Callandor

[Bob T Dwarf]

Believe me, I've pondered about Callandor and the Stone of Tear quite a bit.  Lots of things don't add up there.

 

Firstly, the Stone itself wasn't built until after the Breaking was over.  That wouldn't have been until at least 100 years after the Strike on SG.  It was built using OP, by both men and women.  It's completion is the event by which the end of the Breaking is measured. 

 

Callandor was hung at it's Heart.  The wards on Callandor were made by both male and female channelers.

 

But, by the time the Stone was built, all male channelers had been going mad for ~100 years.  None were reliable.  None were safe to be around.

 

So, How dey do dat?

[BrainFireBob]

Bob, you're incorrect. Re-read the Strike at Shayol Ghul. "Without the access keys, even the strongest Aes Sedai would be burned out by the immense flow of Power." That's not having a buffer, because that's what a buffer *does*. Means they've got the same flaw themselves as Callandor, but even worse. With Callandor you select how much Power you draw through it, it just doesn't impose a "safety wall" that you can't exceed. The CK just flood you.

 

And you're thinking the CK were built the whole time? I'm maintaining Callandor was built *first*, early in the WoP, perhaps when LTT became High Commander of the Light. The CK were built when the Light had to risk everything on a single, decisive move, late in the War.

 

EDIT: First off, the Stone being built after the Breaking and being dated as the end of the Breaking doesn't work. It's one or the other. It was built by channelling. Only the Heart itself had to be built by both male and female channellers. The rest could have been built by females once the men who participated in warding Callandor were all dead or gentled. More, the Stone being finished and the work of building the "core" of the Stone don't have to be simultaneous events.

 

We're told, again, in tSR, that a cabal of young male channellers who had not yet succumbed to the Taint but had some training were recruited by the last known group of powerful, fully-trained female Aes Sedai we know of to aid them in preparing for the Dragon's Rebirth. They placed Callandor, they created the Eye and Someshta's haven. By linking with the men and controlling the circles, they could keep drawing on the men even if the men were mad, and killing them once they were "finished" would remain viable. That's how they could do that. Ruthlessly.

[Generic Aelfinn #2]

Believe me, I've pondered about Callandor and the Stone of Tear quite a bit.  Lots of things don't add up there.

 

Firstly, the Stone itself wasn't built until after the Breaking was over.  That wouldn't have been until at least 100 years after the Strike on SG.  It was built using OP, by both men and women.  It's completion is the event by which the end of the Breaking is measured. 

 

Callandor was hung at it's Heart.  The wards on Callandor were made by both male and female channelers.

 

But, by the time the Stone was built, all male channelers had been going mad for ~100 years.  None were reliable.  None were safe to be around.

 

So, How dey do dat?

 

its not impossible for a few to have been hanging around in the stedding even after the final stages of the breaking.

[bRANDan]

I think they used young male channelers that hadn't been affected by the Taint much yet. Afterwards they killed them. Don't have my books so I cannot check that, but in Rhuidean Rand sees the female AS with the Nym, Someshta, and they are preparing the things for the Dragon to be Reborn, Callandor and Eye of the World. I think one of the AS says something about young male channelers not yet touched by the Taint, being used then killed to purify it. But this is all from memory so I could be wrong.

 

EDIT: BFB beat me to the punch.

[aevogt]

Thinking out loud here

 

Imagine a bucket

 

That is what a channeler can safely channel right to the point of pain.

 

Different channelers have different sized buckets.

 

Rand and Lanfear have a larger bucket than anyone else, respective of their gender.  No one else o=f their gender is (metaphorically) strong enough to move their bucket.

 

Imagine an angreal as a two-wheeled appliance dolly.  With a dolly you can move a much larger bucket, but your strength remains unchanged.  Still, there is a limit to what you can move based on your own strength.  Say, you can move a mop bucket yourself, you can move an oil drum with a dolly. (angreal)  A much stronger person with stronger arms and legs, (higher channeling ability) can use the dolly to move a larger oil drum.

 

A sa'angreal, is a tractor.  It doesn't really matter how strong you are, as long as you can drive the tractor, you can haul the entire hay wagon because that is what the tractor can move.  However, it takes a certain amount of strength to turn the steering wheel. Someone like Daighan or Sorilea can't use the Choden Kalis because they are not stong enough to turn the steering wheel.

 

This theory may not necessarily be correct but it accounts for:

- two channelers accessing the same amount of the power through a sa'angreal

- why it appers that an angreal multiplies more of the power the stronger a channeler is

 

 

[Bob T Dwarf]

OK.  To clarify something, when I say the CK, what I mean is the access keys.  CK is just easier to type.

 

During the AoL they knew enough about channeling and how it works to know that a buffer was needed for Callandor.  Early-on they would have delayed making it until they could engineer the buffer in.  Since it doesn't have a buffer, it follows that it was made after they'd lost the capability to make one.

