I'm writing a short Earwa fanfic and have some tough lore/metaphysical questions

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Francis Buck

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« Reply #30 on: December 22, 2013, 11:16:41 pm »
How come he never sees himself from a rocks point of view again (nor do any other schoolmen give any such accounts)?

Good question. A lot of onta-related stuff kinda bemuses me. One thing I found strange is that the Inchoroi grafted themselves with the ability to grasp the onta. What the hell did they graft?
 

Madness

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« Reply #31 on: December 23, 2013, 01:40:42 pm »
Let me be the first to say what is on all of our minds:

Sorcerous Phalli.

But seriously... good question, FB.

I'd gather that they either had preexisting knowledge about the so-called "Promised Ground" and sorcery's existence on Earwa allowed them to run a bunch of previously programmed grafting trials that might work only on Earwa or still had enough knowledge of the Tekne collectively at that point to actively figure out what makes the brain/body "see" the onta (they do most of their thinkenearing with the Tekne over the latter part of Cu'jara Cinmoi's life).

As per Pat's Part 2, 2011 interview and the Cuno-Inchoroi Wars entry of TTT Glossary:

- There is no evidence of the surviving Inchoroi using sorcery during the two major battles with the Nonmen (or in the Glossary's telling of the Cuno Inchoroi Wars:
  - Battle of Pir Pahal (first conflict): Nonmen of Viri and Inchoroi turn on each other, the hosts of Cu'jara Cinmoi save some of the Virian Nonmen, and the Inchoroi are beaten back to the Ark.
  - Battle of Inniur-Shigogli (Post-Womb Plague): inside the Ring Mountains raised by the Ark's Fall; weapons races are unleashed, surviving Inchoroi still using weapons of light and protected by Chorae (which actually doesn't give us an indication as to whether or not the Inchoroi have already attempted the graft).

However, major clues from the interview:

Quote
The Inchoroi only possessed the Tekne when they arrived in Eärwa. All of the Inchoroi are the products of successive Graftings, species-wide rewrites of their genotype, meant to enhance various abilities and capacities, such as the ability to elicit certain sexual responses from their victims (via pheromone locks), or the capacity to ‘tune sensations’ and so explore the vagaries and vicissitudes of carnal pleasure. The addition of anthropomorphic vocal apparatuses is perhaps the most famous of these enhancements.

The Grafting that produced Aurang and Aurax was also devised during the age-long Cûno-Inchoroi Wars, one of many failed attempts to biologically redesign themselves to overcome the Nonmen. But they had been outrun by their debauchery by this time, and had lost any comprehensive understanding of the Tekne. The Graftings had become a matter of guesswork, more likely to kill than enhance those who received them. The Inchoroi filled the Wells of the Aborted with their own in those days.

Aurang and Aurax are two of six who survived the attempt to Graft the ability to see the onta.

  - only possessed Tekne when they arrived in Earwa.
  - successive Graftings, species-wide rewrites of their genotype.
  - during the Cuno-Inchoroi Wars.
  - two of six who survived the attempt to Graft the ability to see the onta.

There are five hundred years after the Battle of Inniur-Shigogli of Cuno-Inchoroi Wars before the Nonmen trap the Inchoroi in the Ark and then another twenty years fighting inside before Nil'giccas instructs the Artisan and other Quya to fashion the Barricades (thinking they got them all?).

I'd say, considering the above points that each successive Grafting is a species-wide rewrite and that two of six survived, this must have been a late-game Hail Mary, probably during those twenty years fighting inside the labyrinthine Ark...

EDIT: I really didn't do your question justice, FB. Maybe it's like Bakker's Blind Mary/Red Argument: the ability to see the onta requires a specific neural architectural pattern?
« Last Edit: December 23, 2013, 01:44:15 pm by Madness »
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Francis Buck

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« Reply #32 on: December 23, 2013, 07:14:38 pm »
Thanks Madness, lots of interesting info there I didn't know about (or at least, I knew about it but didn't have context for it in the way you arranged).

Presumably, then, whatever it is that the Inchoroi had to graft is the same genetic thing that the Few possess, and normal people don't?

Madness

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« Reply #33 on: December 25, 2013, 04:00:02 am »
Lol, no worries, FB.

I'd hazard so (no real idea as to the actual mechanics). Bakker's said on ZTS that the sight of the Few relies on certain innate cognitive capacities (I should find the quote but I believe memory is one specifically). But yeah, again, my guess is they had to impose a certain kind of neural pattern or signature on themselves.

EDIT:

Quote from: Cu'jara Cinmoi, March 2006
The idea is that pertains to a certain kind of ability to remember. Since memory, like other cognitive capacities, seems to be somewhat heritable, so is the ability - but only somewhat. The thing with the Dunyain, however, is that they have spent millennia breeding for certain cognitive capacities.
« Last Edit: December 25, 2013, 04:04:41 am by Madness »
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Francis Buck

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« Reply #34 on: December 25, 2013, 05:35:59 am »
Interesting, this also brings up another question I've had for awhile (unrelated to my fanfic); is Serwa the only one of Kellhus's children that's one of the Few? Could Kelmomas be one without anyone realizing it (aside, perhaps, from Kellhus himself)?

Just seems odd that only one of...what, six children?...were one of the Few. Then again, someone I believe calculated that about 1 in 30,000 or so Earwans are members of the Few. Really, even that number seems a bitt high (though I wonder if it compensates for the gender issue).

But, we are dealing with Dunyain genetics.

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« Reply #35 on: December 25, 2013, 01:51:37 pm »
Interesting, this also brings up another question I've had for awhile (unrelated to my fanfic); is Serwa the only one of Kellhus's children that's one of the Few? Could Kelmomas be one without anyone realizing it (aside, perhaps, from Kellhus himself)?

