The Second Apocalypse

Earwa => General Earwa => Topic started by: H on March 13, 2015, 11:13:52 am

Title: The Womb-Plague (A new theory, perhaps?)
Post by: H on March 13, 2015, 11:13:52 am
So, I was trying to do a little research on the Inverse Fire, trying to discover if there is evidence that anyone had seen it and not been converted, when I stumbled upon an "answer" (or at least, something of a satisfactory explanation for myself) to something that has always bothered me: the Womb-Plague.  I present what might be a new theory.

At first blush, it made no sense.  What kind of garbage weapon makes your enemy immortal?  Sure, it extinguished future generations of Nonmen, but if you could kill all the women, why not kill all the men too and be done with it?  I tried to explain it to myself that perhaps the Tekne was incompletely known or was unable to be wielded effectively, but both of those came to me as hollow explanations.

A while back, I took to think of why they would want to keep them alive for so long.  Was it just to torture them?  That didn't make much sense though either, since they could have had more victims if they let them continue to procreate.  Something was missing but I didn't have the time to find it.

In researching the Inverse Fire, I wanted to see who had seen (or most probably seen it) and what happened to them.  I believe I might have found a much more convincing explaination of the Womb-Plague instead.  Ready for it?  It was not a weapon at all, it was an enlistment.  Even more to the point, it was given to remake the Nonmen in the Inchoroi's image.

Follow me through here: as the Inchoroi wait in the Ark during the Second Watch, in the company of the traitor Nonman king Nin’janjin, I believe they realize two things.  One, that the Inverse Fire can effect Nonmen (and men as well) and two, that the Nonmen are not all that unlike themselves.  Realizing that it would be easier to fight their damnation collectively, the Inchoroi decide to set the Nonmen on the same path they took themselves, in the hopes that the Nonmen would turn willingly to the Inverse Fire and in the interest of their own salvation, help bring about the sealing of the world from the Outside.

The fact that all the women are killed in this plan is very salient here, since it cuts off any idea of "carrying on" through progeny.  The eternal life granted leaves them to work as long as they need to avoid damnation, faced with no other real option for self-preservation.

Certainly seems logical, how much easier would it be to reduce the world to 144,000 souls if your forces working toward that end are about that number or more?

I don't know if this is "right" in the strict sense, but I know it makes a lot more sense to me this way then the idea that the Womb-Plague was a failed weapon.  Failed enlistment tool, yes, definitely.

Hopefully this makes sense outside my head though...
Title: Re: The Womb-Plague (A new theory, perhaps?)
Post by: The Sharmat on March 14, 2015, 03:12:19 am
The Womb Plague made them all sick, actually. It just failed to kill the men. I suspect the Inchoroi didn't get to test it properly on a large population before using it, since it was a secret project and all.

I also want to say that Nil'Giccas had seen the Inverse Fire and not converted but I can't remember where I read it.
Title: Re: The Womb-Plague (A new theory, perhaps?)
Post by: Wic on March 14, 2015, 03:42:17 pm
I don't remember it making the men sick.  From the TTT Glossary:
Quote
The Second Watch was disbanded and the Inchoroi moved freely among the Cunuroi of Siol, becoming their physicians.  They ministered to all, dispensing the remedies that would at once make the Nonmen immortal and doom them.  Soon all the Cunuroi of Earwa, even those who had initially questioned Cu'jara-Cinmoi's wisdom, had succumbed to the Inchoroi and their nostrums.
According to the Isuphiryas, the first victim of the Womb-Plague was Hanalinqu, Cu'jara-Cinmoi's legendary wife.  The chronicler actually praises the diligence and skill of the High King's Inchoroi physicians.  But as the Womb-Plague killed more and more Cunuroi women, this praise becomes condemnation.  Soon all the women of the Cunuroi, wives and maidens both, were dying.  The Inchoroi fled the Mansions, returning to their ruined vessel.

