Wells possibilities

[Darklightz]

I just thought of something,would a Well allow someone who's shielded to use saidar/saidin?

Also,since we know that a man can use saidar and a woman can use saidin,would it be possible for say,a man to store saidin into a well so a woman could use it and channel undetected from other women?

And finally could a Well be used to store the True Power?

[The Occultist]

Originally posted by Darklightz
I just thought of something,would a Well allow someone who's shielded to use saidar/saidin?

Also,since we know that a man can use saidar and a woman can use saidin,would it be possible for say,a man to store saidin into a well so a woman could use it and channel undetected from other women?

And finally could a Well be used to store the True Power?

I don't think somebody who is shielded could use a well, and here's the analogy I used in another thread: in Far Madding, we know that those two T'A prevent channelers from channeling, except for through a well. My reasoning is that the T'A prevent people within from channeling saidar and saidin because the T'A keeps it out, but the wells, since they are brought inside, they contain OP that is already within Far Madding, so it can be channeled. When you're shielded, it's the same thing: you can't channel OP that is outside of the shield (i.e. YOU), and the OP within a well can't really be brought within the shield, so no, you can't channel at all when shielded.

Men can use Saidar and women can use Saidin? I was not aware at all of this. If you're referring to Halima channeling saidin, remember that Halima is not really a woman.

As for a well storing TP? we don't really know for certain. However, I believe the consensus is that since most T'A, angreal, and S'A were created with the OP, with absolutely no knowledge of even the existence of the TP, that they would not be compatible with the TP. I believe a well falls under the category of T'A, because it serves a specific purpose. It's been shown that some T'A require no use of the OP, some T'A require use of any OP, and some T'A are specific to either Saidin or Saidar. With that in mind, I don't think a well would have been tuned for the TP.

[Corenne]

Originally posted by The Occultist
Men can use Saidar and women can use Saidin? I was not aware at all of this. If you're referring to Halima channeling saidin, remember that Halima is not really a woman.

I think what Darklightz might have been referring to was the incident at Shadar Logoth during the Cleansing, while Rand simultaneously channeled saidar and saidin. Rand was utilizing the female half of the Power without a doubt...he described quite vividly his difficulty surrendering to saidar in order to control it, quite different from what he is used to with saidin. Rand had to weave a conduit out of saidar in order to filter the Taint off of saidin through Shadar Logoth.

The Aes Sedai sent to investigate what happened there were also puzzled by what Rand had done, likening it to something they had never seen before. This befuddlement is quite possible, since a man was channeling a half of the Power little or never before used by a man (hence the strange choices that a male channeler would have made).

[Zaiyac Drayon]

Originally posted by The Occultist
I don't think somebody who is shielded could use a well, and here's the analogy I used in another thread: in Far Madding, we know that those two T'A prevent channelers from channeling, except for through a well. My reasoning is that the T'A prevent people within from channeling saidar and saidin because the T'A keeps it out, but the wells, since they are brought inside, they contain OP that is already within Far Madding, so it can be channeled. When you're shielded, it's the same thing: you can't channel OP that is outside of the shield (i.e. YOU), and the OP within a well can't really be brought within the shield, so no, you can't channel at all when shielded.

But the shield just blocks the channeler from accessing the True Source, it doesn't block them from weaving. We can see this when Rand broke his shield at Dumai Wells whilst shielded. So if you had a well you could still channel while shielded.

[The Occultist]

Originally posted by Zaiyac Drayon
But the shield just blocks the channeler from accessing the True Source, it doesn't block them from weaving. We can see this when Rand broke his shield at Dumai Wells whilst shielded. So if you had a well you could still channel while shielded.

But in order to weave, wouldn't you first need to channel what was in the well through you? If so, then you would still come across the shield and be unable to use it.

[Zaiyac Drayon]

But how do you know the Shield actually blocks 360 degrees, complete stoppage of every attempt to weave? Isnt it just a block between the Source and the channeler?

[Shadar the Mad]

Originally posted by Darklightz
I just thought of something,would a Well allow someone who's shielded to use saidar/saidin?

