Forsaken and Dreadlord Blunders at the Last Battle

[Azrayne]

Ishamael/Moridin seemed to be the most obedient and/or most faithful to the Dark One.  That seemed to be the main reason he became Naeblis.  He would have done what the Dark One would have commanded.

And for some reason, Moridin seemed willing to help Rand kill Sammael.  Maybe something similar would have happened if Sammael had set up at Thankandar.

 

As you said, he was obedient to the DO because he believed the DO both planned to destroy Creation and knew the best way to do it. He wasn't so much helping Rand kill Sammael as preventing Rand from dying to Sammael, as at the time they had orders that Rand was not to be killed.

 

 

Although thinking now, you wonder why he didn't just round up hundreds of channelers and have them all Balefire the world out of existance. I mean obviously there'd be no series if he did that, but you'd think the concept would have occured to him. But again, we don't know what metaphysical and scientific knowledge the Forsaken possess, so maybe it did and he had a good reason for suspecting it wouldn't be as final an end as he hoped for.

[Sabio]

Even if he had every channeler balefire everything they saw, he would till be reborn one day.  Then you get into the headache of once the channelers started balefiring each other the stuff they balefired before would come back, including the people they balefired.  Only hope might be balefiring while using that statue thing, possible that might destroy the world.  But again if the world was destroyed mu guess is the creator could probably just make another and POOF souls have a place to be spun out again.Might be a crappy barren world but he would still come back.  Which is what Ishy didn't want.  Only the DO could make it so Ishy could never be reborn again, but as we know the DO would never of granted that no matter how often he might of promised it.

[Azrayne]

Even if he had every channeler balefire everything they saw, he would till be reborn one day.  Then you get into the headache of once the channelers started balefiring each other the stuff they balefired before would come back, including the people they balefired.  Only hope might be balefiring while using that statue thing, possible that might destroy the world.  But again if the world was destroyed mu guess is the creator could probably just make another and POOF souls have a place to be spun out again.Might be a crappy barren world but he would still come back.  Which is what Ishy didn't want.  Only the DO could make it so Ishy could never be reborn again,

 

Yeah like I said, it would have occured to him that there's no guarantee. After all, if time is an eternal cycle, then surely somewhere in the universe across the vastness of spacetime, there was a civilization which over-used Balefire to the point of wiping themselves out, and yet the pattern still exists. Kinda like the AoL version of the Fermi Paradox.

 

but as we know the DO would never of granted that no matter how often he might of promised it.

 

 

Is this explicitely stated in a believable manner (he is called the "father of lies")? I've only read AMOL once, when I powered through it after it was released, so I don't remember all the specifics of Rand's interaction with the DO.

[Barid Bel Medar]

There isn't anything  certain about what the DO wanted really, except he couldn't win unless he crushed all hope from humanity. 

 

There are two major theories - 

 

1) The DO actually did intend to re-create the world in his image. He shows Rand in their little 'vision' battle that world. It probably wouldn't be exactly like that, but the re-creation part being most important here. Moridin would get - presumably- busrought back in this world. I don't see the DO letting him have eternal death. (Or if he is even capable of granting it.)

 

2) The DO was going to destroy everything, according to Moridin's theory. The vision he showed Rand was to scare him. After he showed it to him, the DO proposed a 'deal' where instead of a miserable world they could simply end everything. In this theory, the DO used the vision to trick Rand into doing what the DO wanted. Personally, I agree with this, but it isn't clear. 

 

I would say Balefiring the world out of existence was impossible, as you said, it would have happened by now if it could. 

 

However, I don't think Moridin would have bothered if he thought it was possible. Even the Forsaken in the AoL agreed to stop using balefire. Finding enough people to willingly balefire the world out of existence would be virtually impossible. You'd need thousands, possibly hundreds of thousands to generate the power to do so. Or the Chodean Kal but he didn't seem too interested in using it himself. I'd say he was banking on the DO to do it properly. 

 

It seems balefire was primarily used to destabilize the pattern to make it easier for the DO to destroy, rather than the sole catalyst. 

[Azrayne]

1) The DO actually did intend to re-create the world in his image. He shows Rand in their little 'vision' battle that world. It probably wouldn't be exactly like that, but the re-creation part being most important here. Moridin would get - presumably- busrought back in this world. I don't see the DO letting him have eternal death. (Or if he is even capable of granting it.)

 

Why not? I mean I get that the DO isn't exactly a font of charity, but if he wins and gets to create the world in his image, what does he lose if he grants his Nae'Blis the eternal nothingness he seeks?

