[What Came Before]

More terrible still were those few Inchoroi who ventured into battle, hanging above the tumult, sweeping the earth with their weapons of light, apparently unaffected by the sorceries of the Ishroi

(Encyclopaedic Glossary, TTT)

I am not sure if this has been discussed elsewhere;
my impression had always been that the Aporos can negate all sorcery. But this quote implies that Aporetic sorcery functions similar to other sorceries, at least in granting the ability to 'walk' in the air. Can anyone think of other instances where the metaphysics of Aporos was described and compared to Anagogis and Gnosis? And this quote implies that aporetic sorcery is immune to chorae, as the Inchoroi could levitate while wearing the chorae, which I find a bit odd, because all other sorceries, including the Cishuarim's that does not leave a Mark, seem to be affected by Chorae. Considering that the Few do not become sensitive to Chorae until they learn the Esoterics, does this mean that the Aporos somehow grants power to the sorcerer to manipulate the world, while still letting the practitioner remain in a 'naive' state? Or is Aporos closer to the God's voice (than the Cishuarim, if we are taking Kellhus' explanation of the differences in sorceries as Fact)?

...they devised the first of the Chorae to render their masters immune to Cunuroi magic.

Does this mean that both Anagogic and Cishuarim sorcery were derived from 'Cunuroi magic'? Or is it more likely that only Cunuroi magic was mentioned because that was the only magic known at the time of the cuno-Inchoroi wars?

[What Came Before]

Anagogic was entirely human. The Cunoroi never used it.

Inchoroi could hang above the battlefield because 1. They have grafted wings and can fly under their own power and 2. Seem to have had nonsorcerous flying machines produced with the Tekne in the early days.

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The Inchoroi do have wings. Also, I think the Chorae are simply artifacts of the Aporos like the Agonic Collar is of the Gnostic Mengaecca or the Agonic Circle is of the Anagogic Spires.

What might we surmise from the books:

- There are no reasons to assume that Aporetic sorcery is fundamentally different from other sorceries, as the Psuhke is, for instance. The Aporos simply turns on reduction.
- There are no reasons to assume that Aporetic sorcery is operationally the same as other sorceries. The Aporos tends to return the World to its proper frame, innately God-given. It's unlikely that it will reflect the hierarchical development seperating the Anagogic from the Gnostic.
- Chorae, rather than being unique like Superman on Earth, are unique like the only Macbook in a room full of basic calculators. There are simply a sorcerous tech like the Whore's Shell, Wathi Doll, Kellhus' fireplace, etc, etc - I had listed most of the sorcerous artifacts in another thread.

[What Came Before]

The Aporos is something I want to flesh out further in future books. The basic idea is this: the Quya first developed the Aporos in the prosecution of their own intercine wars, but it was quickly forbidden. The arrival of the Inchoroi allowed several renegade Quya to pursue their sorcerous interrogations, leading to the production of tens of thousands of Chorae, which were used throughout the Cuno-Inchoroi wars.

The Aporos possesses a contradictory, or negative, semantics, and as such is able only to undo the positive semantics of things like the Gnosis, Psukhe, Anagogis - even the Daimos. Aporetic Cants have no other effect. Salting is actually a kind of side effect. I would rather wait until TTT comes out before discussing the metaphysics - it has to do with the Mark.

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Did he come out with anything post TTT on the topic?

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Ahh I knew it. Aporos was developed by Non-men and I bet in Isterbinth Akka and especially Mimara will learn the craft. Aporos sorceror with a Judging Eye ...

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Disagree with Akka, he would be a giant molten salt explosion if he even thought about it.

Mimara though, the first Aporatic Sorcerer since the fall of the Mengecca. Its possible, and I like it.

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By your argument, Mengaecca couldn't practice the Aporos, either, Wilshire?

Mimara, first Aporetic Witch since... the original practioners of the Aporos o.O? I figure she's onto Faith Power now... but Sorcery is the Co-opting of God's Song? Still blows me away.

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Sorcery is the Co-opting of God's Song? Still blows me away.

Mis-heard lyrics?

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One of the ideas behind anarcane ground simply follows the notion that the boundaries between the World and the Outside are variable. Some, taking the distinction between wakefulness and dreams as their analogy, believe anarcane ground to be Holy ground - places where the God has, for whatever reason, focussed his attention - dreams lucidly - thus rendering the co-option of his Song by sorcery difficult if not impossible.

... Yeah, say what?

I don't think Bakker knew what he was letting out of the bag. Or he did :ugeek: ?

[What Came Before]

since... the original practioners of the Aporos o.O?

One possible reason why the Consult (including the original Aporetic Quya renegades) have never manufactured any more Chorae in the past couple of millennia (at least) is that they are all Marked so deeply that even being in the same room as a Chorae is hazardous.

It makes sense to me that only a relatively young/inexperienced (and therefore weakly Marked) sorcerer could actually create a Chorae without dying in the process. If you've been wielding sorcery for centuries or millennia, you've no chance.

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The Mark changes subtly - perhaps, there's a gradation between Titirga, Cishaurim, and the Schools?

What would the Mark of the Aporetic Sorcerer look like?

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I was thinking more along the lines of the Mark deepening the more one uses sorcery. There's a RSB post on Zombie Three Seas that mentions the most ancient Nonmen Quya starting to salt as soon as a Chorae comes anywhere near them, in contrast to human sorcerers with merely human lifespans who don't start to salt unless the Chorae is virtually touching them.

The Aporos appears to be just as grounded in thoughts (as contrasted with the emotional core of the Psukhe) as the Gnosis and Anagogis, so I would not expect an Aporetic's Mark to be fundamentally different.

It's actually just occurred to me that Nil'Giccas seemingly had no problem being quite close to the Captain's Chorae, despite the depth of his own Mark. Doesn't seem to quite fit, somehow.

Nerdanel For The Day: Cleric wasn't really Nil'Giccas at all. Someone (Kellhus?) just convinced some relatively minor Nonman erratic he was Nil'Giccas through the implantation of false memories. When we get to Ishterebinth, we'll meet the really ancient Quya, and their Marks will make Cleric's look like a neophyte's.

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By your argument, Mengaecca couldn't practice the Aporos, either, Wilshire?

Not at all. We do know that the more deeply the schoolman is marked, the more they are affected by the chorae (I.e distance). Like mentioned above, there are instances with some sorcerers beginning to salt at fairly large distances.

I think we get a bit of this from Akka's POV as well, though I could be making it up. I feel like he is more sensitive to the chroae in later novels than in that first scene where the chroae is nearly touching.

I think the mengaecca would have a limited ability to use the aporos if it indeed marks the user as the other disciplines. After thousands of years, the Inchoroi should have millions and millions of chorae if they could be produced without consequence to the user. Maybe they do and are just waiting, for fear that they may end up in the hands of men before. Maybe there is another chorae horde, hidden underneath an old sietche....

Fully agreeing with Duskweaver.

[What Came Before]

I'm not sure, but where the Aporos invented by the Nonmen after the landing of the Inchoroi, or after the first wars? Was it a design, the Nonmen had crafted to overwhelm the Inchoroi, or simple a study in this direction by their Quya mages?

As I read through this posts, some questions come back to me. Is somewhere discribed, how a Chorae react to the Inchoroi, who use sorcery? They where damned before their landing and before their use sorcery and now are they....uhm...somekind of double-damned?