he Creation of the Portal Stones
by Daishan: 2002-12-13 | Not yet rated
Creation of the Portal Stones
Hello everybody, this is just something I noticed while re-reading Tamyrlin's “Verin and the Third Constant” theory. It's said on more than one occasion in the series that the Aes Sedai in the Age of Legends knew how to use the Portal Stones, but that they didn't create them, that they were older still. I think I know what Age they came from, or at least, I have a guess.
When Rand awakes in the Mirror World in TGH, he sees those seven bands of color and thinks to himself “one for each Ajah”. BUT, as some of you might remember from The Guide, in the AOL “Ajah” had a totally different meaning: it was just a group or a circle working together for a time for a shared purpose. Since there are no clues that those seven colors were ever associated with any Ajah in the AOL, I think it likely that those Ajah's colors only came in to existence after the Breaking, at the foundation of the Tower. Since a lot of people believe (myself included) that the Age before the AOL was “our” Age, I think we can assume that there were no “Ajah colors” present either (considering the fact that nobody knows about the OP). And if Rand has cleansed Saidin it seems likely that the Red Ajah will cease to exist in the next Age.
My point is, I think the Portal Stones were created in the “current Age” of the book, but one “turning of the Wheel” earlier. Remember the part “Legend fades to myth and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again”. Nobody remembers when they were made... We can say with at least some certainty about three different Ages that no Ajah colors match those seven (in some cases they likely don't exist at all). We can also say about ONE specific Age that the colors match those of the Stones perfectly.
For me all this is a strong enough indication to believe those Stones were made in the same Age, but one turning earlier. One might argue that the colors of the Stones do not have to represent Ajah colors at all, but myself I think it too big a coincidence.
Well, please let me know what you think.
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1
Tamyrlin: 2002-12-13
This is a subject that interests me, and in the big collaborative study we did on T'A'R we mention the creators of the Portal Stones, as the books say, who knew the numbers of choas. Our guess was possibly channelers with a strong emphasis in math and physics. If the Stones exist in the Third Age (this age) and the previous Age was the Second Age, and those in the second Age don't know of the creators. And we would guess that in the following Age they would continue to exist, throughout the rest of the total Seven Ages per turning, unless something destroyed them and the world, it would be my guess that the Portal Stones were created in the First Age, or very early in the Second, and were products of a society that has mixed the science with channeling, but not to the advanced level as those in the Second Age. Also, we note in the study, I think this was Raen's idea, but I am not sure, that the "locations" where the stones exist seem to be natural gateways, that the Stones use, but that exist beyond the stone which is why Rand forms the image in his mind and is able to use it. The stones seem more like guide posts than actually necessary for travelling (like the one Rand was sleeping up against). But I am not completely straight on Ages, but I thought that there were seven Ages and we are in the Third. Just some thoughts, I think the Portal Stones are not that well examined in theory, so thanks. :)
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Daishan: 2002-12-13
You're correct about there being seven Ages I think and also about being in the 3rd. But how about those Ajah colors? If they really are Ajah colors, then the Stones couldn't have been made in the 1st OR the 2nd Age, nor in the 4th... At least, that's what I think...
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Tamyrlin: 2002-12-13
The colors, as part of my theory about the Stones, are what the later "Ajah" system was based off of. I think that the channelers of the First Age used a color system, possibly without a definitive purpose, but that the channelers of later Ages may have based the coloring from "history." If the second agers don't know, then you would think that it had to be the First Age..., unless some time between the 3rd and last age the current Portal Stones are destroyed and then someone remakes them...? The First Age just seems the best candidate to me.
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Drekan: 2002-12-14
'Since a lot of people believe (myself included) that the Age before the AOL was “our” Age'
I haven't seen it elsewhere on the boards yet, but I dispute this, as if it was, then the Wheel is a very weird looking wheel. There are 7 different ages, we know that the Age of Prophecy follows the AoL, so how can you say that the AoP precedes the AoL? The 'spoke' of the wheel that is the AoP is after the AoL with 5 more between them before the AoL again. As this is the case(and is shown by the digram of the wheel in most books - the serpant weaving around the wheel with 7 spokes), then the AoP isnt before the AoL but after it. I don't disagree with the idea that the portal stones could have come from a previous AostoneP, but if they did, it would have been a bit longer than 2 Ages ago.