Also probably worth noting, that immortality was not the Inchoroi's idea.  When they asked what tribute would temper the High King's Fury, he responds 'I would be young of heart, face, and limb.  I would banish Death from the halls of my people.'
Title: Re: The Womb-Plague (A new theory, perhaps?)
Post by: themerchant on March 15, 2015, 06:11:03 pm
That's cause he saw nil-something had not aged. Nil-ninjanin(sp?) the king of the mansion/land in which the ark first struck.
Title: Re: The Womb-Plague (A new theory, perhaps?)
Post by: The Sharmat on March 15, 2015, 09:41:28 pm
I don't remember it making the men sick.
I am positive it did, since it's something I hadn't noticed that stuck out to me a lot on my last re-read. But I cannot remember where it was mentioned. I know it wasn't in the glossary. Think it was in one of the Aspect Emperor books.
Title: Re: The Womb-Plague (A new theory, perhaps?)
Post by: Simas Polchias on March 15, 2015, 11:21:27 pm
As far as I remember, inchoroi healers who tried to saved Cinmoi's wife were sincerely suprised by pandemic events. So it's problem of a "fictional evil race", when even toddlers should be utterly evil, fully aware about some sinister plan and take an active part in it. I doubt such possibilities. Inchoroi, while still being a race of rapist lovers driven by some disturbing revelation, were a too complex culture. One hand bestows longevity over everyone, second hand aims for the guts but rips out the wombs only, third (sic!) are making out with Nin'Janjin, fourth didn't survived the grafting. :з So it's all a complex (and thus more tragic) coincidence.

At the same time I adore your idea about immortality being a mean to cover their inter-species etc gaps.
Title: Re: The Womb-Plague (A new theory, perhaps?)
Post by: mrganondorf on March 15, 2015, 11:45:29 pm
@H - that's a cool reading--i don't know why it never occured to me that making your enemy immortal was kind of dumb unless they had something else in mind.  so on this reading, the Inchoroi did not expect the nonmen to retaliate like they did?  the nonman revenge nearly destroyed every last inchoroi, so that was a little miscalculation. 

whatever their reasons, it is just plain mysterious to me that the inchoroi did so much to provoke a powerful foe.  hubris?  studpidity?  secret plan?  hardwiring?  i do not know
Title: Re: The Womb-Plague (A new theory, perhaps?)
Post by: The Sharmat on March 16, 2015, 02:50:17 am
I still think the most parsimonious explanation is they fucked up.

As far as I remember, inchoroi healers who tried to saved Cinmoi's wife were sincerely suprised by pandemic events.
Or they were trying not to blow their cover before everyone went down and it was safe.
Title: Re: The Womb-Plague (A new theory, perhaps?)
Post by: H on March 16, 2015, 12:20:15 pm
I don't remember it making the men sick.
I am positive it did, since it's something I hadn't noticed that stuck out to me a lot on my last re-read. But I cannot remember where it was mentioned. I know it wasn't in the glossary. Think it was in one of the Aspect Emperor books.

I'm looking for it too, but I can't find it.  Do you remember a bit more of the context?

@H - that's a cool reading--i don't know why it never occured to me that making your enemy immortal was kind of dumb unless they had something else in mind.  so on this reading, the Inchoroi did not expect the nonmen to retaliate like they did?  the nonman revenge nearly destroyed every last inchoroi, so that was a little miscalculation. 

whatever their reasons, it is just plain mysterious to me that the inchoroi did so much to provoke a powerful foe.  hubris?  studpidity?  secret plan?  hardwiring?  i do not know

Well, I think part is that Sil seems like a hot-shot.  I doubt if he thought all too much about the Nonmen's chances before the Battle of Pir-Pahal.  I pretty sure there was no such thing as "sorcery" on any of the planets the Inchoroi had reduced before.  There, the Tekne had, no doubt, reigned supreme.  I think that is what rankles Aurang so much.  Had Sil been patient, they would have learned of sorcery, learned how to devise something very specific to beat the Nonmen.  Instead, he launched them in to a head-on fight that probably cost not only a great deal of their lives, but probably a large part of their understanding of the Tekne.

Chances are good that Aurax and Aurang were all that was left.  They had to make due with they had left at that point.  I think they realized they were going to be crushed by the Nonmen eventually, because they lost the ability to birth more Inchoroi (or maybe they never had it).  In light of the fact that they could seduce Nin’janjin and apparently the practitioners of the Aporos, I think they felt like perhaps faced with no other choices, Nonmen would eventually start to fall in line with the Inverse Fire, just like the Inchoroi themselves did.

