The Streak in the Sky

[MountaineerWV]

What else could cause a contrail besides an aircraft, alien (!), or meteor?

 

A channeller.

 

Humanity is wiped out from that particular mirror world. Animals are wiped out. Insects are wiped out! Heck, there is not even plant growth along the edges of the burnt stripes. The world is describes as faded, the water is flat. Lifeless. Even if every form of life other than plants was destroyed on the mainlands (Randland, Shara, Seanchan, even LotMM) and then the Shadow destroyed itself...a freakin fly from some pissant island would have been able to repopulate on the mainland in year since the Shadow eradicated itself. If there was any form of life in this world, Rand would have noticed it.

 

However...A channeller from the AoL could travel to the mirror world and fly aided with the One Power.

 

What other channeller was present in this mirror world? Lanfear. Lanfear brought the grolm. Lanfear can fly.

 

Lanfear watching Rand from above and flying to keep close, but far enough distant to escape any type of visual. Lanfear wanted to keep an eye on Rand and co as they moved towards Kinslayer's Dagger. She could easily watch from above, perhaps with some saidar enhanced vision or with a tracking beacon and then plan the right time to move in on him.

[Knivy]

you cant make yourself fly with the power.

[Vardar]

you cant make yourself fly with the power.

 

Never been proven one way or another. Given the context we have of abilities, it should be possible, even if all you're doing is making a wingsuit of air and using another weave of air to propel yourself thru the air.

 

That being said, the mental image of Lanfear Super-man flying about amuses me greatly.

[Barid Bel Medar]

you cant make yourself fly with the power.

 

Never been proven one way or another. Given the context we have of abilities, it should be possible, even if all you're doing is making a wingsuit of air and using another weave of air to propel yourself thru the air.

 

That being said, the mental image of Lanfear Super-man flying about amuses me greatly.

 

It would require some sort of device, but without some sort of aid it is impossible.

 

INTERVIEW: Oct 28th, 2005

KOD Signing Report - Jason Wolfbrother (Paraphrased)

 

JASON WOLFBROTHER

Can a channeler fly without any ter'angreal or equipment (like sho-wings) if he or she knows the right weave?

 

ROBERT JORDAN

No. Flat out, no hesitation, no thinking. Simply put, NO.

Edited August 1, 2012 by Barid Bel Medar

[Knivy]

Rand also says its impossible when he makes a bridge, something along the lines of "i can only make it this high, any higher would be like trying to fly, impossible"

[Vardar]

you cant make yourself fly with the power.

 

Never been proven one way or another. Given the context we have of abilities, it should be possible, even if all you're doing is making a wingsuit of air and using another weave of air to propel yourself thru the air.

 

That being said, the mental image of Lanfear Super-man flying about amuses me greatly.

 

It would require some sort of device, but without some sort of aid it is impossible.

 

INTERVIEW: Oct 28th, 2005

KOD Signing Report - Jason Wolfbrother (Paraphrased)

 

JASON WOLFBROTHER

Can a channeler fly without any ter'angreal or equipment (like sho-wings) if he or she knows the right weave?

 

ROBERT JORDAN

No. Flat out, no hesitation, no thinking. Simply put, NO.

 

Well damn.

 

Hmm. Oh well, guess this is another "Word of God" moment, although I'd like to know why the wingsuit of air idea wouldn't work. You can make objects with air, a wings can fly with propulsion, weaves of Air can provide propulsion. It should be possible.

 

Oh well, thanks for the quote.

[Barid Bel Medar]

yeah, i don't know. I think that it was a case of RJ didn't want anyone to have the ability of flight because it would kinda be lame, Aes Sedai flying round everywhere fighting in the sky. Technically, you are probably correct, but I am happy that channelers can't fly round the place, Gateways are good enough IMO.

[Vardar]

yeah, i don't know. I think that it was a case of RJ didn't want anyone to have the ability of flight because it would kinda be lame, Aes Sedai flying round everywhere fighting in the sky. Technically, you are probably correct, but I am happy that channelers can't fly round the place, Gateways are good enough IMO.

 

I guess I just like the mental image. And honestly, all that power and you still can't fly, I'd be rather depressed when I thought about it.

[MountaineerWV]

Ah well. Back to the drawing board.

 

Though I still maintain that it has nothing to do with humans or AS in that world. It's a lifeless world. Lanfear brought the grolms to further her plans. Perhaps it has something to do with the DO and the razor sharp burn marks where no plant will grow..

[Vardar]

Ah well. Back to the drawing board.

 

Though I still maintain that it has nothing to do with humans or AS in that world. It's a lifeless world. Lanfear brought the grolms to further her plans. Perhaps it has something to do with the DO and the razor sharp burn marks where no plant will grow..