 

That argues for post-Strike.

 

Post-Strike argues for Lanfear being beddy-bye.

 

She certainly did study it after she woke up.  But, she had no way to touch it in any way.  So, how did she accurately assess its power?

[aevogt]

Thinking out loud here

 

Imagine a bucket

 

That is what a channeler can safely channel right to the point of pain.

 

Different channelers have different sized buckets.

 

Rand and Lanfear have a larger bucket than anyone else, respective of their gender.  No one else of their gender is (metaphorically) strong enough to move their bucket of the Power.

 

Imagine an angreal as a two-wheeled appliance dolly.  With a dolly you can move a much larger bucket, but your strength remains unchanged.  Still, there is a limit to what you can move based on your own strength.  Say, you can move a mop bucket yourself, you can move an oil drum with a dolly. (angreal)  A much stronger person with stronger arms and legs, (higher channeling ability) can use the dolly to move a larger oil drum.

 

A sa'angreal, is a tractor.  It doesn't really matter how strong you are, as long as you can drive the tractor, you can haul the entire hay wagon because that is what the tractor can move.  However, it takes a certain amount of strength to turn the steering wheel. Someone like Daighan or Sorilea can't use the Choden Kalis because they are not stong enough to turn the steering wheel.

 

This theory may not necessarily be correct but it accounts for:

- two channelers accessing the same amount of the power through a sa'angreal

- why it appers that an angreal multiplies more of the power the stronger a channeler is

 

 

[bRANDan]

aevogt- what's with the re-post? ???

[BrainFireBob]

OK.  To clarify something, when I say the CK, what I mean is the access keys.  CK is just easier to type.

 

During the AoL they knew enough about channeling and how it works to know that a buffer was needed for Callandor.  Early-on they would have delayed making it until they could engineer the buffer in.  Since it doesn't have a buffer, it follows that it was made after they'd lost the capability to make one.

 

That argues for post-Strike.

 

Post-Strike argues for Lanfear being beddy-bye.

 

She certainly did study it after she woke up.  But, she had no way to touch it in any way.  So, how did she accurately assess its power?

 

Chain of logic based on faulty premise.

 

We know of two sa'angreal that are of mind-bending power. Callandor and the CK. Both lack a buffer on their own. To provide one for the CK, access keys were created.

 

What's a more reasonable assumption/less speculative:

 

1) That Callandor was therefore post-Strike and post-CK

 

OR

 

2) That you can't put a buffer in a sa'angreal that strong.

 

Hint: The fact that the Aes Sedai were simultaneously developing the access keys implies the latter, as well as does the fact that it would be beyond suicidally stupid to try and make something like the CK without a "test run" of some sort- I propose Callandor and the other powerful male sa'angreal we do not see were such test runs, and that after making them the lack of a buffer was discovered; such that they compensated when they created the CK. All the pieces fit, it does not postulate the creation of a male sa'angreal during a time where the female Aes Sedai would not create male sa'angreals, and would actively attempt to prevent their creation, *and* it allows for sufficient time and understanding of the science of sa'angreals that records of Callandor's flaw would in fact be likely to survive.

[Luckers]

We're speculating on whether a Full Circle of Thirteen could emplace a shield to begin with IF Rand had already seized the Source.

 

It could.  At least a circle of any thirteen Aes Sedai could. Thirteen Sorilea's might have some issues, but any combination of strengths above the Aes Sedai cut off strength would amount to around five times Rand's strength--even thirteen of the weakest.

 

Well, it says, "...thought to have been made during the War of Power."

 

That doesn't really make sense though.  If it was around it logically would have used during the Strike on SG.  Since the men who survived that strike all immediately went mad, it would not have been calmly returned to the Armory from whence it was drawn.

 

We don't really 'know' anything about it until it appears hanging in midair inside the Stone of Tear after that gets built as the first fortress to be constructed after the Breaking is over.

 

My guess, BWB aside, and given its flaws, is that it was constructed during the Breaking.  Hurriedly and without proper tools and safeguards available any longer.  That would have been after Lanfear was sealed away.

 

So, how does she know how strong it is?

 

RJ stated that it was made during the War of the Shadow and that its flaws resulted from improper manufacturing standards resulting from the general destruction of complex infrstructure during the War... additionally as had been stated we witness it in Rand's flashback in Paaren Disen.

 

Believe me, I've pondered about Callandor and the Stone of Tear quite a bit.  Lots of things don't add up there.

 

Firstly, the Stone itself wasn't built until after the Breaking was over.  That wouldn't have been until at least 100 years after the Strike on SG.  It was built using OP, by both men and women.  It's completion is the event by which the end of the Breaking is measured. 

