Why didn't Aginor do anything in this Age?

[Mulk]

I think by Dark Ogier he's looking for something taken from Ogier stock and made into Shadowspawn, like darkhounds presumably are of wolves, or Trollocs (and thereby humans) are of humans and beasts.

[OptimusPrime]

Dark Ogier please

 

Aka Trollocs?

 

Theres no relation whatsoever.

 

No they aren't any relation, but they are similar - sort of the Dark One's response to the Ogier. They are big, strong, and not-human. They're just dumb and vicious where the Ogier are smart and careful (among other differences).

 

Trollocs are nothing at all like Ogier. So both are big, strong and not human. So are worms I believe. Are they also like Ogier, or Trollocs?

 

No, they are not. You are judging books by their covers.

 

I think by Dark Ogier he's looking for something taken from Ogier stock and made into Shadowspawn

 

Exactly! Im thinking Blightsong. Or a cabal of Dark Ogier living in the Blight, breeding worms to bring out the transformation into whatever it is...

[Guest Emu on the Loose]

From the perspective of realism it's easy to understand why Aginor was the most useless Forsaken in the Third Age, other than Balthamel. Bioengineering requires a massive industrial base, including a steady supply of fuel and energy, access to raw materials, materials processing facilities, sophisticated tools and equipment, talented staff, and more. The Shadow doesn't have an economy per se, and could not provide Aginor with the means for him to take up his old work.

 

As evidenced in TEotW, Aginor had also grown crazy during his three thousand years of nightmares and his desiccated old body. He behaved like a child to Rand, literally going so far as to shout "Mine!" like a spoiled eight-year-old brat when he and Rand were battling.

[alykyn]

From the perspective of realism it's easy to understand why Aginor was the most useless Forsaken in the Third Age, other than Balthamel. Bioengineering requires a massive industrial base, including a steady supply of fuel and energy, access to raw materials, materials processing facilities, sophisticated tools and equipment, talented staff, and more. The Shadow doesn't have an economy per se, and could not provide Aginor with the means for him to take up his old work.

 

As evidenced in TEotW, Aginor had also grown crazy during his three thousand years of nightmares and his desiccated old body. He behaved like a child to Rand, literally going so far as to shout "Mine!" like a spoiled eight-year-old brat when he and Rand were battling.

 

 

Hmm.. but he was reborn.. and I was under the impression his scientific abilities were mostly accomplished with the OP or TP, not actual science. There's no evidence in the AoL that there was 'science' per say, but more like the science of the One Power to accomplish anything. Even if you were right a mad scientist will use whatever there is to experiment.

 

RJ may have decided to drop his scientific background more likely, because there's just the smallest hints of it in the books and clearly if he wanted to he could have played up a whole crazy mad scientist Forsaken snatching up goodies and baddies and performing crazy wicked experiments on them a la a psycho darkhound version of Perrin

[Demiandre]

While sticking to Rand as Dashiva, he couldn't make such experiments. He had a hard time hiding his knowledge (TPoD, where he explains the difficulties with saidin, or when Flinn heals Rand. Even if he isn't supposed to be skilled in Healing, he knows Flinn did a very good job, which is kind of strange for a regular person IMO)

 

So when could he have done it? After being freed from the Bore? No time, as I thing they went straight to the Green Man's place. Then, they were reborn in LoC(? not sure) and then he always was with Rand. He couldn't do otherwise, as it had been his task (see Graendal speaking of it, or was it Aran'Gar? in WH).

 

And add that with the fact that you need an idea to create something, as well as tests and a lot of guinea pig. So quite difficult

[Sid]

In the AoL, he had the luxury of having decades of research and experimentation time in his laboratories, while the other Forsaken (and there were many more than 13) did the DO's bidding 'in the field'. Then, like Demiandre said, he went directly to the Eye of the World and died. After being reborn, he was given a field assignment in the Black Tower because there seriously wasn't anyone else to do it. Imagine trying to do any kind of OP research in the only place in the entire world other than right next to the Dragon Reborn where people can sense male channeling (or Far Madding I suppose). And then he was stationed literally right next to the Dragon Reborn after Dumai's Wells. So no, not a lot of time for research.