 

Razor sharp marks still sounds like rocket burns to me.

[FarShainMael]

yeah, i don't know. I think that it was a case of RJ didn't want anyone to have the ability of flight because it would kinda be lame, Aes Sedai flying round everywhere fighting in the sky. Technically, you are probably correct, but I am happy that channelers can't fly round the place, Gateways are good enough IMO.

 

But we now see the Seanchan doing exactly that - on raken and to'raken. But at least those are animals, not machines. (And I'm hoping Mat will take to the air on one of them with a handful of Aludra's grenades!)

[MountaineerWV]

Ah well. Back to the drawing board.

 

Though I still maintain that it has nothing to do with humans or AS in that world. It's a lifeless world. Lanfear brought the grolms to further her plans. Perhaps it has something to do with the DO and the razor sharp burn marks where no plant will grow..

 

Razor sharp marks still sounds like rocket burns to me.

 

Perhaps, but I'm quite sure that heat from a rocket engine wouldn't create a sharp edge like that.

 

The more I think about it, it has to be something with the one power. Some of the marks were old, some where new(er). Are the flash burn spots still happening in that world?

[Vardar]

Ah well. Back to the drawing board.

 

Though I still maintain that it has nothing to do with humans or AS in that world. It's a lifeless world. Lanfear brought the grolms to further her plans. Perhaps it has something to do with the DO and the razor sharp burn marks where no plant will grow..

 

Razor sharp marks still sounds like rocket burns to me.

 

Perhaps, but I'm quite sure that heat from a rocket engine wouldn't create a sharp edge like that.

 

The more I think about it, it has to be something with the one power. Some of the marks were old, some where new(er). Are the flash burn spots still happening in that world?

 

Flash burn?

[Zorlon]

There is more than one way to win a game of Sha'rah, and Ishamael/Moridin was once grousing about making a terrible mess of an attempt at brute forcing it. I always took that as an allusion to the Trolloc Wars.

 

And, IIRC, in the mirror world in question it appeared the Shadow had won the Trolloc Wars, and that world was in a dark age. Am I remembering correctly?

 

So, perhaps there really is a nation in the blight and in that world the Blightlanders recovered or developed some technology and used it to scour the world, or at least the north, free of life.

 

Alternatively, maybe Ishamael's attempts at knackering social cohesion didn't work as well and the Randlanders got their acts together logn enough to develop some tech which they used to salt over the Blight and, to be sure, scour the land for a good ways south.

 

But, considering how the land was glad to have Loial make a weapon I am more fo the opinion that the Shadow had some success.

 

Either way, I could see it being a jet and that fitting perfectly fine in the story.

Edited August 4, 2012 by Zorlon

[Orderofolde]

The streak in the sky could be a rocket or a plane's contrail. In the AOL it is known (and Lanfear admits it) that humans even visited other worlds. It might be a satellite or an unmanned drone, or a capsule froma space station with half a dozen skeletons in it finally making orbit. For a land glad to have a weapon made, it was certain that the shadow had been the victors of the Trolloc wars.

[Zorlon]

The streak in the sky could be a rocket or a plane's contrail. In the AOL it is known (and Lanfear admits it) that humans even visited other worlds. It might be a satellite or an unmanned drone, or a capsule froma space station with half a dozen skeletons in it finally making orbit. For a land glad to have a weapon made, it was certain that the shadow had been the victors of the Trolloc wars.

I don't think it would be a space relic from the AoL(or earlier), nobody ever mentioned seeing such things in Rand's world.

 

Also, I had the impression that the streak in the sky was somehow, at least tangentially, related to the burned swaths.

 

Unmanned drone is an interesting idea.

Edited August 5, 2012 by Zorlon

[FarShainMael]

Ah well. Back to the drawing board.

 

Though I still maintain that it has nothing to do with humans or AS in that world. It's a lifeless world. Lanfear brought the grolms to further her plans. Perhaps it has something to do with the DO and the razor sharp burn marks where no plant will grow..

 

Razor sharp marks still sounds like rocket burns to me.

 

Perhaps, but I'm quite sure that heat from a rocket engine wouldn't create a sharp edge like that.

 

I would agree. You would need a source of heat so intense that all combustible material it touches burns so fast, consuming itself so thoroughly, that there is no time for fire to spread beyind its limits. That would take a very high-power laser or similar device. If it is done by the Power it would take great strength, skill and precision.