 

The question of whether he can grant it is in interesting, but Ishamael seemed to believe it, and that's his field of expertise as far as we know - but even experts don't know everything. I wonder if the DO ever outright promised it to him - he does seem incredibly certain about what the outcome of the DO's victory will be.

 

At the very least he could trap him in an immortal body in a stasis box in a cuendillar container and blast away his intellect and sense of self, which seems like the next best thing. If he can't even follow through on the immortality promise (do stasis boxes work on human bodies?), he can just do the same thing to him every thousand years. It has an nice Promethean vibe to it.

[Barid Bel Medar]

According to RJ, the DO could indeed fulfil his promise of immortality, it was just a question of whether the Forsaken could trust him to follow through. 

 

I think Moridin would have gotten his wish if the DO had won, because the DO had the same goal as Moridin, that's why he was chosen as Nae'Blis and was so certain of it. The others got vague promises of power and fortune. The less the Forsaken cared about worldly power, the more power they got with the DO it seems to me. 

 

The one way we do know Moridin could have had his wish granted was to become a Gray Man. Their souls get eaten somehow, and it's the only way we know that kills a soul permanently. Of course, the DO wouldn't allow it. He wouldn't even allow Ishamael to rest. As he says in aMoL, his punishment for failing as Ishamael was to be brought back as Moridin. 

 

But I think above all else, Moridin wanted the Wheel of Time to end and everything, not just himself, destroyed. He believed the DO would do it, and his lack of suicide attempts suggests he believed it was the only way it could be granted. I'm not sure, but I think he may have even said that it was the only way he could get his wish. 

[Azrayne]

I think his lack of suicide attempts was because he knew he would be reborn anyway, same reason he avoided the balefire thing*. I've actually seen it a few times with people born into strict religious environments that involve reincarnation (or more frequently, Westerners who convert to pseudo-Eastern belief systems and often consume lots of hallucinogenic drugs) - they're depressed by their lives and the state of the world, but they believe suicide would just have them pop back up in the same world (often with a stopoff in some hell or with additional karma and so in a worse situation). I guess the prospect of eternity is as overwhelming to some as the prospect of nothingness is to others. Some of them become monks/renunciant ascetics in the hope that they can escape reincarnation by attaining Nirvana/Enlightenment/etc., others with less motivation or optimism just coast by in life, too depressed to bother doing much because they've been taught to believe that it's all a cycle of temporary fleeting sensations, some convert to other religions or become atheists to varying degrees of sincerity, or find meaning in some pursuit or another. But I don't see Ishamael settling down on a farm with a wife and kids to live out his day in domestic bliss :p

 

*I think rounding up a couple hundred+ channelers of decent power and training them to a decent level of ability would be totally doable, personally. Both Taim, and to a lesser degree Egwene, did it, and they didn't have access to the resources or tools Ishamael did. Then there are the Trolloc War era Dreadlords and the Samma N'Sei. But yeah, moot point because I think we both agree he wouldn't have seen it as an option, but I don't think the possibility of rounding up the people to throw around the balefire is the issue, it's the metaphysical question of whether the entire pattern and the wheel of time itself would be destroyed, the Fermi Paradox comparison suggests that it wouldn't.

[Sabio]

I always thought of Ishy of more of a Eisenhower type.  Ishy was ambitious as the rest of the forsaken but he seemed the one that was able to keep focused on things, the others seemed to involved in their own plots.  The other s I think if pu in charge would of spent to much time using it to consolidate their own power.  Like Eisenhower in WWII he seemed to have the ability to get everyone focused on the stuff needing to get done.  Also if you look over time Ishy was the one forsaken who head and shoulders did more than the rest, after all as the rest slept it was Ishy out there causing Chaos and demolishing society.  I think Ishy was the one Forsaken the DO felt he could fully trust to get things done.

 

Also seeing how the DO is lord of death killing yourself when the DO didn't want you too seems a good way for the DO to either torment you eternally or bringing you back and punish you.  I can't see the DO being very happy if Ishy simply decided to try and kill himself.  If you balefire yourself he might not be able to bring you back but he still might be able to torment him until his next rebirth.

[threadnecromancer]

It is a good point that has been brought up before, but it is like trying to mass produce a machine gun in the middle ages within 2 years. They just didn't have the facilities. Agnior had the knowledge, but without anyone able to actually produce the materials, construct the facilities then mass produce something like a shock-lance (an energy discharge weapon) they had nothing but their power. Which actually worked to their disadvantage. They didn't have the things they were used to, so they couldn't be at their peak, whereas the people of the 3rd Age grew up with these things, they were at home. 

