Mesaana and Asmodean?

[TristanWebb]

I always thought opening a gateway 200ft above a battle and just channelling though that would be a good tactic. You could do it from anywhere too.

[baalsmistress]

Or openning one on the ground just below and in front of charging cavalry, exiting 200ft over another part of their forces. Use the enemies own forces as bombs.

[TristanWebb]

Or make a gateway, put up a shield of air just on your side the same size, get your other 50 channelers to weave through it from the comfort of their own home. Or get as many channelers as possible to link, make a huge gateway in front of a trolloc army and stand there taunting. Travelling has so many possibilities.

[Barid Bel Medar]

The thing to remember with Gateways is that they have only been recently re-discovered. The military application has been tested with Bashere and Ituralde, and Deathgates have been re-discovered, or I suppose, remembered. There really hasn't been much chance to be creative, but they have done a lot.

 

The Channelers themselves also haven't had time to adjust and be creative. It is very dangerous, experimenting with weaves. Also, Travelling is shiny and new and amazing, just being able to Travel is crazy enough, they wouldn't immediately jump to military application and trying out all different things. With the risk of burning out or death, they wouldn't be too keen on experimenting. Travelling itself is new and dangerous, they would just be getting the hang of the basics.

 

Only the wondergirls and Rand and co. do much innovating, and because of that I think we expect research and the OP to advance quickly. But they had the help of Asmodean, Moggy and LTT memories.

 

Point being, it is harder than it seems, I believe. And thinking up ways to use it against the enemy is all well and good for us, who can pick up the books and search for the page to remind us what has happened, without getting out of bed, however, the characters are in no such position. They don't have all the information, and the risk to their lives is very real. When a horde of Trollocs is galloping towards you at full speed, and you only have a few days to prepare, whilst thinking of other things, creative use of the OP is not the first thing that comes to mind. You wouldn't risk your life on the possibility, you would stick to what the channellers are experienced in, and fight for your life.

[baalsmistress]

Maybe I've played too much Portal :)

[Barid Bel Medar]

Haha, no the ideas are good, and I have come up with a few myself! Like boxing in Shadowspawn lines of Gateways, just sometimes it is hard to remember that "realistically" channellers wouldn't have been able to perfect any of these ideas.

 

I would say that maybe some Asha'man have experimented with this kind of stuff, but I don't think we will be seeing anything too crazy.

 

But yeah, the ideas are sound. And they would probably work.

 

Also, we are geniuses. In an era similar to the one in WoT, with all of our education and experience with technology, we would be geniuses to them. They don't have the benefit of our education and "tactical" experience (books about history etc..) I mean, there are heaps of books around, since even the TR has a few books, so it is more common than usual, however, we simply have too much knowledge available to us. And yes, I consider Portal a valid source of knowledge.

[TristanWebb]

Travelling has been around for what, 12 months there? I agree with BBM, we have had years to think about how cool gateways are, and we are already used to knowing what happens on the other side of the globe instantly. Just being able to know if an assault in a different part of the country was won or lost is probably as big a tactical advantage as being able to move people around.

 

Still, 5 years mopping up the trollocs after TG and I am sure they would be doing amazing things.

[Mr Ares]

I'll go out on a limb and say I don't think he was balefired. We have seen in the past that the dark one is unable to transmigrate a soul that died to balefire. Since balefire alone would be enough to make him unrecoverable, there would be no additional requirement for a location.

 

In order for it to be a combination of both how and where, the how needs to be something that would not be unrecoverable everywhere, and the where needs to be somewhere that another method of death would have left him recoverable.

 

If Graendal was scavenging for artifacts, it's possible she gated somewhere from inside the room, and entering moved Asmodeon through the gateway. It does seem careless of her to put a gateway in front of a pantry door - though Asmodeon could simply have his geography mixed.

Asmo didn't have his geography mixed, he just hadn't found the pantry yet. He was setting off in search of one, not about to walk into it. The how and where comment isn't really very helpful - what where is beyond Shai'tan? We don't know of any. We don't really know why Caemlyn's Palace is beyond his reach - and all the evidence indicates that is where Asmo died. Of course, RJ's statements themselves indicate a circumstance under which balefire might not be enough - if the amount used is very small, Shai'tan will merely have a reduced window to grab a soul, not a window that has already passed before He knows of it. Combine that reduced window with something which itself would cause delay or otherwise hinder the capture of his soul - some sort of "thickness" in the Pattern, for example - and you end up with a situation in which either factor by itself is not enough, but together it is impossible. Of course, if we simply discount the "how and where" comment on the grounds of it being useless and unhelpful, then the evidence in the book suggests balefire - the description bears similarities to Be'lal's death of balefire in TDR. So balefire is most likely involved no mmatter how you slice it. And if it wasn't, the only man who could say differently is not in a position to put us straight.

[TheLagomorph]

I would immediately start creating a perpetuum mobile with a horizontal gateway tied-off with the exit above it, a bunch of water and a waterwheel. The question is, how long do tied-off gateways last?

 

Putting a gateway in front of a cannon may allow for some nice surprises as well.

[TristanWebb]

Just trying them off doesn't last too long, but Sammael could move all of the Shaido with tied off gateways.

[rand4747]

Perhaps he walked through a gateway or something phyisically into TAR where he died. Or was taken there or something.

[cookiecrisp]

I hope their number goes back up to 13 for the final battle and they are once again the shadow's 13 most powerful "Chosen." The shadow's forces consist of millions (at least a million per borderland if Maradon is any estimate, plus whatever's going through the ways and waiting at Shayol Ghul, but there aren't many names and stories behind them. We have Demandred, Taim, Cyndane, Moggy, Moridin, Isam, maybe Alviarin, Taim and superfade. Not enough glory to go around, in my opinion.

 

I can see people like Taim. However, I can't see any Black Ajah joining the ranks, unless it's a lesser known or obscure one. Alviarin seems like a top choice, but she's been shown to be a tiny bit incompetent (or at least constantly under incompetent employment) and she's a sniveling wreck now.

 

I wish Temaile Kinderode survive, she would've made a perfect candidate, a replacement for Semirhage. Out of the Black Ajah, I can only see Duhara, Pevara, and perhaps Javindhra.

[yoniy0]

Pevara?

[Barid Bel Medar]

It is not the first time I have seen Pevera = BA. I am not sure if serious, or if it is a mix-up of names, because it is pretty well established that she is not BA, to say the least.

 

The Black Ajah have no members strong enough to contend with the Forsaken. Taim, Logain and some of the Asha'man would be strong enough, and Nynaeve, Alivia etc.. as mentioned above, but none of them are from the Tower, and none of them show any inclination of being Darkfriends, except maybe that Shaido WO, but being Shaido doesn't mean DF.

 

It would be hilarious if Sharina was the new Mesaana. Organizing all of the novices and accepted like she has done, it would be awesome. She would be a sweet Forsaken. But then, I suppose that is the point, you have to be pretty flawed to want to serve the DO.

[Sharaman]

Yes Sharina could be a very interesting new FS - she's got the brains, the OP potential and we know nothing really of her of her moral inclinations.

On the male side, it's difficult to think beyond Taim and his cronies. Logain is a possible odd-ball - perhaps both Logain and Taim are DFs trying to curry favour with the GLoD by delivering the BT.

[RandA lThor]

I think that there is no way that both Taim and Logain are both darkfriends. There are already two factions and for both of them to be evil, it would completely destroy the BT. Also, Logain would have his own cronies if that was true.