It seems an empire is best suited to early industrialization. Rails, good for empire.

Guns are good when handcrafted just right, but when you produce hundreds of identical rifles, guns become even more powerful. 

Half the world is unpopulated.

Im not recommending close to WT like Cairhein or any unpopulated area close by like Harlan, Caralain, Bream Wood, Borderlands right nearby.

Southern Saldea on the Arinelle

North of Bearlon, outside Andor on Arinelle

Outside of Gheldean, Black Forest, close to Jehanna, but outside of civilization, access to river and city resources. 

Northwest Altara on the Manethrendrelle, better river, safer location.

Anywhere outside Murandy, either on Manetherendrelle or on the Cary river.

Places near Far Madding?

Haddon Mirk near the river?

Fishing villages between Illian and Tear.

Ranged attack is still ranged attack.

It also seems that in the Age of Legends, they used different weaves which allowed super long range attacks (Rand mentions it when Sammael starts sniping him).

Whitecloaks could have planned better, guerrila tactics, night time raids, archers, etc.

Even if the Whitecloaks would have lost every man sent and the Aes Sedai would have seen negligible losses, the reality that it is tactically stupid doesn’t change and 0.0% of Warders would have approved this location. 

So it would seem that a Tower in Exile would need some basic things.

Distance from The White Tower.

Initial Subterfuge.

Access to Resources and Information.

Safe from Local Government.

Salidar, 1 out of 4 ain’t bad.

Saldean Town, on river, dock. 4 for 4.

I guess technically, Amador would have been worse, but not by much. 

Moggy used compulsion without contact.

Verin used contact, the other black Ajah didn’t use contact. 

Rand’s Taverenness can bring people across the whole world. 

Mat’s power brought him Tuon.

Rand drew Male Channelers to him to join the Ashaman from far and wide before he started the recruiting.

The twisting of chance seems to be a more local effect. No babies dying in a whole city seems to the range of the talent. 

Compulsion does not require contact.

Poppins does try to control the children, sugar and “medicine”. Trains the children to comply, they were rowdy. 

Everyone knows you can’t fly in the real world. The whole movie is in the world of dreams.

besides for what happened to the prior nannies and the old man... and bring the children and others into the world of dreams and multiple other behaviors, yes Mary Poppins wanted to get them on her side so she did. 

Unless the glass pillars depict the most likely scenario... they depicted Randland divided before the Seachan. 

The old man who laughed himself to death. Supercalifragalistic was real compulsion she wove over his mind preventing him from stopping laughing. This too happened in the world of dreams. 

Black Ajah is known for drawing people into the world of dreams to control them, that is exactly what Mary Poppins did to the kids too.

Mary Poppins also is a time traveler and went to a square in Tarabon and flew, like she does, also hung out with the birds.

It should be noted, no society actually allowed blacksmiths to go to war. Their benefit to war effort by producing armor and weapons outweighs any benefit they may contribute on a battlefield.

just learned this yesterday, but it is so obvious...

You can’t sense the Source in the Stedding.

Also pretty sure a severed woman can be held by an Adam. Joline couldn’t wear the collar while that severed held the bracelet. 

This definitely comes from a level of hindsight more than anything else, but Rand flubbed his instructions to the Aiel before entering Cairhein.

Rand should have told the Aiel that despite the Cairhein’s failure to save the tree, they were still humans. And they weren’t darkfriends. As such, prior to the last battle, every single human should be considered as if they are the same Clan. The larger Clan of non-darkfriends ultimately to fight side by side to defeat DO and therefore even insults can be ignored. The only killing must be in self defense or the defense of another non-df. 

If Ogier had any tech, they may not have lost it, having long memories. 

In the Age of Legends Ogier May have used an Aes sedai traveling gate, or ride one of the winged crafts. But they probably would be uncomfortable using coal fired power.

Dragonmount certainly looks closer to the dragonwall on the map, but is even closer to Kinslayer’s Dagger. 

Also Yellowstone isn’t a short walk from the Rocky Mountains. 

The only place that makes sense to me is Yellowstone.

while the creation of dragonmount is part of our future, it is also a part of our distant past. Since dragonmount doesn’t exist today, it must have blow up.

yellowstone is also close to the Rocky Mountains, like the dragonmount is close to the dragonwall.

Far Madding has 3 terangreal.

the largest cuts men from the source.

the second largest cuts women...

the inner most creates an artificial stedding, where even a well would not allow channeling.

we need to understand the mechanics of 4 separate states before we can conclude on any of these.

There is a power which can disrupt access for both men and women to the Source. Imagine access to the Source requires a given frequency to access it, then a Terangreal that prevents you from accessing the Source may produce a frequency that cancels out that ability to access the Source. The frequency would be different for men and women.

An artificial stedding would not only block access to the Source but would even prevent the use of a Well. Presume a more invasive frequency, but again, this seems targeted at humans and should not prevent Terangreal from working. So an Adam would still “work” in Far Madding, even tho neither person can Channel.

The Stedding may function on the same mechanics as an artificial stedding, the localized frequency generated by natural phenomena. Or the Stedding could be magical. I prefer the first option.

Even if a Stedding excludes magic completely, an Adam could still continue to function as the stimuli of nausea is a psychological trained response and could continue to operate without reinforcement. The Male Adam uses force rather than training, so I would infer it would be less effective inside a stedding than an Adam.

Luckers about the Ogier, they functioned as police in the Age of Legends. Ogier’s function in Seachan is more consistent with an integrated society. The Ogier from Seachan are also unhappy tough guys, it doesn’t appear to be just an act. I inferred they are the survivors of a larger Ogier population, whom the majority died without a stedding and the minority survived (but it is a half life...). Perhaps until the Ogier recovered, the Empress cared for them, had them fed while they invalids. Once they recovered from a life without a Stedding, they became the tough guys they are today in the Black Guard, making them perfectly loyal to the Royal family. 

DemFO spoilers!

some books are great, some stories get a little slow at times.

the last books aren’t as consistently good as the first books, but there are still great stories inside the books. The Rand arc may drag a little, but then gets really interesting before the end. Mat has some great chapters and some bad ones. Perrin has lots of development before the end too.

Worth reading.  

Story starts with a young willowy girl...

On a dare from her friends she opened a bullpen and turned out no one got hurt and no real property damage, but she almost got prosecuted as a cattle thief...

thinking about it now.

post ideas

The snake is an ancient symbol. So long as you don’t try to sell it as Wheel of Time clock, or use their art you can even sell it. 

None of this contradicts that Mary Poppins was Black Ajah and drew the children into the dream world. Nor does it excuse murder. 

May always loved treasure, which was why he was so much more succeptible than Perrin and Rand in Shadar Logoth. 

Who?

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. 

There is no doubt, Moraine sees the whole world as her people, not for them to serve her, but for her to serve them, a true Aes Sedai. 

That said, I see no need to paper over her secrecy, need to know attitude, threats to the boys and girls. She developed into a wise person before jumping into the Elfin world with both feet. Her development is interesting, but the story isn’t about her.

I would say Nynaeve is the glue over the whole arc of the story.