 

The streak in the sky is described as 'a wispy streak crawing across the sky like a line drawn with cloud.. too straight to be natural'. Rand saw this twice. I don't think they could have been meteors, which move very quickly. (Take a look if you have clear skies and are in a good location - we're currently getting the Perseids:

http://earthsky.org/...or-shower-guide)

They do indeed sound like contrails - but I suppose there are other things besides real-world aircraft that might produce them. (Take a look at Guards! Guards! for Errol, an example of a dragon that flames backwards..)

[Dephael]

Ok so thanks to the news of the wheel of time tv series, of which i am both terrified and exited for, i have decided to once again reread the series. I always forget about this damned mirror world with the weird black lines and the white streak in the sky and the fact that these are never explained. 

This time around however I have going back and forth over the text in an attempt to ween out every possible clue. 

 

I have finally come to a belief that explains all of the things described in this chapter. 

I believe it is the mirror of a technologcially advanced world. The white streak in the sky is that of either a scouting aircraft or a rocket heading into orbit. An orbit in which exists at least one or more lazer weapons. I know this has been said many times before but i think i can explain further. 

 

The black streaks are described as tapered at the ends, sometimes a mile wide, sometimes only a few hundred paces, the soil crunches as if seared, and always east to west. "as is if someone had streaked it with a monsterous brush of fire."

Nothing grew where the burns were even though some of them "had the feel of a thing long done".

The land seems lifeless, no animals insects, birds or fish, even the water tastes lifeless "it tasted flat as if it had been boiled.

 

I could imagine that there is a whole strip of land across the entire continent dedicated as a "no mans land" which could act a a barrier to the dark one and his minions in the north. This whole swathe of land could have been sterilized which could prevent the blight from taking over and would make the water taste lifeless while making it difficult for any animals to live there. some plants or trees may be able to survive but not thrive and certainly unable reclaim the burned bits. 

 

Each of the strips could be the result of various sized trolloc hordes attempting to cross and getting obliterated by the orbital weapons. The weapons would be presumably adjustable in size (which would allow for power saving, control, accuracy etc) explaining why the streaks were all different sizes. The lazer explains the tapering as it powers up and powers down (or opens and closes some form of iris), and the orbit explains why they are always east to west. A baddass sci fi ion cannon would be pretty monstrous for some one on the ground. 

 

The white streaks in the sky could be a visual cue for us to think about looking up and could be a rocket heading into orbit lending to the orbital weapon theory, or drones keeping watch over the land but also hinting to us as readers that this series of books contains advanced technologies.

 

I seem to vaguely remember RJ saying something about this being being a bit of a nod to another author but I cant seem to find it at the moment. If some can track it down I think that other story might give more clues about what this world may actually be. 

 

So i could be very wrong but this makes sense in my mind and seems to fit all of the clues we have.

[threadnecromancer]

12 hours ago, Dephael said:

Ok so thanks to the news of the wheel of time tv series, of which i am both terrified and exited for, i have decided to once again reread the series. I always forget about this damned mirror world with the weird black lines and the white streak in the sky and the fact that these are never explained. 

This time around however I have going back and forth over the text in an attempt to ween out every possible clue. 

 

I have finally come to a belief that explains all of the things described in this chapter. 

I believe it is the mirror of a technologcially advanced world. The white streak in the sky is that of either a scouting aircraft or a rocket heading into orbit. An orbit in which exists at least one or more lazer weapons. I know this has been said many times before but i think i can explain further. 

 

The black streaks are described as tapered at the ends, sometimes a mile wide, sometimes only a few hundred paces, the soil crunches as if seared, and always east to west. "as is if someone had streaked it with a monsterous brush of fire."

Nothing grew where the burns were even though some of them "had the feel of a thing long done".

The land seems lifeless, no animals insects, birds or fish, even the water tastes lifeless "it tasted flat as if it had been boiled. 

  

I could imagine that there is a whole strip of land across the entire continent dedicated as a "no mans land" which could act a a barrier to the dark one and his minions in the north. This whole swathe of land could have been sterilized which could prevent the blight from taking over and would make the water taste lifeless while making it difficult for any animals to live there. some plants or trees may be able to survive but not thrive and certainly unable reclaim the burned bits. 

 

Each of the strips could be the result of various sized trolloc hordes attempting to cross and getting obliterated by the orbital weapons. The weapons would be presumably adjustable in size (which would allow for power saving, control, accuracy etc) explaining why the streaks were all different sizes. The lazer explains the tapering as it powers up and powers down (or opens and closes some form of iris), and the orbit explains why they are always east to west. A baddass sci fi ion cannon would be pretty monstrous for some one on the ground.  

 

The white streaks in the sky could be a visual cue for us to think about looking up and could be a rocket heading into orbit lending to the orbital weapon theory, or drones keeping watch over the land but also hinting to us as readers that this series of books contains advanced technologies.

