[TUC Spoilers]The Incû-Holoinas

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H

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« on: July 11, 2017, 02:17:35 pm »
For lack of a better title, this is what I'll put this under and port it over here for perusal.

First, we have the interesting "revelation" that the Sarcophagus is a prosthesis of the Ark.  In other words, it is a part of the Ark itself.

But wait, it goes further...why does the No-God need a soul in it at all?  How did that work on other worlds?

 Unless, the Ark didn't need a soul, because the Ark already had a soul.

Consider, the Ark made the Inchoroi to serve it.  Why?  It was the Ark itself who was looking for the answer to the "soul problem."  So, when Seswatha says the Ark was once living, it wasn't living in the sense of breathing, it was living in the sense of it having had a soul.  In other words, perhaps the Ark is the Progenitor, or rather, what is left of them.

But wait, look how the DûnSult refer to it.  Not the Ark, but just Ark.  That's it's name.  It is a being.  A mostly artificial one at this point, but one nonetheless.  It died, in the sense that the soul that kept it running was gone, post-Arkfall though, which is why the Inchoroi were so lost, they were a weapon race with nothing to wield them.  Because it was Ark who wielded them before, via the No-God apparatus, which was probably where the soul of Ark was.  It was Ark's "brain," which is probably why it can control all the Tekne things too.

So the No-God apparatus didn't need a soul while Ark "lived," Ark had it's own soul, a soul that was seeking to find the answer to the 144,000 question.  That question is what lead to it making the Inchoroi, who, later abandoned by Ark when it died in the fall, were left to try to figure out just what Ark was trying to do.  A prosthesis needs something to wield it.  Ark wielded it while it was still "alive" but now, some other soul needs to "read the code."

So, what kind of soul is needed to do so?  Presumably one that is suitably close to Ark's original one.  And if the DûnSult are right and the Progenitor's sin was to stray too close to Absolute, then the surrogate soul needs to also be suitably close to the Absolute too.
I am a warrior of ages, Anasurimbor. . . ages. I have dipped my nimil in a thousand hearts. I have ridden both against and for the No-God in the great wars that authored this wilderness. I have scaled the ramparts of great Golgotterath, watched the hearts of High Kings break for fury. -Cet'ingira

Walter

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« Reply #1 on: July 11, 2017, 02:33:43 pm »
I dunno if 'living' means soul.  Like, Sranc are 'alive', and don't have one.  We never know if the Inchoroi do.  I'd bet the Arc was alive but not souled, a p-zombie like the No-God.

H

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« Reply #2 on: July 11, 2017, 03:37:19 pm »
I dunno if 'living' means soul.  Like, Sranc are 'alive', and don't have one.  We never know if the Inchoroi do.  I'd bet the Arc was alive but not souled, a p-zombie like the No-God.

OK, then why did it care to find a solution to the "soul problem?"

One idea would be that it was programed to.  But then we are left with an additional question of, why bother?  The Progenetors would already be gone, or would presumably not reap the benefits of the Closed World.

It seems much more likely to me that the souls of the Progenetors are somehow still with the Ark, or are Ark, when it sets sail.
I am a warrior of ages, Anasurimbor. . . ages. I have dipped my nimil in a thousand hearts. I have ridden both against and for the No-God in the great wars that authored this wilderness. I have scaled the ramparts of great Golgotterath, watched the hearts of High Kings break for fury. -Cet'ingira

Simas Polchias

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« Reply #3 on: July 11, 2017, 05:09:46 pm »
First, we have the interesting "revelation" that the Sarcophagus is a prosthesis of the Ark.  In other words, it is a part of the Ark itself.
But wait, it goes further...why does the No-God need a soul in it at all?  How did that work on other worlds?
So, what kind of soul is needed to do so?  Presumably one that is suitably close to Ark's original one.  And if the DûnSult are right and the Progenitor's sin was to stray too close to Absolute, then the surrogate soul needs to also be suitably close to the Absolute too.

In the last pages of TUC I've got a certain vibe about reality as a computer simulation and Ark as the extra-earwan project to crack this simulation from inside not unlike the earwan Duniyain Endeavour (or that certain Agent, who pwned the whole Matrix by becoming the every possible part of it). Glossary bits about "system" only solidified that impression. Thinking this way near-Absolute souls look like detonating fuses or spark plugs, a means for chain reaction when nothing can dominate everything.

Now I'm coming to something of a paradox here.
Is it possible to arrange a crippled, enslaved self-moving soul?
For No-God looks like both at the same time. A big BSOD.

Walter

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« Reply #4 on: July 11, 2017, 05:12:38 pm »
The Progenitors could be a going concern, worried about their progeny.  Like, we are a technically advanced society, primarily concerned with finding new ways to whack off.  We find out that we are Damned, which is super annoying.  So we program up an AI, fill it with rape-orks and send it off to close the World.