I think the plan would have worked actually, except that Men started to interfere.  I think the ad-hoc plan they had for the Nonmen actually was working out.  Men on the other hand, would not go out so easily, that's why the No-God was needed.
Title: Re: The Womb-Plague (A new theory, perhaps?)
Post by: SilentRoamer on March 16, 2015, 12:59:17 pm
Hello H,

Glad you posted this here.

I don't know if you have listened to all of the TSAcasts but one of them discusses the crackpot idea that the Womb Plague was used to create the Chorae horde. If you take this into consideration as a given then the Inchie plan was 3fold:

1. Give immortality to the smallest and most powerful group of sorcerers (along with showing them the IF conscription tool)
2. Prevent the birth of any more of these most powerful group of sorcerers by fashioning a plague which simultaneously allowed a harvesting of anti-mage weaponry.
3. Employ new anti mage weaponry against a small but powerful group of sorcerers. (Along with enlisting the most primitive nation in existence to that end through religious doctrine manipulation).

It seems like a pretty solid plan to me - especially seeing as Sil really fucked up. You can imagine the Inchies have been uncontested for a while until they drop on "primitive" Earwa and the Nonman are flying magical chariots and launching fireballs from their arses.
Title: Re: The Womb-Plague (A new theory, perhaps?)
Post by: H on March 16, 2015, 05:35:07 pm
Just uncovered this inconstancy in the TTT Glossary:

Entry for "Nonmen:"

Quote
The Nonmen did in fact attain immortality, and the Inchoroi, claiming their work done, retired back to the Incû-Holoinas. The plague struck shortly after, almost killing males and uniformly killing all females. The Nonmen call this tragic event the Nasamorgas, the “Death of Birth.”

Entry for Cûno-Inchoroi Wars:
Quote
According to the Isûphiryas, the first victim of the Womb-Plague was Hanalinqû, Cû’jara-Cinmoi’s legendary wife. The chronicler actually praises the diligence and skill of the High King’s Inchoroi physicians. But as the Womb-Plague killed more and more Cûnuroi women, this praise becomes condemnation. Soon all the women of the Cûnuroi, wives and maidens both, were dying. The Inchoroi fled the Mansions, returning to their ruined vessel.
Title: Re: The Womb-Plague (A new theory, perhaps?)
Post by: The Sharmat on March 18, 2015, 10:43:52 am
Well, I think part is that Sil seems like a hot-shot.  I doubt if he thought all too much about the Nonmen's chances before the Battle of Pir-Pahal.  I pretty sure there was no such thing as "sorcery" on any of the planets the Inchoroi had reduced before.  There, the Tekne had, no doubt, reigned supreme.  I think that is what rankles Aurang so much.  Had Sil been patient, they would have learned of sorcery, learned how to devise something very specific to beat the Nonmen.  Instead, he launched them in to a head-on fight that probably cost not only a great deal of their lives, but probably a large part of their understanding of the Tekne.
Yeah Aurang has some thoughts like this in one of his POV segments, about how they might have won everything if not for Sil's impatience. I wonder if this is hindsight or not though. I mean Sil was presumably "King-After-the-Fall" for a reason, and Aurang was young at the time. For all we know, Aurang is older now than Sil was when he ordered the attack. Depends on how long the Inchoroi had been purging worlds.

Chances are good that Aurax and Aurang were all that was left.  They had to make due with they had left at that point.  I think they realized they were going to be crushed by the Nonmen eventually, because they lost the ability to birth more Inchoroi (or maybe they never had it).  In light of the fact that they could seduce Nin’janjin and apparently the practitioners of the Aporos, I think they felt like perhaps faced with no other choices, Nonmen would eventually start to fall in line with the Inverse Fire, just like the Inchoroi themselves did.
My personal theory is that the Ark was originally as much organic as mechanical, and that it was the Ark that created new Inchoroi. However the organic parts were irreparably damaged in the Fall and died, preventing any new Inchoroi from being born.