[mbuehner]

Factor in that the Dark One really had no use for him building new monsters- he's got his own game plans to win his victory and destroy the world. He factored Aginor into that by having him gain Rand's trust and betray him, which was actually valuable. New monsters wouldn't help the DOs true game plan, so why bother?

[francy]

Yeah yeah, I can hear the excuses already,

"The DO isn't free enough in this Age for him to use the same dark energies he used to create the Shadowspawn before",

or

"He didn't need to, he already made everything there was to make" etc etc

 

But still if you are a scientist you ARE a scientist and we never saw an OUNCE of scientist from Aginor in any version of himself which really was dissapointing.

 

It would have been much more fun if we had one evil genius scientist creating new and exciting SS all the time, how cool would that have been!?

 

I won't buy that there was nothing new to create!!

 

Actually, I just assumed there wasn't enough time! Also, there was a job to be done, and only Aginor and Belthamel were available to do it.

 

I got the feeling they hadn't been free for long - and seeing that he had a good grasp of what was going on, I'd say he would have had to spend much of his time coming up to speed on the workings of the current day.

 

I think that Aginor, being the evil scientific genius he was, would have been able to come up with all sorts of nasties, if he had had the luxury of time like the others.

 

However, the DO and Ishy needed to send someone to the EYE, and Aginor and Belthamel (yeah I know, spelling) where all they had to hand. There were no expendable Dreadlords or any other Chosen to hand. When everyone else was freed, they set off with their own agenda's, to get control of this realm or cause trouble amongst those peoples. If Aginor hadn't died at the Eye, or if he was still in slumber to be freed with the others, I think we would have seen a lot of new and interesting nasties.

 

Just my opinion...

[frenchie]

Yeah yeah, I can hear the excuses already,

"The DO isn't free enough in this Age for him to use the same dark energies he used to create the Shadowspawn before",

or

"He didn't need to, he already made everything there was to make" etc etc

 

But still if you are a scientist you ARE a scientist and we never saw an OUNCE of scientist from Aginor in any version of himself which really was dissapointing.

 

It would have been much more fun if we had one evil genius scientist creating new and exciting SS all the time, how cool would that have been!?

 

I won't buy that there was nothing new to create!!

 

Actually, I just assumed there wasn't enough time! Also, there was a job to be done, and only Aginor and Belthamel were available to do it.

 

I got the feeling they hadn't been free for long - and seeing that he had a good grasp of what was going on, I'd say he would have had to spend much of his time coming up to speed on the workings of the current day.

 

I think that Aginor, being the evil scientific genius he was, would have been able to come up with all sorts of nasties, if he had had the luxury of time like the others.

 

However, the DO and Ishy needed to send someone to the EYE, and Aginor and Belthamel (yeah I know, spelling) where all they had to hand. There were no expendable Dreadlords or any other Chosen to hand. When everyone else was freed, they set off with their own agenda's, to get control of this realm or cause trouble amongst those peoples. If Aginor hadn't died at the Eye, or if he was still in slumber to be freed with the others, I think we would have seen a lot of new and interesting nasties.

 

Just my opinion...

 

 

Well, since the Creator has already addressed this, I'll let him answer your question.

 

 

 

Week 15 Question: What does the Dark One view as the worst punishment he can inflict on his minions: Killing them as painfully as possible? Balefire? Mindtrap? Being continually resurrected to suffer at his hand for eternity? Something we haven't seen yet?

 

Robert Jordan Answers: The Dark One doesn't care about his minions sufficiently to invest much time in their punishment except as it serves to correct their behavior or as object lesson to others, nor is there much in the way of gradation. Simple failure and outright betrayal might be punished equally, or one might result in death and the other in becoming an object lesson or in something else. (The mindtrap, by the way, could be called an object lesson only to the one so trapped; remember, none of the Forsaken know who is mindtrapped except Moridin and those who are trapped.) The decision, death or object lesson or something else, normally would be simply a matter of whether or not he believed there was any point to an object lesson and/or whether or not he felt there was really any further use in the individual. Or, for that matter, made for reasons unknowable to a human mind. Remember, the Dark One is NOT human and thinking of him in human terms just doesn't work.