Also,since we know that a man can use saidar and a woman can use saidin,would it be possible for say,a man to store saidin into a well so a woman could use it and channel undetected from other women?

And finally could a Well be used to store the True Power?

1. I think so, though we don't really know enough about how shielding and wells work to be sure. But if the Far Madding ter'angreal works on the same principal as shielding, a well should work under the similar circumstances.

2. Unlikely - a man can't actually channel saidar himself, he merely controls the flow of saidar from a female channeler he's linked with. From what we can see, drawing on a well is fairly similar to drawing on the True Source, so it's probably at a similar level - a man could draw on a well of saidar only through a link with a woman.

3. You might conceivably be able to create a well for that specific purpose, though we've never had a hint of ter'angreal being developed for the True Power - unsurprising since only one person actually uses it. Certainly, a regular OP well wouldn't work.

[Darklightz]

Maybe men can't draw on saidar directly but they can use it once it is drawn just as Rand did.Wich is why I was wondering if Saidar already drawn and stored in a Well could be used later on.I"m pretty sure it can

[very annoyed]

i belive shielding to be a way of "clogging" up the path between saidar and you. the thing that is cut when stilled, is what they severe when you get shielded. meaning that you should be abel too accses other sources like a well.

[Asha'man Meyers]

for a second suppose the part a channeler uses to channel is like a third hand, an invisible one, and the source an object that you can always reach anywhere.

Shielding would be like restraining that hand. You can still struggle (you can try to break a shield someone has on you just as you can try and get your real hand free from someone's grip). You're just prevented from `picking up` the OP.

Far'Madding takes away the object. There's no way you can reach something that isn't there. Wells, however, aren't affected. See it as far madding being a paved section with sand all around, and taking a small handful of sand along with you. You'd still have sand in the paved bit, you just couldn't get more without leaving.

Severing is like amputating that hand. You can't `pick up` the OP without a suitable hand.

It's a very crude analogy, ofcourse, but I think it works well enough in this scenario. What Nyn does when she heals someone is like reattaching that severed hand, or even more like giving them a new one.

[Shadar the Mad]

Originally posted by Darklightz
Maybe men can't draw on saidar directly but they can use it once it is drawn just as Rand did.Wich is why I was wondering if Saidar already drawn and stored in a Well could be used later on.I"m pretty sure it can

Except you still have to draw the power from a source, even if it's a handy bucket instead of the ocean it came from originally. I doubt there's a difference - you're still requiring a male channeler to open a connection to a source of saidar, something he's not able to do.

[raistmajer]

Well, unlike a T'A, S'A or an angreal, a well doesn't require you to channel through it, but from it.
The well stores the OP, as such that is what they draw from it.
I believe it was the illistrated guide that stated that they could be used in steddings, where the OP isn't blocked but doesn't exist at all.

As for the cross drawing, it wouldn't work. Rand still had to have a woman there to link with to draw on the female half. Just because its there, just like Saidar in a normal area, doesn't mean a man can draw from it.

[The Adversary]

Can someone with a Well channel if they are shielded?

Yes, of course they would.
Don't be stupid.
That is one of the reasons they were made. Do you think they were made simply so that People could go to Far Madding or channel in Steddings? How often would that need arise? People here cannot even agree that they would work in a Stedding, which would leave the only possible use a sight-seeing trip to Far Madding...
Not very likely.
Of these three possibilities, the greatest probability is the danger of being unexpectedly shielded. Far Madding and the Stedding offer no inherent danger to Aes Sedai in and of themselves, so being able to channel there might be novel, but not really necessary. But being shielded by an enemy is a life-threatening event. That is what prompted the develpment of Wells.
*sigh*
How could anyone think otherwise? They weren't simply playing around with gadgets, they made these things to save their own lives during a perlious age.

Wells have to be in close contact with a person to work.
You see the True Source is all around a person, everywhere and nowhere at once. But both male and female channelers alike agree with thier description of the procedure for channeling it. Whether you reach out and embrace it, or reach out and seize it, you have to REACH OUT. The One Power is an external energy.
It comes from without.
A Well is an internal source. You don't have to be in contact with the True Source to channel from a Well, you only have to be able to physically touch your well. I mean, if you had to be in touch with the True Source to work a Well, what would be the point of one? Anyone who says different is a moron.