Aurang and Aurax weren't all that was left after Pir-Pahal though. There were many Inchoroi afterwards, despite their losses. And I don't think we really have much reason to think that the Inchoroi were actively trying to convert Nonmen, or that everything was going to plan before the Breaking of the Gates...since they'd already pretty much lost by that point, being down to two individuals hiding/hibernating somewhere in the Ark.
Title: Re: The Womb-Plague (A new theory, perhaps?)
Post by: H on March 18, 2015, 09:00:19 pm
Yeah Aurang has some thoughts like this in one of his POV segments, about how they might have won everything if not for Sil's impatience. I wonder if this is hindsight or not though. I mean Sil was presumably "King-After-the-Fall" for a reason, and Aurang was young at the time. For all we know, Aurang is older now than Sil was when he ordered the attack. Depends on how long the Inchoroi had been purging worlds.

Yeah, impossible to know, but of course Aurang has the advantage of being alive to have hindsight, haha.  It certainly seems logical though, that they honestly should not have come out of the Ark until they knew exactly what to expect.

Aurang and Aurax weren't all that was left after Pir-Pahal though. There were many Inchoroi afterwards, despite their losses. And I don't think we really have much reason to think that the Inchoroi were actively trying to convert Nonmen, or that everything was going to plan before the Breaking of the Gates...since they'd already pretty much lost by that point, being down to two individuals hiding/hibernating somewhere in the Ark.

I misspoke, what I meant was they might be the two highest "rank" Inchoroi left.  We know that Aurang was pretty close to a second to Sil, being his Spear-Bearer and all.  We know nothing of Aurax though.
Title: Re: The Womb-Plague (A new theory, perhaps?)
Post by: The Sharmat on March 19, 2015, 08:31:31 pm
Ah I see. Yeah, Aurang and Aurax are apparently "Princes" of the Inchoroi, whatever that means.

I can't really blame Sil for not taking the bronze age savages very seriously. Hindsight is 20/20. Though more caution would have been prudent ultimately, this is the Promised World after all. It's different from other worlds.
Title: Re: The Womb-Plague (A new theory, perhaps?)
Post by: profgrape on March 19, 2015, 11:08:01 pm
It's unclear at what point did the Inchoroi realize they'd reached the Promised World.  So it could have been that they just went about their genocidal business-as-usual without realizing that the stakes had been raised.

I wonder if it wasn't until they encountered a Man (the criminal Sirwitta) that they realized they'd reached the promised land and changed their strategy.

Title: Re: The Womb-Plague (A new theory, perhaps?)
Post by: The Sharmat on March 19, 2015, 11:11:51 pm
Personally I think the discovery of sorcery was a big clue.
Title: Re: The Womb-Plague (A new theory, perhaps?)
Post by: profgrape on March 20, 2015, 03:11:20 am
Ha!  Good point. Which makes me wonder when and from whom they first learned of sorcery. Would it have been from Nin?
Title: Re: The Womb-Plague (A new theory, perhaps?)
Post by: geoint on March 20, 2015, 07:41:18 am
Kind of unrelated and trivial but do we know what the average lifespan of nonmen was before the womb plague made them all immortal?
Title: Re: The Womb-Plague (A new theory, perhaps?)
Post by: The Sharmat on March 20, 2015, 07:48:28 am
Ha!  Good point. Which makes me wonder when and from whom they first learned of sorcery. Would it have been from Nin?
Their first exposure may well have been at Pir-Pahal.

Kind of unrelated and trivial but do we know what the average lifespan of nonmen was before the womb plague made them all immortal?
Bakker has said at one point, but I can't remember the figure, beyond that it was significantly longer than a natural human lifespan; and that they apparently had the capacity to hold two or three times that span in memory before issues began to crop up.
Title: Re: The Womb-Plague (A new theory, perhaps?)
Post by: Simas Polchias on March 20, 2015, 11:42:42 am
Kind of unrelated and trivial but do we know what the average lifespan of nonmen was before the womb plague made them all immortal?
As far as I remember, 300-400 years or so.
Title: Re: The Womb-Plague (A new theory, perhaps?)
Post by: Wilshire on March 20, 2015, 01:53:18 pm
Personally I think the discovery of sorcery was a big clue.