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Tamyrlin: 2002-12-14
What is the Age of Prophecy, why does it have to come after the Age of Legends, what does the AoP have to do with "our day" and the portal stones, and why couldn't the Portal Stones have come from the First Age...if they existed, but were of origin unknown in the Second Age?
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Daishan: 2002-12-15
First, about the First Age.
If "our day" is indeed the First Age, then there would be no channelers in the First Age. I personally believe that the Second Age begun with the discovery of the One Power. But even if you don't buy the last part, I don't think you can use the phrase "the channelers from the First Age". There are no channelers among us as of yet, and before they would have evolved long enough to create something like the Portal Stones I think we would have to be in the Second Age at least (to my opinion).
Also, the Ajah colors are discussed somewhere in The Guide (don't have it at hand right now), I think at "the foundation of the White Tower" or something like it. It says that the Ajah colors only came in to existence when the spread-out factions of Aes Sedai ( <-- by the way, is this the correct plural?) met each other to form an alliance again. There were seven large factions, and thus seven colors and Ajahs. Ajah's. Ajah.
By the way, the colors aren't just "the colors of the rainbow" so to speak, since white and gray are involved.
Just thought I'd mention it for a stronger connection between the Stones colors and the Ajah(')(s). :-)
Had something else to say but I forgot. I'll be back.
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Drekan: 2002-12-15
I thought I'd read somewhere that the current age was an age of prophecy. I can't remember where now, so I am probably wrong about that. I'm not disputing that the Portal Stones couldnt have come from the first age, I'm disputing drawing the links between the 1st age and the 3rd age, as there are 7 ages, following each other in the wheel.
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Tamyrlin: 2002-12-15
Well, we have to guess at what the end of the First Age is. "We" don't have channelers, but in Jordan's world, channeling may have shown up after a nuclear war. The Portal Stones, as I mentioned before, seem a product of science, math, and channeling. In essence, the Portal Stones would have to have been created at the end of the First Age, or the beginning of the Second Age...because if they exist at the end of the Second Age, into the Third Age, we have no reason to believe that they won't exist for the following four Ages. Did it happen in the beginning of the Second Age? Could be, we just don't know when channeling was discovered, nor how and when the First Age ended...but the end of the Second Age seems very much like "our" society, mixed with advanced technology and channeling. And they are unaware of the creators of Portal Stones...but in the end, we don't really have an answer. I guess we could ask Jordan, "Were the Portal Stones a product of the First Age?" "RAFO."
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Drekan: 2002-12-16
Forget my previous posts here. I misread the first post and thought Daishan was saying that 'our age' was the 'current age' one turning previous... oops. Sorry.
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Exocrist: 2003-01-20
umm... doesn't it say at the end of WH "the time of illusion is at an end" was i wrong to interpret this as the "Age of Illusion" is coming to an end?
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Kris Murdrum: 2003-08-08
As I understand after having read several other WoT fansites, then the First Age is the age that we WoTists live in.
Aparently, late in the FA, the OP was discovered. Soon, men and women were bread (via dna-meddling) and entrapped into slavery. The countries that 'owned' those channelers primerilly used them as weapons. Since those weapons were by far cheaper and destructive than other weapons of mass destructions, many countries (and possibly terrorist groups) started to build armies of them... one thing lead to another and before ppl knew the WWIII had started, on much greater scale than ever envisioned. That was the end of an era, the end of FA
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free will: 2003-11-18
What about the Ogier? If we live in 1st Age, then Ogier would be "new" in the 2nd Age (AoL), which doesn't seem consistent with what I've read about the AoL.
Also, with their longer life-spans and habit of scholarship, shouldn't the Ogier know stuff about the Portal Stones.