Just seems odd that only one of...what, six children?...were one of the Few. Then again, someone I believe calculated that about 1 in 30,000 or so Earwans are members of the Few. Really, even that number seems a bitt high (though I wonder if it compensates for the gender issue).

But, we are dealing with Dunyain genetics.

Hmm... I don't remember us having any indication that Kelmomas is of the Few (however, only Kelmomas' perspective would be able to tell us that as there is no Mark without Canting). Equally strange as Mimara is of the Few (and I've put forth the thought that Astrology is something Few related in Earwa - while I was corrected that Esmenet did not say her Mother was a Witch).

But you'd think there'd be a higher probability of Few children if both parents are of the Few (if Esmenet's matrilineal actually is).
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« Reply #36 on: December 28, 2013, 05:50:30 am »
Here's a question for the timeline:  when had the Inchies added their human faces within their oyster shell heads?  Because depending on what the answer is, I might crackpot that they grafted the faces and frontal cortexes (or something) if humans who were of the Few. 

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« Reply #37 on: December 28, 2013, 12:56:37 pm »
Quote from: Cuno-Inchoroi Wars, TTT Glossary, p540, 2006 Canadian paperback
Ingalira called these captives Inchoroi, or "People of Emptiness," both because the sounds they made were empty of meaning and because they fell from the emptiness of the sky.

...

Years passed, and the power of Cu'jara Cinmoi and the High Mansion of Siol waxed.

...

Either because of original inconsistencies or because of subsequent corruptions, extant versions of the Isuphiryas are unclear as to the subsequent order of events. At some point a secret embassy of Inchoroi reached Nin'janjin at Viri. Unlike the Inchoroi brought before Cu'jara Cinmoi, these possessed the ability to speak Ihrimsu.

The Inchoroi only possessed the Tekne when they arrived in Eärwa. All of the Inchoroi are the products of successive Graftings, species-wide rewrites of their genotype, meant to enhance various abilities and capacities, such as the ability to elicit certain sexual responses from their victims (via pheromone locks), or the capacity to ‘tune sensations’ and so explore the vagaries and vicissitudes of carnal pleasure. The addition of anthropomorphic vocal apparatuses is perhaps the most famous of these enhancements.

Second one doesn't really indicate time but it gives some context.

Where's the "birthed mouths" quote from? ZTS? I should go back and read a bunch of Bakker's interviews in my holiday reading.
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locke

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« Reply #38 on: January 02, 2014, 09:27:27 pm »
How come he never sees himself from a rocks point of view again (nor do any other schoolmen give any such accounts)?
Because of how BEAUTIFUL the onta is.

And sorcery is all about ripping, tearing, shreading, raping, stabbing, destroying the onta.

The mark is not called the blood of the onta for nothing.  They literally make the world bleed with the desecrations of their changes.

So the onta is beautiful, sorcery is an ugly desecration of that beauty.  Naturally sorcerers do not want to remember what it is they do, the destruction of the sacred, so they constantly avoid taking internal responsibility for their crimes.

Just like Akka avoids thinking about how he was responsible for Inrau's damnation.  Or how he avoids thinking about the rape of Proyas (when accused of this by the Scarlet Spires, he only thinks of how news spreads and they know how to hit him where it hurts most with their accusations before swiftly pushing his thoughts to less painful, less self-accusatory directions). Akka deliberately avoids thinking about how he embodies desecration in his very being.

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« Reply #39 on: January 03, 2014, 04:31:00 am »
Fairly sure speech graft is in the cuno-inchoroi wars section of the TTT glossary.  Pretty early on in the piece - second contact with CC, after they make secret contact with NJ and Viri then NJ petitions an audience for them with CC and they have a limited ability to speak Imrihsu.
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mrganondorf

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« Reply #40 on: April 05, 2014, 12:56:43 am »
@ Francis Buck - I think the preferred method for a sorcerer to carry a chorae is to have a slave do it, a la Scarlet Spires/Cadres.

@ Triskele - I have to agree with you.  I think a few Inchoroi became sorcerous because they were able to graft on a person's head (perhaps soul) who was one of the few.

locke

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« Reply #41 on: April 07, 2014, 12:36:21 am »
they wouldn't graft a head, they'd graft the organ that has a point of contact with the outside.

They graft on the heart of a sorcerer, not the head.

Wilshire

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« Reply #42 on: April 07, 2014, 04:01:02 pm »
Your speculation is based on Seswatha's heart I would guess.

They wouldn't need the head, the head is just for speaking the utteral string. BTW is there reference to how the Inchoroi learned sorcery? Wondering how they figured out the inutterals.

Some organ with a point of contact to the outside is an interesting notation. The Inchroi's Tekne is some kind of extreme genetic manipulation so it has to be coded for in the DNA. I don't know if it has to be the heart, as I think "seswatha's heart" could be a metaphor, but it could be that or something else.

One option is that there is some kind of physical embodiment of the "soul" (or whatever it is that connects with the Outside). 

Another option would be the Eyes. Seeing/Watching is important in Earwa. Even the Psuke requires sight, through the eyes of other animals. Eyes are what lets you see the Onta, and perhaps the reason it can be accessed at all. Even Titirga wasn't a schoolman until he could see
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« Reply #43 on: April 07, 2014, 09:35:34 pm »
they wouldn't graft a head, they'd graft the organ that has a point of contact with the outside.

They graft on the heart of a sorcerer, not the head.

graftalltheorgans.png

Madness

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« Reply #44 on: April 08, 2014, 09:35:43 am »
Gotta graft them all?
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