I would tend to agree, but the fact that their Arc crashed into Earwa makes me want to belive that they knew it was the promised land from the start. Would be terribly inconvenient if they lost 99% of their population and rendered their spaceship inoperable on a planet that wasn't Eden. Would slow them down immensely if that was there strategy every time, and then they just rebuilt the ship and repopulated before moving on.
Title: Re: The Womb-Plague (A new theory, perhaps?)
Post by: H on March 20, 2015, 03:18:17 pm
Personally I think the discovery of sorcery was a big clue.

I would tend to agree, but the fact that their Arc crashed into Earwa makes me want to belive that they knew it was the promised land from the start. Would be terribly inconvenient if they lost 99% of their population and rendered their spaceship inoperable on a planet that wasn't Eden. Would slow them down immensely if that was there strategy every time, and then they just rebuilt the ship and repopulated before moving on.

I think so too.  Perhaps the reason it crashed is that it was never made to enter the atmosphere.  It only made landfall because they knew this would be the last stop.

However, if they knew that before they landed, why didn't they know it on any of the other worlds?  Or perhaps they didn't know what to look for, but when they finally saw it, they knew.
Title: Re: The Womb-Plague (A new theory, perhaps?)
Post by: Francis Buck on March 21, 2015, 02:31:32 am
I agree with the above. I also think that, somehow, they knew Earwa was the promised land once they found it. They must have had some method of detecting it, or at least the presence of altered metaphysics. Wutteat was on the Ark at least a little while before it got to Earwa, and considering he's "sustained by Hell from within", I feel like they must have had some knowledge of the metaphysics and what to expect. They were either literally just traveling through the cosmos destroying planets (presumably life-bearing ones?) at random, or they knew SOMETHING to give them a form of direction, even if it wasn't a 100% guarantee.
Title: Re: The Womb-Plague (A new theory, perhaps?)
Post by: Bolivar on March 21, 2015, 05:47:30 am
What if Earwa is the closest inhabitable planet to the center of the universe? I think I remember seeing this theory floating around before, given how the rest of the stars seem to revolve around the nail of heaven. Not sure if that was just the vision Kellhus had on the circumference though.

I think the Ark crash landing might have been another result of Inchoroi impatience - they were so ecstatic they finally found the promised land that they didn't even think to make a safe landing
Title: Re: The Womb-Plague (A new theory, perhaps?)
Post by: The Sharmat on March 21, 2015, 03:00:14 pm
I always assumed the Ark's crash was either an accident on the Inchoroi's part or some God or Goddess seeing all those juicy damned souls approaching a place they could actually affect and crashing it for them.
Title: Re: The Womb-Plague (A new theory, perhaps?)
Post by: Simas Polchias on March 21, 2015, 05:53:46 pm
I would tend to agree, but the fact that their Arc crashed into Earwa makes me want to belive that they knew it was the promised land from the start.
Maybe they made a mistake.
Maybe Earwa is a trap for those who try to defy the Outside & Gods.
Title: Re: The Womb-Plague (A new theory, perhaps?)
Post by: themerchant on March 22, 2015, 05:33:12 am
maybe whatever was chasing them damaged their ship just before it came through the nail of heaven.
Title: Re: The Womb-Plague (A new theory, perhaps?)
Post by: The Sharmat on March 22, 2015, 07:43:24 am
Ah, the "Nail of Heaven as a distant star shining through a wormhole" theory.
Title: Re: The Womb-Plague (A new theory, perhaps?)
Post by: themerchant on March 23, 2015, 04:53:43 am
nah the nail of heaven is where all of heaven shines through a single crack
Title: Re: The Womb-Plague (A new theory, perhaps?)
Post by: SilentRoamer on March 23, 2015, 10:32:17 am
If the other stars rotate around the Nail of Heaven it doesn't preclude Earwa to be the center of the universe.

Polaris (The North Star) is a stationary (from the perspective of a Northern Hemisphere observer) star that others "rotate" around - well it is not exactly centre as it does have some lateral motion of its own.