There is also the question; which came first the Ogiers or the stedding. And the related questions of how each came to be. The creation of the stedding and portal stones might be related, especially if the portal stones are just markers for special locations.
Portal stones are hard to move, and I've never seen anyone even suggest moving a stedding so that's another similarity.
I think RAFO might apply. In tEotW Moiraine says that dreams can be more real than reality. That has always made me think that T'A'R and/or the Portal Stones will be useful in the final battle. Especially considering Verin's comments about the DO and freedom and containment being constant across worlds.
Sealing the bore in T'A'R might do it, or maybe the stones have to be used to seal the bore in all the mirror worlds.
As for the Ages, I've also heard the 3rd Age called the Age of Prophecy, but I was confused about the end of the time of Illusions comment too, but AoP means 3rrd Age to most people. I think we live in the 4th Age, just because the 3rd Age seems to have the kind of things we base our legends on, it's "our" age of legends.
Another way the Portal stones could be used is for time/space travel within a world like in the tGH. A remenant of a remanant could be sent to a space/time that matches Earth circa 60,000 years ago. If the remanent is sent ahead then Rand can break the world so bad that all the Myrrdraal, Trollocs, and Ogier die as well as the Forsaken, BA. He could even push Shayol Ghul into the center of the Earth, and it will take 6 ages for it to start to surface again and intice people with the TP.
Portal stones don't appear to exist in our age, so either we make them and someone else destorys them, orsomeone else makes them and someone else destroys them.
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Flinn Sedai: 2004-03-13
I was reading this and i had a thought. There are seven bands of color, there also happen to be seven spokes of the wheel. What if those seven bands of color let you travel to different ages. That would also help Rand to win the LB. He travels back and stops Meirin from creating the Bore. Unfortunatly, that would begin to create a Paradox. However, as Verin stated when explaing T'A'R to Egwene, Shai'tan is the father of Paradox. I think it would be fitting that the father of Paradox be thwarted by a paradox.
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jrowe: 2005-05-19
My thoughts on Portal Stones
World – definition: not another planet. Instead World is used to define a separate reality, universe or possibile expression of the same world that the stories take place on. What are called mirror worlds should not be confused with other planets. They are the same planet expressed in an almost infinite number of possible realities. Like David Deutsch's theory of the multiverse: every possible quantum state that can exist, does exist, and the universe splits at that quantum level to encompass both possible expressed states. As such, new mirror worlds are being created almost constantly. Many are almost nearly identical to the one our stories take place in at the time of that world's creation. Some of those will remain nearly identical copies and some will diverge further and further from our main world over time. By the way, my use of the term “main” world refers only to the world in which our stories take place. It should not be assumed that this world is in any way primary or more real than any other world. It is one of the many mirror worlds with no more or less significant status than any other. It is only more real to the characters native to it. For those characters to travel to other worlds, they will experience a sense of greater or lesser reality in relation to themselves but the same would be true for any character from another world who visited our “main” world. In their native world, these characters would feel that that world was the most “real”.
That being said, Portal Stones are simply “world anchors”. They exist partially outside time and space and as such, partially exist in the space between worlds. They act as magnets and anchors for other mirror worlds. As mirror worlds converge on a point occupied by a Portal Stone outside time and space, that world is attracted to the Stone like steel to a magnet, like a moth to flame, like a fly to a buglight, pick your metaphor. Once that world touches the Portal Stone, it becomes anchored to it. This does not interfere with the existence or details of this world, it simply establishes a point at which that world is now anchored to this world. Once anchored, the same Portal Stone now exists partially in both worlds. (Of course any world containing a Portal Stone that splits into two worlds both automatically contain that same Portal Stone already and these two worlds can be considered automatically anchored to one another).
The fact that the Stone only exists partially in any world is why it resists being moved in any world. It's possible to move it or destroy it but it is very difficult. The reason it is even possible is because the part of it that does exist in a given world includes it's physical properties. It's mystical properties, or Power driven properties, or it's purpose exists solely in the space between worlds and can therefore never be broken or destroyed or moved. So even if a Portal Stone were to be destroyed on a world, the anchor to that world still exists, however the means of accessing that anchor may indeed be lost.