[Asha'man Meyers]

another reason for wells could be that you don't have to do anything before channeling that would give you away. There's no need to embrase the source, you can just reach into the well (invisibly to everyone) and do your stuff, giving you a slight advantage over your opponent. And, afterall, isn't a slight advantage everything you're after in a battle situation?

[The Adversary]

I do not know that that is necessarily true.
The power is the power, regardless of where it is drawn from.
The flows are still there, for all who can, to see.
Certainly the gaurdian ter'angreal of Far Madding detected Nynaeve's channeling. As you will recall, Cadsuane noticed it too when Nyaeve embraced the Source through her Well outside the council chambers. You are right in part though. I think the unexpectedness and surprise of the thing is that, suddenly, someone is able to channel when their enemies think they cannot.

[Aviendha]

Originally posted by The Adversary
Do you think they were made simply so that People could go to Far Madding or channel in Steddings?

My response for The Adversary:
Let me say this very slowly so you will understand it.
Before the War of the Power, Aes Sedai weren't shielded very often.
To think that ter'angreal were created specifically for people who were shielded is completely stupid.
You would have to be an absolute moron to believe that.

It's obvious that Wells were made for research purposes.
Most artifacts from the Age of Legends were.
Everywhere in the books it will tell you that Aes Sedai were scientists. Jordan portrayed them like that all the time. Remember What Lanfear was doing just before the Dark One broke free? Let me remind you, for you probably don't:
She was doing research!
It's so obvious, I don't see how you can't see this.
"Can the One Power be stored/quantified/etc/etc?" is one of the most fundamental questions that can be asked about the One Power.
And once that had been answered, the usefulness of having a small quantity of the One Power ready for poking at was enormous.

Wells are just a different, portable, source from the True Source. Nothing more. If you're shielded, you can't reach out to the source. It says so right there in the books! Are you too stupid to remember that?
Let me say this again, as it's very fundamental:
The reaching out is blocked.
So it doesn't matter which source you'd try to use, as you can't access it. Which was obvious all the time for everyone, and would be to you if only you would abandon this fable of Wells being somehow developed specifically for people who were shielded.


My response for everybody else:
It might be me, but before the War of Power, I don't think Aes Sedai were generally in the habit of being shielded either.

As with most artifacts from the Age of Legends, Wells were probably made for research purposes. "Can the One Power be stored/quantified/etc/etc?" seems like a pretty fundamental question to me, something which could keep the scientists that many Aes Sedai were busy for quite a while. And imagine the usefulness of having a small quantity of the One Power ready for poking at.

A good thing too that this research took place, for without it the Eye of the World would never have been created.

[The Adversary]

And I'll say this just once in reply:
You are an idiot and YOU DON'T READ THE BOOKS.

Did I say that anyone who thinks differently is a moron?
I meant it. Unfortunately by saying it, it acts like the "universal moron call". And here, as you can see, a moron has entered the discussion.
Age of Legends?
What the hell are you talking about?
It has been mentioned several times in the books that Wells and many other types of recently discovered ter'angreal were not made during the Age of Legends at all, but during the Breaking, when...you guessed it, Aes Sedai were in danger all the time, and most especially from other channelers.
Duh. Have you gone senile? Do you not understand what you read?
You seem to think that all knowledge of the power died out as soon as the Breaking started. What EVER gave you that idea? It died out little by little. The knowledge didn't die out until the people who held it died out. So those who survived initially and had the knowledge and skill made new tools to deal with their altered circumstances. The Breaking lasted a long, long time, and so many things were made that dealt specifically with the day to day perils that living in that age entailed.
Research!
What a cad.
Nynaeve's ter'angreal, the whole damn set, was made to defend against attack. The books state this quite clearly. The belt which contains the Well is part of that set.
Your theories are moot, since we know what that matched jeweled set of ter'angreal are for. You wanna argue, argue with the author...he has made it known when these things were made and what they were made for.

