Gateways and Deathgates

[Arath Faringal]

A question has been posed to me about gateways, and though I'm pretty sure the answer is NO, I figured I'd ask here.

 

Can you fix a Travelling Gateway to a moving object, such as the deck of a ship?

 

The person I'm arguing this with says that because Deathgates are in motion, it proves the fact that a Gateway can move. Therefore, one should be able to fix it in place like any other weave.

 

I argued that the opening and shutting of a deathgate is evidence of the things instability BECAUSE it is moving. Deathgates would be a far more effective weapon against shadowspawn if they remained open and just plowed a path through, rather than rotating open and shut and missing every other trolloc in line.

 

I also believe that even if you COULD attach a gateway to a moving object, the opposite side of the gate would be in motion as well, making travel from ship to ship impossible.

 

What do you think?

[Sheepherder]

I agree with you that a working gateway can't move. It seems that when they described the making of gateways early on (not that great yet at pulling in exact quotes), they took into account the exact start and end locations and incorporated that into the weaving. You have to "know" the area you are traveling from to effectively make it. The deathgates are different because they aren't really for traveling and don't lead anywhere predictable.

 

Would a poll on this thread get a better general consensus one way or another?

[TootThatHorn]

hmm, this is interesting speculation. Im not sure if you could have a moving gateway, unless say there is some way to anchor it to the vessel so they are moving in tandem, wouldnt say its impossible. as far as if the exit gateway would be moving, i dont think it would. i think given that you do have to know where you are going, i think that in itself fixes it in place, and leaves it independent of what the entrance gateway is doing.

[Agitel]

To some degree, all working gateways are fixed to a moving object, due to the rotation of the planet, the orbit of the planet, the rotation of the galaxy, and the movement of the galaxy, but that's probably going a little too deep.

[ShenAnCalhar]

It calls the whole question of "what is motion?" into question. Since the WoT world is a planet (probably earth, according to stuff RJ says) and is presumably hurtling around a star at around 100,000 kph, the gateway already is anchored to a moving object.

 

Only being able to open a gateway above the ground in a fixed location would make sense if the pattern only encompassed this single planet, as it could be considered some kind of center-point. But I doubt that; the pattern probably encompasses an entire universe or set of universes, which means that the planet itself is just an arbitrary moving object within a larger system.

 

So I would say yes, a channeler could anchor a gateway to an object moving about on the planet's surface. Because after all, under normal circumstances, a gateway is anchored to a small area of a moving planet. Maybe you just need to tweak the weave a bit.

 

Edit: Agitel beat me to the punch.

[RandA lThor]

To some degree, all working gateways are fixed to a moving object, due to the rotation of the planet, the orbit of the planet, the rotation of the galaxy, and the movement of the galaxy, but that's probably going a little too deep.

Well, we don't know if that is how the world in the Wheel of Time works, so no evidence there.

 

Also, I think that if you made a gateway to a ship, you would also have to know the area or sea around it. You can then make a gateway and go through it really fast to get on to the other ship.

[Roxinos]

To some degree, all working gateways are fixed to a moving object, due to the rotation of the planet, the orbit of the planet, the rotation of the galaxy, and the movement of the galaxy, but that's probably going a little too deep.

Well, we don't know if that is how the world in the Wheel of Time works, so no evidence there.

 

Randland is Earth. Or at the very least in our universe. So yes, we do know that's how it works.

 

I argued that the opening and shutting of a deathgate is evidence of the things instability BECAUSE it is moving. Deathgates would be a far more effective weapon against shadowspawn if they remained open and just plowed a path through, rather than rotating open and shut and missing every other trolloc in line.

 

They rotate open and shut very quickly. They do this because part of the weapon is the deadliness of a regular gateway (it can cut through anything). An opening and closing gateway is harder to move out of the way of (simply because you're not sure where the edge will be). In addition, the opening and closing changes the location the Shadowspawn bodies and parts are sent so that you don't have a massive pile of dead Trollocs and Trolloc bits somewhere.

 

Of course, it's speculation on my part. Just as it's speculation on yours. Needless to say, any gateway is moving as others have stated, it's only stationary relative to the planet.