 

I mean, could you imagine living in the middle ages? It is a 'lesser' society, but most of us would struggle to survive. (Putting aside we'd likely die of disease within the year. Our natural resistance against the things that were around back then is nill.) I highly doubt you could do anything within 2 years. You might know how, but they just didn't have the ability to craft the metal. Would you know how to build the forge, mine the metal and shape it precisely to fit the cannon's specs within two years? Sorry, but historically speaking, it is a fantasy that anyone would be able to do anything meaningful within 2 years, unless you could give them every single step in the process (without having the internet to check).Technically though, in terms of the most basic cannon, you probably could do it, because they were created quite early in the middle ages compared to your average guns, but that's because they already had the foundations set in Ancient Rome, and even then it would take a long time to get them produced enough to do anything in a real war. (specially against people who can throw fire at you with their minds.)

 

However, as you said, the AoL was vastly superior to the 21st century. Their guns were 'energy discharge weapons' (plasma weapons I believe it was said to be). Considering that the meaning of war was forgotten, and Demandred was literally the one that re-discovered tactics, they wouldn't know anything about creating a flintlock rifle or even a cannon. That knowledge had been obtuse for a long time before they were around. 

 

If they knew how, perhaps they could have created a few simple rifles, but their weapons were plasma guns, the One Power and highly advanced planes/cars. 

 

Funnily enough, Balthamael would have been the one best suited to advance technology. Agnior's expertise were too advanced to translate, Balthamael studied 'primitive cultures' he might have had the closest knowledge to a realistic creation. However, he died early on, then was set other tasks by the DO. And the study might not have meant he could reproduce weapons. As a historian, I'd need to actually study for a few years how to create say, a ballista without the aid of modern technology to be able to explain it to someone who didn't know what it was and get it done right. If I was suddenly frozen and dropped into it, I wouldn't be able to do it, even though I knew some 500 years of advancements. (since we went back a long way in the middle ages, we are probably only that far from Rome's technological level. 

 

 

Now, there could be an argument that Ishamael while being periodically spun out should/could have set up the facilities, but it is highly unlikely. He was a philosopher, he probably had no idea how to build most of it, much less teach medieval people to do so. 

 

They did try to recover something though. They searched for stasis boxes which helped with certain advanced gadgets, but stasis boxes are hard to find, and evidently they didn't find one with anything that could really do something big. Moridin had his stash of AoL stuff, but likely most of it was useless without the ability to maintain it. 

 

However, I think the biggest thing that hindered any progress at all was the One Power. With it, they didn't need to look into non-magical devices. People in general neglected 'science' for a long time, relying on the One Power for a lot of things. Ironically, it wasn't until the Aes Sedai were so incapacitated that the normal people started looking for their own, non-Aes Sedai methods.They could not rely on the Aes Sedai as they could in Hawkwing's era, or the Trolloc Wars That's why we see a surge in technology in the books.  (That and ta'veren/ Pattern.) 

 

In a way you could thank the Aes Sedai for being diminished, because it made people think science and paved the way for the creation of things like the Dragons. 

 

RJ has replied to the same question with pretty much what I just said in a condensed "They didn't have the facilities". Sorry, I can't pull up the quote atm, I'm on the go, but you can find it on Terez's interview compilation page on theoryland. 

I agree with you but I must take issue with a few points in bold. Forgetting the meaning of war was hyperbole I think. Bal'Themal had a fair knowledge presumably of historic warfare. Which he thought made him the only one qualified to deal with the savages, but of course a Classicist isn't going to necessarily know how to build a better saddle if you send him to antiquity.

[Sabio]

Sort of like if you suddenly woke up in the Roman times.  You have all this knowledge about future weapons and stuff, but is there the capability to build any of it?  It easy to say well build the facilities to, well try to say build a building in the Roman age to produce firearms.  You simply have to start from scratch and there wasn't the time to do it when the forsaken woke up.  Ishy never could do much since he was always being spun out and then sucked back and.  Probably was hard to get stuff finished when you would be in the middle of something just to go back to sleep again. Also as it was pointed out Ishy was a philosopher not a scientist or engineer.  Did he have the knowledge to even try and create stuff, just because you know how to use a shocklance doesn't mean you can build one on your own.  Not to mention for one who can channel and at the height of AOL society, even things like shocklances probably seems primitive to the one power.  As a wise man once said "the ability to destroy a planet is insignificant to the power of the force."