In reference to the numbers of chaos, I believe the Stones themselves calculate the numbers of chaos through tracking the intersections of worlds anchored to a given Stone. For those who know how to read this information, the Stone itself can serve as a guide to what is anchored to it. However, just because an incredible number of worlds may be anchored to a given Stone, does not mean that you can easily access all those worlds from the Stone. I believe that the Stones paved the way for exploration of worlds but likely, good old fashioned pioneering was needed to explore worlds blindly and with likely a great deal of danger.
Worlds which had been “mapped” could have an access indicator or map embedded between both worlds on the Stone. These are the symbols on the Stone which you can use to access specific worlds or other stones on the same world or perhaps other possibilities. Regardless of what was being accessed though, the symbol acts as a navigational map to travel between two specific points previously traversed, mapped and embedded in the Stone. So the symbols represent known destinations or at least routes to destinations the ancient travelers wanted preserved. There were likely a great many known destinations that the ancient travelers had no desire to preserve or that were too dangerous to be traveled to. Therein lies the dangers of the Portal Stones. With a lack of knowledge, there's no way to know that while some symbols may take you to other places in this world and other symbols take you to other times and other symbols take you to other worlds, it is possible that some symbols were placed on a Stone to indicate worlds too dangerous to travel to and are markers of avoidance, not recommendations. So one of the greatest dangers of Portal Stones is that without knowing why each symbol was placed on the Stone or what manner of travel it represented (across space, time or dimension), blindly using a random symbol may be successful but may not be remotely safe. However, sadly, if the Stones are ever to be used again in any routine purpose, the only way to learn to use them is the same way the ancients had to learn: good old fashioned pioneering through dangerous trial and error. Over time, the dangers of usage will grow smaller and smaller as understanding of the Stones is relearned bit by bit.
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Tamyrlin: 2005-05-19
Jrowe: "Like David Deutsch's theory of the multiverse: every possible quantum state that can exist, does exist, and the universe splits at that quantum level to encompass both possible expressed states."
I think this is where most posters go wrong. It isn't like it. While it might be a point of reference, Jordan's Mirror Worlds are meant to be unique to his universe. Therefore, properties, characteristics, etc., of the multiverse cannot be applied to Jordan's Mirror Worlds, no matter any perceived similarities. Also, you mentioned, "It should not be assumed that this world is in any way primary or more real than any other world. It is one of the many mirror worlds with no more or less significant status than any other", this is incorrect. There is one real world, according to Jordan, and all other worlds are parallel to it. None of the descriptions of Mirror Worlds supports your conclusion, although I have heard this conclusion referencing other author's versions of Mirror Worlds. However, Jordan is specific in naming all Mirror Worlds as shadows of this world, the Real World. Your Main world is the Real World, and everything else is less real. The BWB, the Guide, explicitly supports such a conclusion; I had a particularly large discussion involving such conclusions you have come to at the message board, here, or you can see a longer list of discussions here. Jordan's brand of Mirror Worlds differentiates itself intentionally, and he gives us specific language (shadow, mirror, solid) to describe the lesser than real state of Mirror Worlds.
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Nine Moons: 2005-05-20
On the "Numbers of Chaos" bit, they could be probability odds, you know, 1:2, 3:7, 8:40202785. After all, the Stones do lead to worlds with less likely outcomes.
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JakOShadows: 2005-05-20
I think to we could also look at the test to become accepted as one of them too. All of the things that the candidates have to endure are tied to their lives it seems like. So maybe the ter'angreal is like the portal stone in that it takes them to mirror worlds in which a controversial decision is made. My idea is that anytime an express decision is made, it creates a mirror world of what could have happened. And since they are all tied to reality, the ones that stray the most from reality are the fuzziest ones(like in tGH). Didn't someone mention the fact that that in that world the DO could have won, and that would cause the extreme bleakness of the place. The big contrast from reality.