Read COT, hardcover page 536.
Chapter "Ornaments". Cadsuane tells you the origin of Nynaeve's Well as well as the rest of her ornaments. They were made at the same time and for the same general purpose as her own.

Then read WH, hardcover, page 299 and 300. Elayne tells you what the ter'angreal Nynaeve wears are for.

Even the Forsaken deduced what some of these latter day ter'angreal were, what they did, and when they were made.
Demandred figured out that the Aes Sedai guarding the hilltop where Rand was cleansing saidin must have a device that detected men channeling...and he didn't even have to see them to deduce this. And he knew when they must have been made, during the Breaking. He figured this out in two seconds, and you haven't been able to do so yet...even with all the help the author has given you.

Cadsuane's ter'angreal are a matched set all made at the same time, as is Nynaeve's, that is to say, made during the Breaking. The only one that is not part of the set is the finger-rings/bracelet angreal. Both women have Wells as part of their defensive/offensive sets. That should tell you everything you need to know.
But maybe you are right.
I am open-minded so let's give you the benefit of the doubt.
So by your reckoning the Wells, as part of a MATCHED SET mind you, were made hundreds of years earlier than the rest of the MATCHED SET, for the purpose of research, and then the rest of the MATCHED SET was made much later during the Breaking to protect women who could channel from other channelers, most especially men.
Hmmmm.... sounds stupid when you say it out loud.
I don't know where you are getting your ideas, but you should try fitting them to the facts sometime. They make better theories that way.
Research? Research? God have mercy.
Sounds like you need to do a little research.

[The Adversary]

My opponent seems to have fled the field.
Pity.

[Shadar the Mad]

Originally posted by The Adversary
My opponent seems to have fled the field.
Pity.

I think your use of the word 'opponent' probably sums up why. I'll grant Aan' started the insults, but your hostile response doesn't exactly promise reasoned debate...

[The Adversary]

Ahh...but there is history there.
Aan always starts the insults.
He doesn't like me, because I know more than he does.

[The Occultist]

But he didn't start it, you did. Granted, you didn't know he was included as one of those who didn't agree with you, but he didn't, so you did call him a moron, and that was the first of the insulting on this thread.

[Last Battle]

Just throwing this out:L About men being able to channel Saidar using a well that might not possible, but perhaps women might be able to channel Saidin in this way. Because as I see it men can only channel Saidar if a woman innitiates the link. So if wells were to work similarly women would be able to link themselves to a saidin channeling well, but men couldn't do the same.

[The Occultist]

That doesn't even make any sense to me. You're right, men can't channel Saidar unless linked to a woman, but a woman can't channel Saidin either unless linked to a man. It seems to me that the assumption your argument is based on is that a woman could channel Saidin any time of the day if she so chose to, and that's why it'd be possible for her to channel it from a well.

[Aviendha]

Originally posted by Shadar the Mad
I'll grant Aan' started the insults

What the Occultist said.
My post was mostly just a misguided attempt to show by example that hostility and insulting behaviour isn't beneficial to conducting a worthwhile discussion. Obviously that way of putting the message didn't get through to the Adversary either.
I don't know why I bothered, but whatever. "It seemed like a good idea at the time."

[Sanctume_at_wor]

Didn't it require at least 6 AS to keep the shield on Rand?

Would the small amount of source from a well be enough to break it? I doubt it.

Back in the Stone of Tear, the girls were shielding one on one, it was like whoever gets the jump on shielding first wins. So a well for those one on one shielding could be enough to overpower the shielder to win. That surprise factor from the well would turn the fight.

[The Adversary]

Originally posted by The Occultist
That doesn't even make any sense to me. You're right, men can't channel Saidar unless linked to a woman, but a woman can't channel Saidin either unless linked to a man. It seems to me that the assumption your argument is based on is that a woman could channel Saidin any time of the day if she so chose to, and that's why it'd be possible for her to channel it from a well.

