So just what did Rand see in the sky in the Portal Stone world?

[Zorlon]

Like it says on the tin.

Edited December 20, 2015 by Zorlon

[Orderofolde]

Contrails being left behind by aircraft or missiles, maybe even satellites or space debris entering orbit though they seemed to be aircraft or missile contrails.  The wide and long burn marks on the land itself could indicate laser weaponry or nukes which would support aircraft or missiles, as if left over from the Age of Legends or an age before.  There were references to Mosk and Merk (Moscow and America) and Glem/Glen riding in the belly of a lance of fire (Glen Armstrong and the Apollo Missions iirc.  This ties in the Anla the wise counselor who is Ann Landers and other bastardizations of things from our current time which RJ loved to use to indicate the changes that occur with oral histories handed down through many generations.)

 

The Trollocs seemed to have had an early and complete victory over the forces of light to which the land itself seemed glad for a weapon to have been made.  There was the Trolloc monument in place of the monument to Artur Hawkwing celebrating his victory over the shadow's forces in the Trolloc Wars which indicated that either in the AOL or the Trolloc Wars the Trollocs won out, and then turned on each other for food.  We saw only Grolm in this world and the Seanchan forces used these animals like the Grolm and Torm and Lopar from these mirror worlds to defeat their smaller Blight and shadow forces right after the breaking.  Lanfear might have been bringing these in from yet another world as they seemed to appear as she willed to force Rand into running for the pillar stone and to force him into taking them back to the main world to which all others were the reflection.  She could have used gateways though at a distance, or have brought them in and staged them, maybe binding them with air and then releasing the weave to set the different bands of Grolm on the hunt.  Lanfear seemed to have greatly underestimated Rand's bow skill.  

[jack of shadows]

i don't think lanfear cared much about rand's archery skills one way or another,

the whole selene "project"(she spent a week with him in the parallel universe

and another day or two back in randland)was to make sure that rand is really

the dragon reborn and to assess his personality.

[mb]

I seem to recall another thread speculating about the thread title.

 

about Lanfear bringing the grolm, I doubt she could have brought that many and survive; even if she channeled.

I would guess that the grolm were native to that world.

[Sabio]

If the trollocs won, it would make sense sooner or later they would encounter the seanchean exotics.  Since the Grolm were already in Hawkwings world  when his son went over there.  So could simply be Grolm that survived the wars. 

Edited January 17, 2016 by Sabio

[Orderofolde]

Mentioning the Seanchan, that does raise a good point as they are isolated and dealt with their blight early on after the breaking.  We see through the visions of Avi in Rhudiean when she witnesses the downfall of the Aiel that the Seanchan weapons are more modern (1800's style) rifles and I believe that they move from Raken to helicopter-like vehicles in one of the attacks.  The white streaks overhead might be sho-wings or similar vehicles that are precursors to what they had in the AOL.

[Zorlon]

Contrails being left behind by aircraft or missiles, maybe even satellites or space debris entering orbit though they seemed to be aircraft or missile contrails.  The wide and long burn marks on the land itself could indicate laser weaponry or nukes which would support aircraft or missiles, as if left over from the Age of Legends or an age before.  There were references to Mosk and Merk (Moscow and America) and Glem/Glen riding in the belly of a lance of fire (Glen Armstrong and the Apollo Missions iirc.  This ties in the Anla the wise counselor who is Ann Landers and other bastardizations of things from our current time which RJ loved to use to indicate the changes that occur with oral histories handed down through many generations.)

 

The Trollocs seemed to have had an early and complete victory over the forces of light to which the land itself seemed glad for a weapon to have been made.  There was the Trolloc monument in place of the monument to Artur Hawkwing celebrating his victory over the shadow's forces in the Trolloc Wars which indicated that either in the AOL or the Trolloc Wars the Trollocs won out, and then turned on each other for food.  We saw only Grolm in this world and the Seanchan forces used these animals like the Grolm and Torm and Lopar from these mirror worlds to defeat their smaller Blight and shadow forces right after the breaking.  Lanfear might have been bringing these in from yet another world as they seemed to appear as she willed to force Rand into running for the pillar stone and to force him into taking them back to the main world to which all others were the reflection.  She could have used gateways though at a distance, or have brought them in and staged them, maybe binding them with air and then releasing the weave to set the different bands of Grolm on the hunt.  Lanfear seemed to have greatly underestimated Rand's bow skill.  

Obviously they were contrails, but from whom?

 

The Trollocs clearly won, but they don't seem the sort to develop aircraft. Did the forces of Light rally and start developing technology which they used to burn the shadow from the land? Or did human living under the Shadow's thumb advance technology in a Dark Age?

 

I don't know why, but for some reason that was always one of the most interesting parts of the WoT for me.

 

I have a strong suspicion that during the early books Jordan had intended to expand on that. Just because of how much work he put into thinking of the background of the world he wrote in.

Edited January 17, 2016 by Zorlon

[mb]

I would guess that the contrails predated the Trolloc Wars; and probably also the Breaking.

 

and I would guess that humanity died off long before Rand/Hurin/Loial got there; since the only human they met was Lanfear/"Selene".

the grolm I take were the only survivors of that world.

 

the ones to kill off the Trollocs were probably themselves (like Loial speculated) and/or the grolm.

[Zorlon]

I would guess that the contrails predated the Trolloc Wars; and probably also the Breaking.

They were being left by something moving across the sky. And whatever left the wide and long burned patches was clearly post-Trolloc Wars.

 

Something was going on.

[mb]

some chance of at least some Legends Age technology surviving until that time.

[threadnecromancer]

It actually makes a lot of sense, this world was very different in many ways from the one we know (the Seanchan exotics being one obvious example) but nonetheless the Wheel saw to it that it followed a similar pattern. Presumably the world better recovered from the Breaking, or (though the similar geography tells against it) the Breaking was not as bad.

Hawkwing still existed because the Wheel demanded it be so, in this world he presumably was well on his way to uniting the world with his army of motorcycle knights and jet fighters when the well-equipped Trollocs smashed him in battle.

 

Another world would exist where he won the battle and things ended up much the same as in our world except that the Last Battle had hover tanks.

 

That is how I've rationalised all this anyway.

[mbuehner]

Perhaps the Seanchan defeated the trollocs and abandoned a ruined Randland, only the grohm survive south of the blight on the continent.

[mb]

According to the Guide, the Seanchan exotics were gotten within the first 1000 years after the Breaking.

Not sure if the order of events could be different in a Portal Stone world; I would doubt it.

[Sabio]

Well the DO/Forsaken/Ishy would still of broken free sometime.  So there still would of been more wars.  We know from Rand' multiple visions when using the portal stone that the Seanchean were being pushed back by the forces of the DO.

[jsbrads]

The dark side won hundreds of years ago, the land unified under one ruler, the Dark One, technology advanced. Forsaken, now free, were flying around in their G6s. #Contrails

The laser damage is a bit more confusing, fired from a satellite? They are all east-west...

The Seachan returned sooner, lost the war, but they brought an invasive species, the Grolm. The Grolm eventually destroyed all life in Randland, even Trollocs. The surviving Grolm continued to feed on each other.

And as to Lanfear, she did not care who Rand was. She wanted to turn Rand to the dark side. She wanted to use his power ability to draw Saidin. She wanted to dominate him to repay “him” for leaving her. She gave up when Rand slept with Avi. 

 

Edited February 19, 2019 by jsbrads