  This assumes that was the first use and only intended use of this particular Ter'angreal. I would agree, if we knew for sure that the Aes Sedai that ended up Rhuidean...somehow had the capability to create this kind of Ter'angreal...you would be right. I need to go back and read Rand's trip and see if we know for sure.  If they did NOT build it, the single-mode functionality is more likely, not less. The only reason I can see for the Columns to have a multi-mode functionality is that they were Built according to a prophecy that required Aviendha's second trip. I do NOT think that is the case.  You assume that it was only programmed to analyze Blood and Bone.  I assume only that it has a single mode of operation. The most likely mode -- and prior to ToM, the consensus opinion -- is Blood and Bone detection/manipulation/analysis. It could follow threads into the past or track Soul Memories, or operate in some other fashion. but it has only ONE mode of operation.  However the Columns worked to show the past, Aviendha's second trip MUST be explainable with the same mode/hardware.  The Rings are specific to that individual life's future, not generational futures, so it would not have been redundant.  It would have been easier to re-program an existing mirror-world viewer than to add mirror world viewing to a device expected to not need mirror world viewing for a couple of thousand years.  I wasn't saying Aviendha's visions were factual.  But you do insist that the Columns showed her those visions. :D I think they were hallucinations/post-hypnotic suggestions  Interesting. "Translation transparency" - so the Ter'angreal inserted names she'd be familiar with, but this was a past Turning? I'm not against that idea, but that's a far way for a bloodline to travel...  First of all, I don't believe that the Columns did show Aviendha a past Turning, I just think that if they showed her ANYTHING, is was the past, read through Blood Inheritance, rather than any sort of actual future.  Second, Blood Inheritance is not necessarily linear. Factors(memories/experiences) diverge and converge so that in one generation they are weak or dilute and in another they are recombined as strong as ever. The recombination of ancestral memories from one or more Turnings in the past is statistically unlikely, but then, so are the "coincidences" that make any of the major characters who they are. I've written elsewhere about "the Pattern's 0,000+ year breeding program" that produced Rand at the right time and place to fight T'G  Hehe. I was speaking as though Aviendha's Talent affected the Ter'angreal. 