[Sephie913]

It's SAID that it cannot be. (TPoD, in response to the Sea Folk wanting to Travel to their ships and use the Bowl there. My internet is being glitchy now, but I'll try to post the direct quote shortly) Of course, we all know that what someone says and what is the truth are not always the same.

 

And as others have said, Randland is OUR planet, in the far future/past, so all Gateways are anchored to moving objects. Really, there's not enough evidence to do more than speculate--no one has DONE it, that we know of--but my gut says it's possible, but extremely complex. Maybe Rand could do it, now, but probably no one else.

[bbarrett90]

I always imagined channeling as obeying the law of conservation of momentum. So I think that it would be possible to produce a "moving" gateway, as long as there was no change in acceleration the gateway would maintain it's position relative to the object moving. I can see problems occuring if the ship were to turn left or right however, but this could be solved, as someone said, by "anchoring" the weave to something on the ship, however that might be done.

[Roxinos]

It's SAID that it cannot be.

 

What I'm about to say is a terrible argument:

 

Aes Sedai also can't throw fireballs without making a throwing motion with their hands, even though it's irrelevant to the actual weave.

 

By that same token, people believing it cannot be is a self-fulfilling prophecy. They believe they can't do it, so they can't do it.

[TootThatHorn]

what kind of gets my mind going about it is when they make little orbs of light in a dark room. Now when they do that i consider the weave to be something fairly rigid, that way when they move, the weave moves. now i know that a lot of them produce the orb in their hand but i dont see that as being any more of a necessity than the fact that thats how they learned to do it. So with this in mind i would consider that if a person were to open a gateway on a ship, then the weave of that gateway would remain rigid and be influenced to move as the weaver does. Then, if they were to tie it off, they may go sailing right by the gateway, but this also to me gets in to complex physics in a fantasy world when you think about the effects on the exit gateway when the entry one is moving in all directions and how that will effect its travel through the pattern to get from one place to another which really just tells me that this will be my last post on this topic until stephen "artur" hawking decides to chime in (see what i did there)

[Grimmauld]

I'd just like to add a little comment on the idea that normal gateways are on a moving basis anyway due to the Earth's rotation and movement through space. If you consider the gateways as dots painted on a ball - no matter what way the ball rolls, the dots stay in the same places on the ball - so they themselves are maintaining their relationship to each other and to the sphere they are on. However, asking for a moving gateway is like asking the dots to move independently of the ball. For this argument to apply to the gateways, they must be linked to the Earth they are over - even if the gateway is on a ship or in the air it must be linked to the ground below that air or water. This makes sense with the idea that the gate maker needs to know the area around the gateway. However, this further brings into question topics such as continental drift - are plate tectonics at work in Randland? Or what about longshore drift? Erosion? Soil creep? Perhaps how the gateway is located has more to do with it's relationship to the exact centre of the Earth. None of this answers the question about whether a moving gateway is possible but I think it does throw into relief the idea that some aspects of the story cannot be scientifically investigated or conclusively argued, which proves why you and your friend had so much fun arguing this point in the first place.

 

I have a further concern - if the start and end points of a gateway are interconnected, are there end Death Gates roaming around somewhere when Logain and Rand are obliterating the trolloc masses in Tear? And if so, is this not vastly irresponsible on their part? The theme of duality in the Wheel of Time would suggest that there must be...

[baalsmistress]

Probably the easier way to fix it Grimmauld, is that when you place a weave, it maintains a constant position relative to the strongest point of gravitational attraction. In the case of someone on the earth's surface, near the center of the earth, with some drift for the impact of the moon, sun and other planets.

 

Get off planet and it gets more complex.

[Grimmauld]

I suppose that may also leave wiggle room for Jordan saying that travel within the solar system would be possible too

[Roxinos]

However, this further brings into question topics such as continental drift - are plate tectonics at work in Randland? Or what about longshore drift? Erosion? Soil creep? Perhaps how the gateway is located has more to do with it's relationship to the exact centre of the Earth.

 

Randland is Earth. Plate techtonics, longshore drift, erosion, soil creep, and all that other good environmental science stuff exists.

 

However, asking for a moving gateway is like asking the dots to move independently of the ball.

 

Which just means it would be moving relative to Randland as well as to the rest of the universe.

 

In reality, there is no such thing as a universally stationary point. Everything is in motion in some reference frame.