I am thinking that what Last Battle meant was that all the known Wells, and perhaps any and all in existence, were made to store saidar. After all, the only Wells we know about were made during the Breaking by women, mostly for protection from men. We get no evidence at all that Aes Sedai knew how to make Wells prior to the Breaking, nor the type of web-absorbing ter'angreal both Mat and Nyanaeve (and I suspect Cadsuane) have. A lot of these "last-days" ter'angreal are completely new to the Forsaken. They have never seen anything like them before. As is to be expected, given the timeframe of their making.

So any Well you see is unlikely to work for a man, he would have to be linked to a women to use it. But I doubt that that circumstance could arise anyway, as anytime one would need to use a Well, it probably would be impossible to link. They would be shielded or something. The woman has to establish the link and there has to be something there for her to draw on when she does. How could she establish a link so that a man could draw on her Well, if the man could not hold up his end of the linkage?

[The Occultist]

Sanctume, I don't think a well would work in the way you seem to be implying. As far as I know, a well only acts as a storage for the power, and does not act as an angreal. If I am correct about that, then a well would not do anything to help you were at a draw with an attacker.

[Asha'man Meyers]

that depends on where the well comes into the person, and a lot of other things. See the person's limit as a bottleneck in the flow of the power, a narrower bit in a waterpipe, a resistor in an electrical circuit. If the drawing of the well occurs beyond this point, they could draw their max + that tiny little bit. Otherwise, not.

[The Occultist]

That is a good point. So how does a well work then? Can you make flows directly from the well? Or must you draw the power in the well through you to be able to use it? The latter makes the most sense as any use with the power is known as "channeling", and to channel the power would require you to draw it through yourself. However, we just don't know enough to be able to make assumptions like this.

[The Adversary]

You would have to draw the flows into yourself before you could do anything with them...as always.
Any ter'angreal that expends pre-formed weaves (and there are many of such) would need to be powered by you, or somehow enabled by you...and it wouldn't be a Well. Basically, one of the main things that differentiate the many types of ter'angreal that there are, is not simply what they are designed to do, but where they sit in relation to one's link with the One Power.
An angreal, or sa'angreal, much like a Well, sit between a person and their link to the power; that is to say that the individual embraces the source through them, and these objects actually draw power before the person does.
We'll call these ter'angreal "Type One TA's".

With most other ter'angreal, the person draws on the power, and then transfers the appropriate flows to the device to make it work...or simply empowers the device and lets the device differentiate the necessary flows for itself, if it is capable of that. In this instance the channeler gets the power first, and the ter'angreal they are using is second in line.
We'll call these "Type Two TA's"

I think you will find that nearly all Type One TA's enhance, enable or alter the nature of the power itself in a fundamental, but nevertheless, general sort of way. For instance an angreal simply increases the amount of the power one person can handle by themselves, but the ratios of their individual strengths and talents would still be unchanged, they would simply all be multiplied by some new unknown factor. Even augmented, the person would still be twice as strong in Air as they were Earth, if that was the case before.

On the other hand, most Types Twos TA's are not generalized, but in fact very speciallized, in that they are designed mostly to facilitate a specific function or weave that might be hard for the channeler to devise on their own, or on the spur of the moment; say weaves of Fire for those weak or poor in dealing with Fire, or some highly complex or finicky weave that people would never be likely to learn or master.

I haven't talked about these yet, but Type Threes are also specialized like Type Twos, but draw their power either continuously, or intermittently and interactively.
Mat's medallion is a Type Three.
They are for the most part passive devices and their weaves are passive. Like Wards. They do not react until the power is used near them, or perhaps they do not react until a specific weave or flow is detected. This type of ter'angreal does not have to be powered by the user. It is always on, or at least always working....but like I said...they are passive. Like smoke detectors.And in fact that is how most of them are used; to warn of danger or to guard aganst attack or peril. This is why they are designed to be always "on". It would be extremely hard for a channeler to guard against every possible threat, for every minute of the day without a little help. You simply can't channel for that long without needing a break. So these things are for the most part designed to detect danger or thwart offensive weaves. Some devices of this nature aren't really using the power all the time, but essentially they turn themselves on when they are triggered by the weave they are designed to counter or exploit. Nevertheless I include these ter'angreal in this category because they still are not powered by the wearer or the user. Their power requirement is satisfied elsewhere.