 

But he also operates under a constraint that did not exist in the Age of Legends. At that time, about 3% of the population could learn to channel to some extent, though not all chose to -- the training program took time, and being able to channel carried with it certain obligations that not everyone wanted to undertake -- but that still meant there were, at a minimum, hundreds of thousands of people in the world who could channel, and more likely millions. A large pool of possible recruits. Break a tool or decide it isn't working right and throw it out, because there is an endless supply of similar tools waiting on the shelf. That might be said to have been his attitude. In the here-and-now of the books, that figure is about 1%, and of that 1%, very, very few have any idea that they could learn to channel, much less have any training at all. Here-and-now, the pool of possible recruits is tiny.

 

Also, while the Forsaken themselves have realized that these primitives have discovered how to do things with the Power that they themselves cannot, or perhaps can once they learn how but never dreamed of doing until they found that the weaves existed here-and-now, they still think of people in the here-and-now as primitives, and their attitudes filter through to the Dark One, who believes that his people from the age of Legends are in all practical ways better -- for which read better trained, more capable, and thus better able to serve him efficiently and effectively -- than the people of the present time. And he is right. In a way. They are certainly better trained, with a much wider knowledge, at least in some areas. Some of their skills are absolutely useless in the society they are forced to live in. Aginor was a genius in biology and genetics, but in this world, he had no way to make the tools to make the tools to make the tools…. Well, you get the idea. Pity the poor chip designer dropped into the seventeenth century.

 

In any event, the Dark One tries to conserve his resources, using and reusing those he might have killed himself, or ordered killed, in a time where there were thousands to equal them.

[francy]

Yeah yeah, I can hear the excuses already,

"The DO isn't free enough in this Age for him to use the same dark energies he used to create the Shadowspawn before",

or

"He didn't need to, he already made everything there was to make" etc etc

 

But still if you are a scientist you ARE a scientist and we never saw an OUNCE of scientist from Aginor in any version of himself which really was dissapointing.

 

It would have been much more fun if we had one evil genius scientist creating new and exciting SS all the time, how cool would that have been!?

 

I won't buy that there was nothing new to create!!

 

Actually, I just assumed there wasn't enough time! Also, there was a job to be done, and only Aginor and Belthamel were available to do it.

 

I got the feeling they hadn't been free for long - and seeing that he had a good grasp of what was going on, I'd say he would have had to spend much of his time coming up to speed on the workings of the current day.

 

I think that Aginor, being the evil scientific genius he was, would have been able to come up with all sorts of nasties, if he had had the luxury of time like the others.

 

However, the DO and Ishy needed to send someone to the EYE, and Aginor and Belthamel (yeah I know, spelling) where all they had to hand. There were no expendable Dreadlords or any other Chosen to hand. When everyone else was freed, they set off with their own agenda's, to get control of this realm or cause trouble amongst those peoples. If Aginor hadn't died at the Eye, or if he was still in slumber to be freed with the others, I think we would have seen a lot of new and interesting nasties.

 

Just my opinion...

 

 

Well, since the Creator has already addressed this, I'll let him answer your question.

 

 

 

Week 15 Question: What does the Dark One view as the worst punishment he can inflict on his minions: Killing them as painfully as possible? Balefire? Mindtrap? Being continually resurrected to suffer at his hand for eternity? Something we haven't seen yet?

 

Robert Jordan Answers: The Dark One doesn't care about his minions sufficiently to invest much time in their punishment except as it serves to correct their behavior or as object lesson to others, nor is there much in the way of gradation. Simple failure and outright betrayal might be punished equally, or one might result in death and the other in becoming an object lesson or in something else. (The mindtrap, by the way, could be called an object lesson only to the one so trapped; remember, none of the Forsaken know who is mindtrapped except Moridin and those who are trapped.) The decision, death or object lesson or something else, normally would be simply a matter of whether or not he believed there was any point to an object lesson and/or whether or not he felt there was really any further use in the individual. Or, for that matter, made for reasons unknowable to a human mind. Remember, the Dark One is NOT human and thinking of him in human terms just doesn't work.