 

I have a further concern - if the start and end points of a gateway are interconnected, are there end Death Gates roaming around somewhere when Logain and Rand are obliterating the trolloc masses in Tear? And if so, is this not vastly irresponsible on their part? The theme of duality in the Wheel of Time would suggest that there must be...

 

There's no reason the ends would be moving.

 

Planets are very big. While yes, there is a chance that the end of a Deathgate would open where a person is standing and cut them in two, the chances are miniscule because people occupy a very, very small percentage of the planet. And even if a Deathgate did open in the middle of a city, do you realize how much open space there is in a city? There's not much of a chance of it opening where someone is standing even if it opened in a city (but yes, it's a valid danger).

[Knivy]

Just to throw this in, it may or may not be true, but Moghedien says...

TSR: Into the Palace

 

Nynaeve let her legs sag. Dropping the feather duster, she caught hold of the pedestal to support herself. There was very little fakery needed.

 

Moghedien smiled and took a step nearer. "... travel to other worlds, even worlds in the sky. Do you know that the stars are..."

 

If they traveled to other worlds, inside the same "world" (as in, not a mirror or TAR kind of thing) there must be a way to travel without knowing exact location, making traveling to another ship a piece of cake, relatively.

 

What I think is that you could attach the gateway to a thread in the pattern, since everything has a thread. Traveling, for men at least, is done by bending the pattern, so all you would have to do is keep the gateway open and have the threads move relative to each other, yet the pattern would be constantly folding and warping to keep the gateway open.

 

EDIT: On deathgates. I was of the opinion that it is a one-way kind of thing. Maybe it opened to a skimming portal thing, where you fall forever, but i doubt that they have another opening in Randland.

[Durinax]

Just to throw this in, it may or may not be true, but Moghedien says...

TSR: Into the Palace

 

Nynaeve let her legs sag. Dropping the feather duster, she caught hold of the pedestal to support herself. There was very little fakery needed.

 

Moghedien smiled and took a step nearer. "... travel to other worlds, even worlds in the sky. Do you know that the stars are..."

 

If they traveled to other worlds, inside the same "world" (as in, not a mirror or TAR kind of thing) there must be a way to travel without knowing exact location, making traveling to another ship a piece of cake, relatively.

 

What I think is that you could attach the gateway to a thread in the pattern, since everything has a thread. Traveling, for men at least, is done by bending the pattern, so all you would have to do is keep the gateway open and have the threads move relative to each other, yet the pattern would be constantly folding and warping to keep the gateway open.

 

EDIT: On deathgates. I was of the opinion that it is a one-way kind of thing. Maybe it opened to a skimming portal thing, where you fall forever, but i doubt that they have another opening in Randland.

you have to know your location well, not the target location.

 

but for men if you want to visualize the theory in travelling, take a piece of paper bend it so that two points touch, and put a pin through it. Now try to move one side. That is what would happen, you would start tearing the pattern, instead of making a small impact you would make a very large one

[Roxinos]

If they traveled to other worlds...

 

I don't believe they did, but they most certainly could.

 

Week 19 Question

 

How far can a channeler Travel with the One Power? I know they can Travel anywhere on the globe, and enter Tel'aran'rhiod through a slightly different weave, but is it possible to Travel to other planets, or even planets in other galaxies?

Robert Jordan

 

Travel to other planets within the solar system would require a circle of fairly strong channelers, though not necessarily as many as thirteen, depending on exactly how far out they wanted to go. Travel to a planet in another solar system would require a rather large circle (of the maximum possible size) of very strong channelers, and there would a limit on how far they could go in one jump. They could planet-hop, of course. Travel to another galaxy would be beyond them even if they began on the planet in this galaxy nearest the target galaxy.

 

So there's that.

 

EDIT: On deathgates. I was of the opinion that it is a one-way kind of thing. Maybe it opened to a skimming portal thing, where you fall forever, but i doubt that they have another opening in Randland.

 

They do. Rand says so when he first uses them:

 

"Where did we send those Trollocs? I just copied your weave exactly."

 

"It doesn't matter where they went," Rand said absently. ... "Shadowspawn can't survive passing through a gateway. ... People will find groups of dead Trollocs and maybe Myrddraal without a mark on them," he said aloud. ... "Not too many in one place, though. The destination shifts every time a Deathgate opens."