 

Callandor was hung at it's Heart.  The wards on Callandor were made by both male and female channelers.

 

But, by the time the Stone was built, all male channelers had been going mad for ~100 years.  None were reliable.  None were safe to be around.

 

So, How dey do dat?

 

Actually the Breaking lasted around three hundred and forty years. We have no idea when the Stone was built, but we know that it was completed prior to Tishar's summoning of the powerful ajah to the island of Tar Valon--so it was completed prior to 150AB.

 

Now beyond that we see that the plans for the stone were in place before the breaking even truly got in to full force. My guess therefore is that the Stone was largely completed less than 40 or 50 years into the breaking--a feat that could easily be accomplished using shielded men to a degree. Beyond that with a significant enough female presense the Stone could be protected through the Breaking to at least a degree.

 

 

[Bob T Dwarf]

BFB -

 

The actual CK are far too large to use by themselves.  It'd be like trying to carry the Statue of Liberty around with you.  Thus the access keys.  Which, BTW are smaller than Callandor and do contain a buffer.

 

Callandor is a man-portable device.  In fact the only way to use it is to wield it.  Thus if they could have put a buffer in they would have.  They didn't.  Therefore, they had lost the capability by the time Callandor was made.

 

Yes, Callandor was in existence when Paren Disen was abandoned.  Problem is we have no idea how long after the Strike on SG that was.  At best we can put it sometime after the Strike and before it got put on display in Tear.

 

Somebody had a Foretelling that Callandor would be needed by the Dragon after he was reborn at some far future point in time.  Thus it was created, despite its flaws, and safeguarded in such a way that only the Dragon Reborn could claim it.  In fact, if you look at it closely, The Stone of Tear was created at great cost and suffering simply to be an impregnable, unconquerable, repository for Callandor.  Something too big and too important to get buried by time.

[Generic Aelfinn #2]

for clarification, the access keys don't have a buffer, they ARE the buffer(as well as 'link-ups' to the CK themselves).

 

 

you're basing the lack of quality in the production of Callandor as a reason for it to have been made after the strike on shayol ghul.  however, by that time(actually, well before it), nearly ALL infrastructure had already been destroyed(within the first few years of the war).  those soldiers fighting at shayol ghul were actually using bows and arrows and swords.

[Bob T Dwarf]

A little more than that - there were 113 channelers plus LTT.

 

And, actually, we don't know how the Strike Team was armed.  We do know that the female AS were still stubbornly refusing to be part of any linked circles that might have made the job easier and the result more permanent.

 

The Strike Force also included ~10,000 warmen - armament unknown.

 

Also, according to the BWB, it really took long enough for the effects of the Taint to take hold that the people thought the Strike had succeeded entirely.

 

 

 

[Luckers]

The necessity for TG, and for TG now, is what drove the Wheel to put certain souls with certain capabilities into certain bodies over 20 years ago.  That's not deus ex machina, just a very capable machine that has the ability to scan The Pattern for a long way ahead and weave-in the threads 20 years ago that will result in the matching Age Lace now.

 

I'm sorry, did you not read my post? It diretly preceeds yours, so you probably should have. For clarity RJ has directly stated that Callandor was made during the war of Power. The flaws in it resulted from poor manufacturing standards resulting from the heavy desctruction the industrialized industry recieved during the war.

 

And Generic Aelfinn is correct--we do know how soldiers were armed. By that stage soldiers were in general using sword and bows and arrows. For more or less the same reason--destruction of the industrial plants.

[Bob T Dwarf]

We know that by then quality armament was in very short supply.  We have no specific numbers.

 

This was a last-chance desperation strike that HAD to succeed.  It would have been equipped with the best that they could scrape together.

 

A force barely 10,000 strong did not attack and defeat the very stronghold of the DO's power in this world with nothing but 15th century arms.  The guys in the front lines, where they were getting creamed on several fronts, had whatever they could find that might make a dent in a Trolloc hide.

 

That Strike Team would have had the best they could provide.  By the standards of 5 years previously that might not have been a whole lot, but it would have been better than the pitchforks and torches you're suggesting.

[Generic Aelfinn #2]

That Strike Team would have had the best they could provide.  By the standards of 5 years previously that might not have been a whole lot, but it would have been better than the pitchforks and torches you're suggesting.

 

you realize the trollocs were using bows and arrows and swords too right?

[Bob T Dwarf]

Certainly.  Trollocs don't really have the necssary skillset to use anything much more complicated.

 

But, Trollocs are just Trollocs, after all.  Plenty more where those came from.  The DO and the impregnability of his foothold in the world is another matter entirely.  SG would have had whatever modern defenses the other side possessed.  Can't have the guy that controls your mortality thinking his safety isn't your foremost concern can you?  Yes, there would have been hordes of Trollocs there.  But, they would have had the best of everything else they had available , as well.

