the world breaking?

[keravon3]

Will rand break the world during and after Tarmon Gaidon? (maby bring about a new age) what are tyour thoughts

[TheDiceAgain...]

No way. Why would he break the world again? The taint on Saidin is gone now, so neither he nor the Asha'man are going to go anymore nuts than they are now. It was the madness caused by the taint that caused the Breaking in the first place...

[Guest Majsju]

Depends on what you mean with break. Physically, like the old breaking by throwing mountains around etc? Not a chance.

 

Politically though, is a different story. We're already seeing the start of it, and it's likely to get worse after TG. Old nations dying, new nations born, and a massive amount of people moving around all over the place. And there might be some physical changes to the world as results of the war.

[Guest cwestervelt]

The Breaking, as described by Majsju, has already begun. The Aiel decimated by the truth, all of the other countries in civil war and anarchy.

 

With the way that pattern has been thinning, I wouldn't be surprised to see some physical changes. Not necessarily drastic like mountains being villages and towns disappearing which could result in series loss of life.

[keravon3]

there could be a physical break by the power that rand and the DO use during TG(the masive amounts)

[Guest cwestervelt]

Not denying that possibility.

[MetalMonkeyMood]

I know it's a bit unlikely, but I've always thought that part of the breaking that Rand might bring about is actually the end of the ability to channel.

It has to end some time, so that another age discovers the OP and opens the door to the AoL in the next age (I've always thought of the discovery of the OP as something worthy of the end of one age and the beginning of another). There also has to be a significant amount of time before this age for the use of the OP to become forgotten, and four ages seems about right for that. I think that the OP has been put under trmendous amounts of strain with the weather being sorted out with the bowl Ter'angreal, the cleansing of saidin and the DO touching the world, and I think that some of the effects we see (holdings weakening and the seals breaking for example) may be a result of this. Technology is becoming a part of the world (gunpowder, steam engines, even airplane design), and it is kind of fitting for technology to come around and replace magic, an ironic statement on modern life I think.

[Guest cwestervelt]

The Fourth Age is setting up to be more primal than the Second and Third. Sure, Rand is developing advanced farming techniques and such and Mat is developing the precursors to modern warfare, but will the pattern allow those to survive? After all, the pattern has starting to spin out Sniffers and Wolfbrothers again.

[RobertAlexWillis]

Thats why I picture the Fourth Age as something like an Atlantis, high technology with mystic abilities (Jordan has also said that more people will be able to do what Min does) oracles, people and animals coexisting, etc.

 

As for the breaking, Majsju nailed it. He's pretty much already broken the Nations, but I doubt that a physical upheaval on the scale of the Breaking is in the offing.

[Zardi]

There also has to be a significant amount of time before this age for the use of the OP to become forgotten, and four ages seems about right for that.

I don't think it would take that long. Even in the current age, there are those who don't quite believe the Forsaken are real, and it's only been one age since they were in power. The power does have to disappear, but I don't think it will happen suddenly because of anything Rand does, nor do I think it will happen anytime soon, given the fact that male and female channelers will finally be able to breed again, and both sparkers and learners are being actively sought.

[RobertAlexWillis]

Judging by the statistics that Jordan gave about the percentage of the population that can channel, channeling the Power is already on its way out. It has dropped from 3% in the Age of Legends to 1% in the "present". I would guess that by the middle of the Fourth Age, channeling will be no more, and by the late Fifth will be essentially forgotten. But that is purely speculative.

[Marrow Rahien]

keravon3 Said

there could be a physical break by the power that rand and the DO use during TG(the masive amounts)

 

 

I haven't started solidifying the vision yet, but in the rough form I imagine that at the least the climate patterns of the world will change allowing for Man to return to the lands currently controlled by the Trollocs (IE Europe, in the WoT = Earth theory).

[Zardi]

Does the 1% include all channelers, even those undiscovered, or only those known to the Aes Sedai? To have channeling disappear by the middle of the 4th age is still fairly fast, given the life span of a channeler.

[RobertAlexWillis]

Yes he said it included the ones who could learn and didn't know it. And we don't really know how long any given Age is, they're not necessarily the same.