[Azrayne]

Sort of like if you suddenly woke up in the Roman times.  You have all this knowledge about future weapons and stuff, but is there the capability to build any of it?  It easy to say well build the facilities to, well try to say build a building in the Roman age to produce firearms.  You simply have to start from scratch and there wasn't the time to do it when the forsaken woke up.  Ishy never could do much since he was always being spun out and then sucked back and.  Probably was hard to get stuff finished when you would be in the middle of something just to go back to sleep again. Also as it was pointed out Ishy was a philosopher not a scientist or engineer.  Did he have the knowledge to even try and create stuff, just because you know how to use a shocklance doesn't mean you can build one on your own.  Not to mention for one who can channel and at the height of AOL society, even things like shocklances probably seems primitive to the one power.  As a wise man once said "the ability to destroy a planet is insignificant to the power of the force."

 

We're not talking about Classical Roman era technology and infrastructure, we're talking Medieval/Renaissance Europe era technology and infrastructure, combined with a more or less unlimited workforce, easy access to gunpowder and scientific knowledge which exceeds the 21st century, topped off with the OP.

[Sabio]

 You will still need a forsaken who had a clue how to make the stuff anyway,  Unlikely they knew how to do any of this stuff or more importantly had the time to do it.  Not many years passed from them waking up to the last battle.  In the first five book something like 6 forsaken died and 1 changed sides.  So really wasn't too many forsaken left to be tasked with trying to build up facilities (even if any had the knowledge).  Ishy would of been the only hope but he was insane and a philosopher.  Finally the Forsaken looked down on anything not from their era.  They like so many thought channeling was the ultimate power and who cares if trollocs or fades had anything but swords. 

[Azrayne]

Already went over all that.

[Turin Turambar]

I maybe not seeing it but was it written anywhere in the books that anyone other than the illuminators guild knew how yo.make gunpowder? none of the chosen were chemists that I recall.

 

Also, what unlimited workforce? Maybe Shara after demandred took over. Not in the blight. Plus the infrastructure there was not up to par with the rest of randland IMO.

 

I also think that the chosen would have not wanted to take the effort to teach their knowledge and certainly would not want to do the actual work of making these things happen.

 

So yeah w/e.

[Sabio]

@Turin, You are right, gunpowder was a closely guarded secret of the illuminators and they killed trespassers found in their compounds.  I think the Seanchan killed most the guild in Ebor Dar after the leader refused to let the Seanchan in.  Seanchan I am guessing assumed it wasn't an important thing to know since Damien could make pretty lights in the sky too.  So they killed the illiminuators instead of learning their secrets.  So the lady with Mat was I think the last person alive with the knowledge on how to make gunpowder.  I also agree about what unlimited workforce, most captives they caught went to being sacrificed to make Fade swords.  They really would of had to step up the raids to try and get a slave workforce.  So Dem would of had to enslave Shara, make the red viels do it,  or the shadow would have to trust the crafting skills of Trollocs.

[mb]

At least some of the Forsaken could probably have infiltrated the Illuminators if they wanted to.  The main thing for them to do would be to take over some Illuminator's identity.  Taking over people's identities seems not difficult for some of the Forsaken; Moghedien, Mesaana.

[Azrayne]

If the Whitecloaks have Darkfriends in major positions of power, I'm certain the Illuminators would as well. On the unlikely chance that they don't, there's always compulsion.

[Ea'V_FOTV_Fan]

At least some of the Forsaken could probably have infiltrated the Illuminators if they wanted to.  The main thing for them to do would be to take over some Illuminator's identity.  Taking over people's identities seems not difficult for some of the Forsaken; Moghedien, Mesaana.

 

 

 

If the Whitecloaks have Darkfriends in major positions of power, I'm certain the Illuminators would as well. On the unlikely chance that they don't, there's always compulsion.

Could have, yes. This never would've even crossed their minds. The Illuminators as a guild never considered their powders in terms of weaponry. Aludra began thinking about it after the Seanchan destroyed their guild house looking for channelers. "Mundane" weapons were beneath the contempt of the Foresaken. In MoL during the Last Battle, one of the potential futures Rand is shown alludes to the new fire sticks (guns) in use. This would be a natural evolution from the Dragons. In the Age of Legends even non-channelers had access to the Power (forget what they called it) so I'm fairly certain that even Shocklances were linked to the Power in some way .

[Azrayne]

"Mundane" weapons were beneath the contempt of the Foresaken

 

So guns are out, but swords and axes and crossbows and what not are fine? Cause they had no problem using troops wielding those (or using them themselves, in the case of swords, but that just comes down to duelling with swords being cool I think). I find it highly unlikely that at least some of them wouldn't have put their technological/scientific knowledge (relative to the rest of the population) to use to give their side a massive military advantage. It wouldn't have been as good as whatever they decked their troops out with in the AoL, but I'm sure they could have come up with something to give them a firm advantage.