 

But he also operates under a constraint that did not exist in the Age of Legends. At that time, about 3% of the population could learn to channel to some extent, though not all chose to -- the training program took time, and being able to channel carried with it certain obligations that not everyone wanted to undertake -- but that still meant there were, at a minimum, hundreds of thousands of people in the world who could channel, and more likely millions. A large pool of possible recruits. Break a tool or decide it isn't working right and throw it out, because there is an endless supply of similar tools waiting on the shelf. That might be said to have been his attitude. In the here-and-now of the books, that figure is about 1%, and of that 1%, very, very few have any idea that they could learn to channel, much less have any training at all. Here-and-now, the pool of possible recruits is tiny.

 

Also, while the Forsaken themselves have realized that these primitives have discovered how to do things with the Power that they themselves cannot, or perhaps can once they learn how but never dreamed of doing until they found that the weaves existed here-and-now, they still think of people in the here-and-now as primitives, and their attitudes filter through to the Dark One, who believes that his people from the age of Legends are in all practical ways better -- for which read better trained, more capable, and thus better able to serve him efficiently and effectively -- than the people of the present time. And he is right. In a way. They are certainly better trained, with a much wider knowledge, at least in some areas. Some of their skills are absolutely useless in the society they are forced to live in. Aginor was a genius in biology and genetics, but in this world, he had no way to make the tools to make the tools to make the tools…. Well, you get the idea. Pity the poor chip designer dropped into the seventeenth century.

 

In any event, the Dark One tries to conserve his resources, using and reusing those he might have killed himself, or ordered killed, in a time where there were thousands to equal them.

 

 

Thank you Frenchie for putting this quote up! Gives a whole new insite... :-)

[alykyn]

Some of their skills are absolutely useless in the society they are forced to live in. Aginor was a genius in biology and genetics, but in this world, he had no way to make the tools to make the tools to make the tools…. Well, you get the idea. Pity the poor chip designer dropped into the seventeenth century.

 

In any event, the Dark One tries to conserve his resources, using and reusing those he might have killed himself, or ordered killed, in a time where there were thousands to equal them.

 

 

Interesting.. I hadn't thought that Aginor actually needed tools (What else can that be but ter'angreals?) to create ShadowSpawn.

 

I always view ter'angreals as more like 'assistant weaves', meaning that anything they can do can be created with a weave, so I'm

still unsure what sort of 'tools' he would need that he couldn't create with weaves. Unless there was also some sort of science

in the AoL that had nothing to do with channeling?

[jemron]

A third item needs to be put on the poll: "YES! And he already did!"

 

I submit that Aginor was at least partially involved in the creation of new Shadowspawn in this Age. Red veiled Aiel anyone? Also, who is to say that new Shadowspawn won't be introduced? Maybe he at least had a hand in helping with something new or improved.

 

And, if not, everyone's explanations that he needed years of research and development, possible tools that he no longer has access too, and a good Walter Bishop-ish lab that doesn't exist any longer in this Age are also good arguments for him NOT doing it this time around.

[Entreri]

Lack of proper equipment and lack of time

 

Randland is now a primitive society, at least 500 years back of where the world is currently.

 

Even with current tech, cloning and modifying is still a challege. In a 50 years, no, true AI, quantum computers, engery weapons (they are already making plans to create a laser than can drill through 2000 feet of steel in a second) etc.

[Eichhörnchen]

I would be pretty depressed if I were Aginor or Ishamael/Moridin. You are a highly intelligent very educated person from a technologically advanced society. You belong to the educated elite of this world. Then you land in Randland where it must seem for those two men they're surrounded by inbred retards who are almost too dumb for anything but to breathe, reproduce and eat.

 

To put it into reference. I suppose those two Forsaken must feel like the protagonist in the movie "Idiocracy."