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pedanterrific comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 9 - Less Wrong
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Cranial capacity is about the same (reference wikipedia in my original comment). Also, our knowledge of their tool use is somewhat moot if we don't even know anything about a super advanced civilization. As in, what else are we missing about the past? The point about Africans is the strongest.
As to the second point (archaeological evidence):
What's worse than nukes? Balefire.
There's a decent chance you already know this, but that bit is probably a reference to Harry Potter and the Wastelands of Time. I don't think that fic describes what did its Atlantis in in any great detail (though it's been a year or two since I read it), but whatever it was, it was probably an apocalypse of subtype dug too deep and awakened an ancient evil. All the absurdly lethal skeletal guardians left lying around seem to point in that direction, at least.
On the other hand, there's enough references to D&D magic floating around that balefire wouldn't be too outré.
Balefire's not even that bad, unless you're the Dragon Reborn and can balefire back more than a couple minutes.
That's not really fair. Balefire didn't get its bad reputation from Rand wiping out cities with it until the universe destabilized.
My point was that you have to be a ridiculously powerful wielder of the One Power before being able to weave balefire stronger than a nuke. There's probably only a handful of people in the series that can do it, now that the Choedan Kal is broken.
But there's no shortage of people who could accomplish it cooperatively, if you get male and female channelers working together.
I'm sure that in Wheel of Time there were plenty of ways to obliterate a city with the One Power back in the Age of Legends. The issue isn't that it can obliterate cities, but that if you use it for wholesale destruction like that, unlike, say, explosions, it fucks up the very fabric of reality.
Just get a circle of men and women...
No evidence that circle can weave balefire. But haven't read books after Crossroads, so maybe it appears later.
Is there any evidence that there are things which can be woven individually which can't be woven by circles? I don't remember any.
I'd say you're looking at the wrong canon, but that's never stopped Eliezer before.