Re-read questions **SPOILER ALERT**

[ElAguila]

I am not sure if what I have to say are actual spoilers but just in case I wanted to make it known in the title. I decided to read through the books again before reading the last 2 that have been released. I have a question about a couple of things and I am wondering if I am way off base here. I remember about artifacts that are either found or talked about such as flashlights and even a stasis box. Is this world such that a long time ago in the their past they had advanced technology but when they discovered the one power technology kind of became unnecessary? Weren't they studying the one power when they started the bore hole but sealed it when they realized what was there?

[Terez]

Glowbulbs and flashlights are different things...but in the Age of Legends, most technology was developed using the Power, though not all of it required the Power for manufacture and operation. The gadgets that required the Power for operation were ter'angreal, and even the ones that require channeling could be used by anyone by virtue of the 'standing flows', which was apparently something like modern electricity but using the Power instead? We're not sure. Anyway, all that technology was lost in the Breaking, some of it in the last years of the War of Power because of the way society was breaking down.

[JKN-SW]

There are a lot of "flash-backs" to the AoL, but do we know for sure that it was all originating from the OP? Esp in Rands visions in Rhuidean,iirc, we see a bit of everyday life in AoL.Different means of transportation, both for military and civilian purpose and advanced weapons, for example. If they were all made and/or operated with the OP, there must have been a veritable industri for both manufacturing and maintenance, with channelers as sole emplyees, I suppose?

[Terez]

No, they're just developed using the Power most of the time. Like I said, the manufacture doesn't always require it. It's in the BWB.

 

Edited to add quote:

 

Most technological research and development was done by Aes Sedai. Entire branches of science owed their existence to the use of the One Power....

 

...With so few people able to channel, the Power had to be used selectively. Aes Sedai were not expected to maintain or energize machines, for instance, but rather concentrated their efforts on designing and creating the technology for them. Technicians and other skilled nonchannelers could then handle the construction and repair; after that, anyone could operate them. The process that enabled the great Sharom, or floating sphere of Collam Daan, to hover high above the university was discovered and refined through the use of the One Power, but the sphere was built by normal people and suspended through use of the world’s own magnetic and gravitational fields.

[xiophen]

I have always thought that the reason we do not see advance tech in the AOL was more due to the fact that they probably hada war that destroyed tech and reduced them back to a more primitive tech level. and that when they rebuilt they rebuiklt tech and such base off of the one power and tech developed from it.

[MasterAblar]

I have always thought that the reason we do not see advance tech in the AOL was more due to the fact that they probably hada war that destroyed tech and reduced them back to a more primitive tech level. and that when they rebuilt they rebuiklt tech and such base off of the one power and tech developed from it.

 

Probably, they don't seem to have any records of the previous age, which would be ours I suppose. It would take something pretty drastic for nearly all records to be lost.

[NetSlider]

Haha, well considering nukes and whatever else we might come up with our death wish destroying our records would b only a matter of will. That's why I love that doc about what would happen to everything if humans disappeared. In any event, even plastic will decompose given enough time.

[ElAguila]

I am in the re-read of Shadow Rising and I had forgotten about the history when passing through the rings at Rhuedean. It tells of flying vehicles and weapons called shocklances and vehicles traveling much faster than wagons that didn't need horses so there was indeed some high tech.