unless you can find a way to not have to feed or watch over them.

[Barid Bel Medar]

interesting with the Vacuoles, quite possible, I agree with farthammer, I think the DO/Forsaken would definitely risk it to store the Trollocs/Myrddraal/others. Do we know how many Trollocs could fit into a Vacuole, do we know how many Vacuole's are available, can the FS create them? I dont expect any answeres, they most likely wont be there and if it is used int he books, it would be kept pretty tight, but it would be itneresting to know.

 

Also, I can see something like that happening, I mean, what the hell were the vacuoles introduced for? They are even less important in the story than the Portal Stones, at least they were used to advance the plot.

 

Something fishy is going on wiht the Vacuoles, I think there may be more to them than what it has been, nothing like this has been totally unimportant in the WoT before, and this could very well be it.

 

 

[Durinax]

interesting with the Vacuoles, quite possible, I agree with farthammer, I think the DO/Forsaken would definitely risk it to store the Trollocs/Myrddraal/others. Do we know how many Trollocs could fit into a Vacuole, do we know how many Vacuole's are available, can the FS create them? I dont expect any answeres, they most likely wont be there and if it is used int he books, it would be kept pretty tight, but it would be itneresting to know.

 

Also, I can see something like that happening, I mean, what the hell were the vacuoles introduced for? They are even less important in the story than the Portal Stones, at least they were used to advance the plot.

 

Something fishy is going on wiht the Vacuoles, I think there may be more to them than what it has been, nothing like this has been totally unimportant in the WoT before, and this could very well be it.

I dont think trollocs can even reach a vacuole, since it is outside the pattern I think it requires some sort of Travelling

[Barid Bel Medar]

interesting with the Vacuoles, quite possible, I agree with farthammer, I think the DO/Forsaken would definitely risk it to store the Trollocs/Myrddraal/others. Do we know how many Trollocs could fit into a Vacuole, do we know how many Vacuole's are available, can the FS create them? I dont expect any answeres, they most likely wont be there and if it is used int he books, it would be kept pretty tight, but it would be itneresting to know.

 

Also, I can see something like that happening, I mean, what the hell were the vacuoles introduced for? They are even less important in the story than the Portal Stones, at least they were used to advance the plot.

 

Something fishy is going on wiht the Vacuoles, I think there may be more to them than what it has been, nothing like this has been totally unimportant in the WoT before, and this could very well be it.

I dont think trollocs can even reach a vacuole, since it is outside the pattern I think it requires some sort of Travelling

 

You may be right, but there is no basis for that (unless you have a quote somewhere) so it is, at the present, invalid (it is neither true nor untrue, not enough evidence)

 

I am not sure if you could Travel to a Vacuole, the art of Travelling is based on the Pattern,

 

Ie. True Power: Bore through the pattern to the other side.

    Saidin: Poke a hole from one side to the other (sounds similar to TP, but anyway)

    Saidar: Create a mirror image of the Pattern (or something like that, exact wording?)

 

Each of the methods requires the Pattern in some way, how would you travel outside of the pattern?

[DemandredFO]

Unless the DO has some way of preventing vacules from closing I see how you could store anything there reliably.