This is work in progress!
  1. When linking, there is a limit of 13 for saidar channelers, and a limit of 1 for saidin channelers. These limits are larger for combinations.
  2. Strength gains from linking are not additive.
  3. 13 seems to be special in some way - perhaps there is another effect that starts to become noticable at that point?
  4. There also some wierd things going on with who can control a link.
Thinking about these leads me to suggest that we are really seeing the combination of several effects, and that there is some kind of repulsion for other saidar channelers exerted by a linked group of saidar channelers, and overcoming this uses some of an individual's contribution. When a saidin channeler is added to the link, this forces a different (and more efficient?) configuration of the flows, allowing much greater power utilisation. Perhaps the adding of a male reduces the repulsion between the females?

I suppose that my real point is that time and again, when people are seeing what is apparently a single effect or group of effects, they start looking for a single cause. This is wrong so often, it is almost amusing...

I also would like to incorporate within my theory some kind of distance dropoff, with a function something like logarithmic. Like this, a massive increase in power would have little effect in increasing the distance that a weave could effectively be channeled at.


Donal K. Fellows / Department of Computer Science / University of Manchester / U.K.
fellowsd@cs.man.ac.uk