3.12: Is Randland a future Earth?

[Erica Sadun, Pam Korda]

The characters in the books are the source of many of our myths and legends and we are the source of many of theirs. You can look two ways along a wheel. [RJ, America Online chat, 28 June, 1996]

Time is a wheel. If you look in one direction, you are looking at the past. If you just turn around and look in the other direction, you are looking at the future. The books are set in our future and in our past, depending on which way you look... [RJ, America Online conference, 20 October, 1994]

Here are some possible references to our world:

[TEOTW: 4, The Gleeman, 43]:

• John Glenn: "Tell us about Lenn," Egwene called. "How he flew to the moon in the belly of an eagle made of fire. Tell about his daughter Salya walking among the stars." (Eagle has landed.../Lenn may be a merger of LEM (lunar module) and Glenn)
• Salya: Sally Ride? Or Salyut, the space station [Douglas Cole].
• Moscow, ICBMs: Mosk the Giant, with his Lance of Fire that could reach around the world.
• America::Merk the other giant.
• Queen Elizabeth::Alsbet, queen of all. (Remains of British Empire/Commonwealth?)
• Mother Theresa: Materese the Healer, Mother of the Wondrous Ind
• Anne Landers: Anla, the wise counselor?

[TEOTW: 24, Flight Down the Arinelle, 300]: Bayle Domon mentions a "mountain hollowed into a bowl, and in its center, a silver spike a hundred spans high, and any who comes within a mile of it, dies." This could possibly be a big radio telescope, or maybe the Age of Legends equivalent.

[TGH: 47, The Grave Is No Bar to My Call, 559]: "Michael instead of Mikel. Patrick instead of Paedrig. Oscar instead of Otarin." St. Michael and St. Patrick? I don't know of a St. Oscar. (Peter McDermott offers, "The Archbishop Oscar Romero, assassinated in 1980, is a candidate for beatification and canonization. It's a stretch but perhaps there's a connection.")

[TGH: 49, What Was Meant To Be, 574]: Loial is reading 'To Sail Beyond the Sunset'-- reference to Tennyson's poem "Ulysses"

[TSR: 11, What Lies Hidden, 146-7] In Tanchico Museum at the Panarch's Palace:

• Stylized Three-Pointed Triangle (reeking of greed and pride)--Mercedes Benz logo
• Skeletons of Giraffe and Elephant

[TSR: 24, Rhuidean, 277]: Gautama Buddha-- Ghoetam under the tree of life