 

And more to the point, it would have just been plain cool - bring some of the AoL stuff into the present, especially right towards the end, mix things up, add a twist and throw in a bit of flavor to move even further away from the generic medieval fantasy vibe.

[Ea'V_FOTV_Fan]

 

"Mundane" weapons were beneath the contempt of the Foresaken

So guns are out, but swords and axes and crossbows and what not are fine? Cause they had no problem using troops wielding those (or using them themselves, in the case of swords, but that just comes down to duelling with swords being cool I think). I find it highly unlikely that at least some of them wouldn't have put their technological/scientific knowledge (relative to the rest of the population) to use to give their side a massive military advantage. It wouldn't have been as good as whatever they decked their troops out with in the AoL, but I'm sure they could have come up with something to give them a firm advantage.

 

And more to the point, it would have just been plain cool - bring some of the AoL stuff into the present, especially right towards the end, mix things up, add a twist and throw in a bit of flavor to move even further away from the generic medieval fantasy vibe.

I agree with you! They were after all scouring the world for angreal, sa'angreal and the like during the buildup to the war. My point is the same as it was earlier, while they wanted these things, they weren't capable of creating them. Their arrogance and sense of superiority meant that they were more than happy to use these weapons of the power but lacked the knowledge of creating them. "Lesser" Aes Sedai or others did the boring hands-on work in the AoL.

[Turin Turambar]

If the Whitecloaks have Darkfriends in major positions of power, I'm certain the Illuminators would as well. On the unlikely chance that they don't, there's always compulsion.

The whitecloaks were a huge semi.military organization. There was easy ways in. You basically just have to sign up. The guild was very small and closed off. You had to.be invited to.join. the chance of infiltration was smaller and would have required that person to basically be there all the time. None if these prima donNAS were going to do that. Nor is it clear that any if them possessed the inherent chemistry and engineering background to convert fireworks to weapons grade gunpowder.

 

Also, there weren't enough humans in the ranks to have efficiently used firearms. To put it another way, would you trust a trolloc to Maintain and use a rifle?

 

Just because it might be cool doesn't mean it would be practical. Or even possible.

[Azrayne]

The whitecloaks were a huge semi.military organization. There was easy ways in. You basically just have to sign up. The guild was very small and closed off. You had to.be invited to.join. the chance of infiltration was smaller and would have required that person to basically be there all the time. None if these prima donNAS were going to do that. Nor is it clear that any if them possessed the inherent chemistry and engineering background to convert fireworks to weapons grade gunpowder.

 

 

Again, compulsion. If Mat could do it, then Dem/Sam/Whoever could have. If not with fireworks specifically, then with something.

 

Anyway, people seem to enjoy shooting down speculation about what would have been cool in favor of arguing against why it wouldn't work because it's not how RJ wrote it, so w/e.

[Turin Turambar]

Mat didn't do it. Aludra did. He found her using his taveren luck. The ones you mentioned were all doing other things they considered mire important.

 

Might have been cool, but lots of things would have been cool.

[Sabio]

Forsaken are human, as Turin said not even Mat saw the fireworks as a powerful weapon until Aludra showed him.  So expecting the forsaken who had other priorities to see fireworks as a game changing item isn't likely either.  Aludra had to tell mat what was needed.  Would it of been cool yes, seeing guns or shocklances being used.  The forsaken weakness is their selfishness, instead of looking at something like illuminator fireworks as being a possible weapon, they went out trying to find items of power for themselves.  There was never this would benefit the whole team mentality.

[Ea'V_FOTV_Fan]

 

The whitecloaks were a huge semi.military organization. There was easy ways in. You basically just have to sign up. The guild was very small and closed off. You had to.be invited to.join. the chance of infiltration was smaller and would have required that person to basically be there all the time. None if these prima donNAS were going to do that. Nor is it clear that any if them possessed the inherent chemistry and engineering background to convert fireworks to weapons grade gunpowder.

 

 

Again, compulsion. If Mat could do it, then Dem/Sam/Whoever could have. If not with fireworks specifically, then with something.

 

Anyway, people seem to enjoy shooting down speculation about what would have been cool in favor of arguing against why it wouldn't work because it's not how RJ wrote it, so w/e.

Lots of things might've been 'cool'. Rand could've sneezed and killed the Dark One. You've joined a community of people who've read the books multiple times and base their questions on the realities in that world. Don't get all w/e because your ideas get shot down. Speculation doesn't hold much weight around here.