From rec.arts.sf.written Wed Nov 17 18:33:08 1993 Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written Path: nntp.msstate.edu!gatech!howland.reston.ans.net!usc!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!ames!pacbell.com!amdahl!amd!netcomsv!netcom.com!donh From: donh@netcom.com (Don Harlow) Subject: JORDAN: A Foretelling (longish) Message-ID: Organization: Esperanto League for North America, Inc. Date: Tue, 16 Nov 1993 20:27:47 GMT Lines: 87 The Foretelling is upon me, and I see the future of Jordan! The series will be completed with the ninth book, released on Hallowe'en in 1997, and Robert Jordan will go on to become a moderately well-known author of regional lore with definitive works on the life and deeds of Francis Marion and the curative properties of the palmetto. Meanwhile, he will have left many loose ends dangling in the series, and TOR Books will sharecrop out Randworld to other authors (Robert Jordan & Mercedes Lackey, _Herald-Mages of Andor_; Robert Jordan & Piers Anthony, _The Magic of Seanchan_; Robert Jordan & Elizabeth Moon, _The Paladins of Illian_; Robert Jordan & Jerry Pournelle, _The Mercenaries of Shienar_). rec.arts.books.jordan will _not_ be passed. Jordan discussion will spread out over the net, finding niches in groups as disparate as sci.kibology, soc.culture.california.oakhurst, alt.fan.piglet, rec.arts.sf.holovid. As use of the net continues to grow by 12% a month, postings will number in the millions every day, and it will become difficult for Pam Korda and Erica Sadun to keep track of them all. The FAQ will run to 1,377,914 lines, some five times as long as the series itself. The business sections of local newspapers will run long articles about Jordan on the net and its possible financial potential. Patrick Nielsen-Hayden will be forced to wear a surgically-installed pager and learn to do without sleep. Some Jordan posters will create a new religion in which Jordan is deified. Some anti-Jordan posters will create a new religion in which Jordan is demonized. The FDA will investigate both groups, but they will nevertheless be given tax-exempt status. Jordan himself will continue to pay taxes. Thanks to a re-release of the original series in 2023 (the nine books in the series will occupy positions one through nine in the New York Times' hardback fiction _and_ hardback non-fiction lists for 33 weeks) Jordan's taxes will pay off approximately one-third of the twenty trillion dollar national debt. When asked how he feels about this, the 75-year-old author will sagely comment: "I feel great about it. Sometimes, I do." His wife will just sniff. There will be 2,272 college classes around the country with titles such as: "Existentialism in the works of Robert Jordan," and old-time Jordan fans will complain that "Jordan should get back into the gutter, where he belongs." An interminable "Wheel of Time" holovid series, broadcast both at prime time and as a daytime soap opera, will make stars of a number of aspiring actors and actresses. The woman who plays Aviendha will go on to star as Scarlett O'Hara in "Gone With the Wind: The Turn of the Century." Perrin will grow pointy ears for episodes three through six, but will lose them when they prove not to be necessary for the series to succeed. A spin-off series, "Wheel of Time: The Next Generation" will not be quite as successful. "Wheel of Time" will also be the title of a popular game show. The most popular women's style in 2031 will be "the Ajah look." Hotel and motel managers will strive to grow stout. A proposal to rename Charleston, South Carolina, "Caemlyn" will be narrowly defeated by the city fathers. As physical storage systems reach their maximum possible size, net nodes will gradually be converted to biological systems -- brains cloned (by a fan of "Jurassic Park") from DNA discovered in a fossil of _dinosaurus obnoxius barneii_. The net itself will gradually become quasi-sentient -- this is a 21st century term used to describe any entity which is self-aware and capable of getting pissed off. The general attitude to this development will be, in 21st century parlance, "Shittin', bubo!" Unfortunately, due to the miserable state of the American educational system the first word will commonly be misspelled. Arthur C. Clarke's short story "Dial F for Frankenstein" will become popular again. An outbreak of premature deaths among Jordan posters will be found to be the result of the currently used newsreader, Omni Media Multiply Addressing News Interpreter (OM MANI), whose killfiles are peculiarly efficient. Anti-Jordan fanatics will cheer this discovery. Surviving Jordan posters will withdraw from the net to a mountain retreat called Paradise (which they, too, misspell, being the products of the same miserable educational system as everybody else). There they will discover that it was all true, and teach themselves how to channel, a capability which they will genetically pass on down to their children (Lysenko was right!). This will be the start of the Age of Legends. Some thousands of years later the descendants of these Jordan posters will attempt to open a new account on the net ... and the rest is history. -- Don Harlow donh@netcom.com Esperanto League (Info only) (800)828-5944 or elna@netcom.com Turnig^as la Rado de la Tempo, kaj postlasas multajn vojkadavretojn. (Lau^ Robert Jordan)