.  Why would they build a tool that was simply a backward looking machine?  Because they already had a "forward looking machine" handy? (The Wise One Apprentice Testing Rings--A device which clearly uses either T'A'R or Mirror Worlds to show "ALL possible futures.")  The Rings are specific to that individual life's future, not generational futures, so it would not have been redundant.  But, considering what Aviendha saw, we have every reason to believe it was much more capable of doing things that it hadn't been used to do.  Why does everyone take Aviendha's POV for fact?  Considering that her encounter with Nakomi reads like the POV of an action hero fighting a drug-enhanced interrogation, why won't anyone consider that it might have been Aviendha that was "reprogrammed" rather than the columns?  I wasn't saying Aviendha's visions were factual. 