 

The 13 Rand is dealing with were there as well.  They weren't exactly powerless either.

 

Ultimately, 45 of LTT's Hundred Companion's died in the assault and placing of the Shields.  We don't have any figure for how many of the 10,000 warmen survived.  You don't take SG with 10K guys armed with sticks and stones.

[Generic Aelfinn #2]

ps, it was 20k ;) :P

 

you can definitely take shayol ghul with 20k soldiers screening 114 channelers no problem.  you can't expect them to survive...but then again, none of them did.  we've seen how much damage a bunch of average channelers did at the manor in KOD, now imaging a 100+ of them, on average MUCH stronger, and DEFINITELY better trained can do.  the forsaken were all definitely strong, but they would simply be no match for that many channelers landing right on top of them.

 

 

the BEST they did have WERE swords/bows and arrows.  w/e MINISCULE amounts(definitely not enough to supply an army) of high-tech weapons/defenses they did have would have not been in sufficient quantity to affect the outcome of the battle.  sure, cruise missiles are high-tech and all...but do you honestly think a handful of them would be able to cripple a roman army?

 

 

as well, concerning the DO's safety, he's never been in danger...unless i'm VERY mistaken, there has never been, at any point, a strategy by the Light to actually attack him?  every 'counterattack' by the light has been an attempt to seal the bore or to otherwise contain him, nothing that would actually hurt the DO.  remember that he is immortal too...if they seal the bore right back up, who cares?  he'll just wait till next time.

 

 

 

 

[Bob T Dwarf]

Safety is a relative term when you're dealing with a boss who's as touchy about things as the DO.  Believe me, they would have been turning themselves inside out to make him feel as warm and fuzzy as possible.

 

A group of powerful young male Aes Sedai, vocal to the point of disrupting meetings at the Hall of the Servants, had supported Lews Therin during the struggle with Latra Posae.  This group was popularly called the Hundred Companions, though they actually numbered 113 at this point.  With the Hundred Companions and a force of some ten thousand warmen, Lews Therin launched the planned attack on the Bore.  BWB p 47 

 

However many Trollocs and Fades they faced, they also faced a minimum of 13 of the most powerful channelers of the AoL ( I think it's fair to guess there were casualties among the channelers on the other side, not just among LTT's Hundred Companions ).

 

I'll repeat 10K troops didn't Seal the Bore with sticks and stones, no matter what the frontline troops were using.

[Jehaine]

Though i haven't been following the discussion before now, i'd have to bring up that the Forsaken aren't exactly known for working together. LTT and the Hudred Companions on the other hand, were.

 

So yeah, 13 Forsaken pack a brutal punch, but they were effectively fighting solo against a group that had no hesitations to link for more combined damage.

 

If the Forsaken had linked, Mankind would have been creamed Ages ago.

[Bob T Dwarf]

Unfortunately, men need women to link with.  There were no women in that Strike Force.

 

Likewise, above a certain number, women need men to link with.

 

And, no, I don't remember how the numbers breakdown.

[aevogt]

A little more than that - there were 113 channelers plus LTT.

 

And, actually, we don't know how the Strike Team was armed.  We do know that the female AS were still stubbornly refusing to be part of any linked circles that might have made the job easier and the result more permanent.

 

The Strike Force also included ~10,000 warmen - armament unknown.

 

Also, according to the BWB, it really took long enough for the effects of the Taint to take hold that the people thought the Strike had succeeded entirely.

 

 

Actually, from the Strike on Shayol Ghul, LTT and the surviving channelers went insane on the spot.  Also, we see from one of Rand's ancient memories that mention the time directly after the strike, from a warman's quote, that "something was interfering with communications"  indicating that the effects of the taint were being felt, though they were not necessarily aware of the cause, immediatley thereafter.

[Luckers]

We also don't know how many of the other Forsaken were at Shayol Ghoul at the time, and not caught in the sealing. Certainly given Ishamael was only partially caught, and Balthemel and aginor were caught that the edge it seems very possible that there were others there who weren't caught. And Shayol Ghoul probably did have lesser Forsaken stationed at or nearby in order to guard it. With Travelling an option the possibility of attack must have been known.

 

It seems very likely to me that the force would not have been able to take Shayol Ghoul. As a strike they won themselves enough time to do what was nessasary, but they wouldn't have been able to hold beyond that.

[Generic Aelfinn #2]

when considering the defenses of Shayol Ghul, you must remember there were no less than THREE major offensives being conducted by the shadow at that moment(likely aiming for the choeden kal themselves).  i find it hard to believe that the vast majority of the shadow forces(especially channellers), were not otherwise occupied on the frontlines.

[Luckers]

Even so you guard your homefront. There would have been hundreds of thousands--if not millions--of Forsaken at their disposal, some could surely have been spared.