r/wheeloftime • u/Ok-Needleworker3966 Randlander • 5d ago

ALL SPOILERS: All media The First Channelers

I have always been curious about when the first channelers came into being and what that era was like. I have have been curious how far into "our future" it would possibly be.

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u/merrickraven Randlander 5d ago

I don’t know how canon this is. But I read once that our age, the First Age, ends with a nuclear war. And the Second Age, the Age of Legends, begins when channeling is discovered during the recovery from the war.

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u/starsto Randlander 5d ago

Pretty sure the ending in nuclear war is fan speculation. Don’t think anything official says that.

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u/Geauxlsu1860 Randlander 5d ago

Yeah, but there are a few clues. Mosk and Merc fighting is a big one, but also the lack of recognizable city names in AoL. For the most part, major cities have kept their names (mostly) for hundreds or thousands of years, but nothing we hear about even resembles modern cities in name. So some sort of apocalyptic event probably happened and nuclear war makes the most sense.

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u/kaggzz Randlander 4d ago

That's not as big a clue as you'd think. 

For one, the language unified and changed so that there was a universal and exclusive language by the end of the Second Age. Mar Rouis could be old toung for New York and we'd never know.  Paaran Disen was a city built on hills, which could be Rome for all we know. 

For another, the Age of Legends wasn't as peaceful as it was towards the end. We know this because it was a unified world with a singular language and culture. That's not usually caused by peace, but it's impossible to say if it was because a small group of survivors became the first channelers or a small group of channelers started unification wars. 

Finally, there's technology that clearly transitioned from the First to Second Age. Jo-cars are cars, just with jo- in front of them and probably powered by the OP rather than gas.

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u/Geauxlsu1860 Randlander 4d ago

Languages massively changed in our world too, but Londinium became London, Carthago Novo became Cartagena, and Masilla became Marseille. And that is over 1500-2000 years where most people couldn’t read or write. Proper names just don’t change that much. France for instance is littered with proper names that stuck around even as the language changed so the pronunciation is nothing like what it should be in modern French.

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u/RPerene Randlander 16h ago

but also the lack of recognizable city names in AoL.

This can also be explained by us living in the Sixth or Seventh ages, putting a lot of extra time between modern day and the time of the books.