It doesn't have a soul, so why does it care?  Well, we wrote a line of code that says it should.  Why did we do that?  Eternal hellfire would wreck our buzz.  Maybe we have our elders frozen, or maybe we are just fond of the idea that one day our descendants won't suffer our fate.

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« Reply #5 on: July 11, 2017, 05:15:48 pm »
The Progenitors could be a going concern, worried about their progeny.  Like, we are a technically advanced society, primarily concerned with finding new ways to whack off.  We find out that we are Damned, which is super annoying.  So we program up an AI, fill it with rape-orks and send it off to close the World.

It doesn't have a soul, so why does it care?  Well, we wrote a line of code that says it should.  Why did we do that?  Eternal hellfire would wreck our buzz.  Maybe we have our elders frozen, or maybe we are just fond of the idea that one day our descendants won't suffer our fate.

That presumes though that closing a world closes the whole universe, which unfortunately we don't know is true or not.
I am a warrior of ages, Anasurimbor. . . ages. I have dipped my nimil in a thousand hearts. I have ridden both against and for the No-God in the great wars that authored this wilderness. I have scaled the ramparts of great Golgotterath, watched the hearts of High Kings break for fury. -Cet'ingira

Walter

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« Reply #6 on: July 11, 2017, 05:17:02 pm »
I'm pretty sure we know the bad guys think it does, right?  Like, Aurang has a flashback about going world to world, looking for the one that matters, doesn't he?

Wilshire

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« Reply #7 on: July 11, 2017, 05:39:36 pm »
I'm pretty sure we know the bad guys think it does, right?  Like, Aurang has a flashback about going world to world, looking for the one that matters, doesn't he?
But they also revere the chosen world as Eden and make the weapon races in such a way that they don't ruin the world - which to me means they plan to stay there forever.
One of the other conditions of possibility.

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« Reply #8 on: July 11, 2017, 06:09:02 pm »
I'm pretty sure we know the bad guys think it does, right?  Like, Aurang has a flashback about going world to world, looking for the one that matters, doesn't he?
But they also revere the chosen world as Eden and make the weapon races in such a way that they don't ruin the world - which to me means they plan to stay there forever.
Yeah, I just have a hard time believing that what happens on one world changes the whole universe.  I think it's a lot more local than that...but no way to prove it, either way.
I am a warrior of ages, Anasurimbor. . . ages. I have dipped my nimil in a thousand hearts. I have ridden both against and for the No-God in the great wars that authored this wilderness. I have scaled the ramparts of great Golgotterath, watched the hearts of High Kings break for fury. -Cet'ingira

Wilshire

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« Reply #9 on: July 11, 2017, 06:13:22 pm »
Well, Gods/hell/damnation seems to be universal, which means the 'outside' is everywhere. I'd agree that Earwa is its own special hell and what happens on Earwa remains locally.
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« Reply #10 on: July 11, 2017, 06:16:23 pm »
Well, Gods/hell/damnation seems to be universal, which means the 'outside' is everywhere. I'd agree that Earwa is its own special hell and what happens on Earwa remains locally.

Right, right, good clarification.  Damnation is universal, but closure is world-based, would be my guess.
I am a warrior of ages, Anasurimbor. . . ages. I have dipped my nimil in a thousand hearts. I have ridden both against and for the No-God in the great wars that authored this wilderness. I have scaled the ramparts of great Golgotterath, watched the hearts of High Kings break for fury. -Cet'ingira

Somnambulist

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« Reply #11 on: July 11, 2017, 06:22:28 pm »
Earwa could just be the hole through which damnation leaks into the larger universe.  Plug it, and you just saved the whole of existence from a tortuous afterlife.
No whistling on the slog!

Wilshire

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« Reply #12 on: July 11, 2017, 06:24:34 pm »
Earwa could just be the hole through which damnation leaks into the larger universe.  Plug it, and you just saved the whole of existence from a tortuous afterlife.
Wow. Great analogy for the counter-point.
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« Reply #13 on: July 11, 2017, 06:34:54 pm »
Earwa could just be the hole through which damnation leaks into the larger universe.  Plug it, and you just saved the whole of existence from a tortuous afterlife.

I think it might be the reverse though.  Eärwa is the hole through which the Outside leaks in and so is the place where you can dam it up and live a "dry" life.
I am a warrior of ages, Anasurimbor. . . ages. I have dipped my nimil in a thousand hearts. I have ridden both against and for the No-God in the great wars that authored this wilderness. I have scaled the ramparts of great Golgotterath, watched the hearts of High Kings break for fury. -Cet'ingira

Somnambulist

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« Reply #14 on: July 11, 2017, 07:03:14 pm »
I'm a reductionist at heart :)
No whistling on the slog!