 

The very fact that the weaver of a Deathgate doesn't know where the Deathgate is opening to indicates that you can travel somewhere without knowing an exact location.

[Durinax]

"Where did we send those Trollocs? I just copied your weave exactly."

 

"It doesn't matter where they went," Rand said absently. ... "Shadowspawn can't survive passing through a gateway. ... People will find groups of dead Trollocs and maybe Myrddraal without a mark on them," he said aloud. ... "Not too many in one place, though. The destination shifts every time a Deathgate opens."

 

The very fact that the weaver of a Deathgate doesn't know where the Deathgate is opening to indicates that you can travel somewhere without knowing an exact location.

remember holding the power in a location helps a person learn the land better. You only need to know the place your leaving from in order to go somewhere. A easier example would be when Avi ran from Rand to mainland Seanchan. You just need to know the location you are leaving from

[Roxinos]

"Where did we send those Trollocs? I just copied your weave exactly."

 

"It doesn't matter where they went," Rand said absently. ... "Shadowspawn can't survive passing through a gateway. ... People will find groups of dead Trollocs and maybe Myrddraal without a mark on them," he said aloud. ... "Not too many in one place, though. The destination shifts every time a Deathgate opens."

 

The very fact that the weaver of a Deathgate doesn't know where the Deathgate is opening to indicates that you can travel somewhere without knowing an exact location.

remember holding the power in a location helps a person learn the land better. You only need to know the place your leaving from in order to go somewhere. A easier example would be when Avi ran from Rand to mainland Seanchan. You just need to know the location you are leaving from

 

Thank you. I totally didn't even think of using the Aveindha example. You don't even have to know a place exists to go there.

[TootThatHorn]

"Where did we send those Trollocs? I just copied your weave exactly."

 

"It doesn't matter where they went," Rand said absently. ... "Shadowspawn can't survive passing through a gateway. ... People will find groups of dead Trollocs and maybe Myrddraal without a mark on them," he said aloud. ... "Not too many in one place, though. The destination shifts every time a Deathgate opens."

 

The very fact that the weaver of a Deathgate doesn't know where the Deathgate is opening to indicates that you can travel somewhere without knowing an exact location.

remember holding the power in a location helps a person learn the land better. You only need to know the place your leaving from in order to go somewhere. A easier example would be when Avi ran from Rand to mainland Seanchan. You just need to know the location you are leaving from

 

really though that is the difference. sure you could open a gateway to anywhere, but you dont know where that anywhere is. you could end up dumping yourself in the ocean, in fact ive wondered why that hasnt been written. it would be awesome to open a gateway to the bottom of the ocean and have all that pressure spewing out on to an army of trollocs, then start firing lightning bolts at them. avi didnt know where seanchan was, i think at most the control she could have was that she knew she wanted to get very far away.

[Sharaman]

About using a Gate from/ to a shifting location, consider Semirhage's torture of Cabriana. We know that Semirhage is likely to have been on a ship at that instant, on the Aryth Ocean between Seanchan and Westland (which acutal;y East of Seanchan but never mind). So either she Travelled from the ship and back to it. Or somebody located her on the ship and did the transfer. Of course, she may still have been on Seanchan continent.

 

BTW, if Travelling to a shifting spot is impossible, then Travelling to any random location on water should be difficult / impossible - there's a continuous change of water molecules if it's an ocean or river.

[TristanWebb]

Probably best to think of it as a specific spot in the gravity well as someone suggested. But we don't know much about Gateways, give them 5 years of experimenting (I think they will be more experimental now that being burned out can be healed) and there will be lots of possibilities. As BBM pointed out in another thread, they have only known about gateways for a very short time.

[Roxinos]

Probably best to think of it as a specific spot in the gravity well as someone suggested. But we don't know much about Gateways, give them 5 years of experimenting (I think they will be more experimental now that being burned out can be healed) and there will be lots of possibilities. As BBM pointed out in another thread, they have only known about gateways for a very short time.

 

We don't know that being burned out can be Healed. We only know that being severed can be Healed. And yes, there is a difference.

 

Robert Jordan

 

Being burned out is different from being stilled. The latter is not as severe as the former.

[TristanWebb]

You're right, and I forgot that Satelle Anan couldn't feel anything through the a'dam where Suian/Lelaine could.