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The full story Werthead Send a noteboard - 05/09/2009 07:28:54 PM
The First Age is our age. I am assuming a vast, massive cataclysm to end the Seventh Age and reset the Wheel which would make the War of the Shadow look like a playground scuffle, so the idea of any stories or legends like those Thom tells Egwene about the Apollo moon landings, Mother Teresa and the Cold War surviving that seems unlikely.

My theory has always been (and the world book seems to lean in this direction) that channelling the One Power is the product of genetic engineering, which we are starting to see now. So channelling appears in the late 21st Century, and is probably used as a weapon until the channellers themselves rebel against its use and establish a new world order of peace and prosperity, thus becoming the Aes Sedai. During this period, in our near-future, they build the portal stones. They encounter the Ogier during these explorations of other worlds and the Ogier move to our world.

We then move into the Second Age, the Age of Legends, thousands of years of peace and harmony in which the meaning of the word 'war' is lost. Then the Dark One's prison is discovered, full-scale war breaks out etc. We have the Breaking, the Third Age (the Age of Prophecy, according to the EotW UK paperback cover blurb, though never called that in the books) and thus into the books. The Ogier vanish at some point in the future of the books, as does channelling, and the world resets itself to the First Age and so on.

As for the numbering of the ages, this seems locked in place. Both in-universe characters and the out-of-universe narration (including comments by RJ) refer to it as the Third Age of seven. That seems fairly certain.
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Before the first age. - 04/09/2009 04:13:13 PM 1306 Views
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I think of two possibilities.. - 04/09/2009 05:35:49 PM 1102 Views
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Agreed - 07/09/2009 12:23:14 PM 716 Views
Seems a re-read is in order for several of us. - 06/09/2009 12:36:47 PM 707 Views
I don't think that's enough, though. - 04/09/2009 06:52:43 PM 892 Views
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It is [almost] unquestionably Earth. - 04/09/2009 07:42:56 PM 954 Views
Re: Before the first age. - 04/09/2009 07:58:04 PM 776 Views
Actually the Ogier might have been there first *NM* - 04/09/2009 08:07:09 PM 303 Views
An Age long past and yet to come; was there ANY true "First Age"? - 05/09/2009 03:09:08 PM 800 Views
I don't think that is right - 09/09/2009 02:21:44 PM 759 Views
Yeah, I must've crossed them up with the Nym. - 09/09/2009 04:21:14 PM 693 Views
The full story - 05/09/2009 07:28:54 PM 681 Views
Ogier are not constructs - 06/09/2009 12:34:05 AM 825 Views
Indeed. - 06/09/2009 03:32:01 AM 727 Views

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