 

I seem to vaguely remember RJ saying something about this being being a bit of a nod to another author but I cant seem to find it at the moment. If some can track it down I think that other story might give more clues about what this world may actually be.  

 

So i could be very wrong but this makes sense in my mind and seems to fit all of the clues we have.

I like this idea.

And perhaps everything is dead because these automated machines killed most things off?
 

One thing which took me a long time to realize was that, because of how the Wheel works, although this world diverged from our own at an early date (pre-Age of Legends if the grolm are native, although that said, we have no reason to think they are as there are no traces of other exotics and Lanfear could have grabbed them from their own world and brought them to a lifeless - avoids the risk of complications) it still will likely follow a certain "path" so chances are, when Hawkwing lost to the Trolloc armies, both sides probably had guns and tanks and other advanced technologies. And that makes sense because the Wheel weaves to bring about certain figures (although of course, we really don't know if Hawkwing even existed in this world, since it seems Loial can't read Trolloc).

[haycraftd]

Didn't the Heroes of the Horn have many names?  (I think it was in the GH, not the MoL).  I seem to remember that some of the names were VERY familiar ones, like Artur had also been named Arthur.  When I first read it, I thought RJ wasn't alluding to the fact that the Heroes had had many previous lives, but that there were many worlds out there and one of them was ours.

 

So if one had fought the Shadow with ballistic missiles, that makes sense.   

[jsbrads]

Gyld, I’m a big Narg fan, wrote some fan fic with his story.

Varder, never considered that the contrails and the burns could be the same source, will think more on it.

Burns being from a jet... that doesn’t seem consistent. Everyone’s assumption that the burns are a powerful laser in orbit seems the most likely. Perhaps the existence of that laser is incredibly unlikely, but since this world is far from the central reality, unlikely things are more common.

Burns continued, I took for granted that the shape of the burn was when a large circular laser brushes the spherical surface, at the ends it is only just touching and in the center of the burn more of the laser is touching. The different sizes, same laser, deeper aim from the horizon wider and bigger. 

Contrails, they are just so much like a jet contrail. Dephael, a rocket engine (like those we use today) has exhaust expansion that would disrupt the line. Additionally contrails tend to occur a specific altitudes, jets tend to stay in those altitudes creating a consistent line. Rockets tend to change altitude rather rapidly and most fuels won’t create any contrail at all. Smoke tend to billow.

Grolm, I am a supporter of the theory that Grolm are the last (or almost last survivors of this world). Lanfear wouldn’t have gone to get them from Seachan. Grolm are part of the natural fauna of Randland’s world, much like kangaroos live in Australia, Grolm live in Seachan, tho perhaps prior to AoL, Grolm live in central Randland too. 

Hawkwing did appear to exist in this world, the hawk is lying on its back dead at the bottom of the totem pole. While it is possible to infer that history diverged at this point drastically, it would appear that the very nature of this world was always different. It is a smaller planet. 

Edited March 24, 2019 by jsbrads

[Sabio]

One thing we know from the BWB and Companion is it states "the Seanchan exotics were not native but descendants of beasts brought back from parallel worlds via portal stones, sometime during the first thousand years after the breaking, probably in an attempt to find aid against shadowspawn."  I assume Lanfear knew what they were since being from the AOL she would of heard about them or seen them, since Aes Sedai would of been traveling to other worlds using the portal stones.

 

So maybe Rand went to the grolm native world. 

[wotfan4472]

Then that makes the mirror world a nod to a sci-fi world . Perhaps the grolm are mutations of frogs, caused by use of technology like nuclear weaponry and the power plants melting down?? Maybe a parallel of Orson Scott Card's world between the First and Second Bugger Invasions which was weakened by the previous Trolloc Wars?? It has to be a sci-fi world that was on the brink of destruction. The only one that fits to me is the world where Ender comes from.

Edited March 26, 2019 by wotfan4472

[threadnecromancer]

On ‎3‎/‎24‎/‎2019 at 7:14 AM, haycraftd said:

Didn't the Heroes of the Horn have many names?  (I think it was in the GH, not the MoL).  I seem to remember that some of the names were VERY familiar ones, like Artur had also been named Arthur.  When I first read it, I thought RJ wasn't alluding to the fact that the Heroes had had many previous lives, but that there were many worlds out there and one of them was ours.

 

So if one had fought the Shadow with ballistic missiles, that makes sense.   

No, our world is a past age.

 

I don't think the mirror worlds are fully real (which isn't what I wanted to believe) but ultimately it is the only one that makes sense - each person only has one soul after all.

[CrystallineTart]

It's important but I don't understand it myself, that's all I got.

 

Like it's meaningful in an important way and representative of something.