Just thought I would throw that out I have seen the centre of the Universe theory before.

Title: Re: The Womb-Plague (A new theory, perhaps?)
Post by: Darzin on March 26, 2015, 06:09:44 am
Great new theory from Kalbear on Westros about what the Womb Plague was.

Quote
From what we thought we knew of the womb plague this is very odd. The womb plague was said to be the impetus for the attack - and a stupid attack, at that (as has been stated several times, the Inchoroi making their enemies immortal seems pretty stupid). But what if what they did didn't make their wives and daughters die? What if the death wasn't caused directly by the Inchoroi - it was caused directly by the Nonmen?
 
I still believe that the Inchoroi immortality was some kind of attack, as confirmed by Bakker. But we've seen no real evidence that the Inchoroi's tech can make plagues of death. That's not what it does. In every case we've seen their tech is used to either create new life (sranc, bashrag, skin spies) or modify life (spellcasting grafts, various body mods on the Inchoroi themselves). What if the womb plague didn't kill the nonwomen - and instead, caused them to birth obscenities?
 
Say, sranc? Or Inchoroi? Something that turned the women essentially into living incubators for weapons against the Nonmen?
 
I'm just spitballing, mind you - but let's take for granted that the Nonmen had to kill their wives and daughters in order to beat the Inchoroi. What would make the women into a weapon that must be destroyed? Destroyed so thoroughly that there exist (as far as we know) no nonwomen anywhere? I doubt it would turn them into ravening monsters, but that's possible - some kind of zombie thing, I guess, is possible. But I think - and given Bakker's themes, this seems more likely - turning them into something that produces something horrific seems a lot more likely.
 
So then the Inchoroi's plan was not to give their enemy immortality while killing the women. It was to make their enemy into something like the Inchoroi - something that would naturally ally with the Inchoroi. The Nonmen would survive and do whatever they want, but every child would be with the Inchoroi. Every birth would aid them and hurt the Nonmen. The very act of living would win the war. So the Nonmen did what the Inchoroi did not expect - they exterminated their women. The Inchoroi were somewhat prepared, having also created the weapon races (this is another sign that the Inchoroi did not do this as an accident but did it to wage war - they had created the weapon races to fight and were ready for a fight), but they weren't expecting such a brutal response.
 
And naturally, this would not be recorded. Why would the Nonmen state their shame? Wouldn't it be easier to elide the truth and blame the Inchoroi for killing their women? It's true, after all - just not directly true.
 
It's also a potential link to Mimara and the watchers of the gates. If there are no women - how can there be anything with the Judging Eye? How can anything be seen as truly Godlike at that point? I'll think on that more.

I really think this might be the answer to some of the questions bout the womb plague because of you look at what is recorded in the appendixes it doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
Title: Re: The Womb-Plague (A new theory, perhaps?)
Post by: Wilshire on March 26, 2015, 12:49:56 pm
Its hard to put too much behind that when the appendix says that whatever it was the Inchoroi physicians did, it killed all born children, all the women, and more importantly for this theory, nearly killed all the men.

Also, immortality as an unknown side-effect is unlikely, but the Inchoroi are prone to having many fall back plans. As you mentioned, the weapon races are a contingency plan, but so were Humans (the Tusk gift leading to the breaking-of-the-gates), and , likely, immortality.

 For some unknown reason, the way the Inchoroi wanted to kill the Nonmen required them to treat them with something that would, if failed, make them immortal. So, their plan worked about 66% of the way (all women and children, many men), and they knew that immortality would slowly bring them to their cause. They had sranc to unleash from the north, and Huamns to attack from the south. They probably hoped that they would all be dead and not need the contingency plans, or that a dual attack from both sides would be sufficient to destroy the Nonmen, and even still, if all else failed, their mental faculties would slowly decline until they were no longer a threat and even fought for them. It would seem that  the immortality gambit worked. Most, or at least many, of the surviving Nonmen fight with the Consult.


New(?) theory:
I think its more likely that the Inchoroi had no other way of doing what they did without the long-term effect of immortality. The Inchoroi are in decline at this point, the initial crash and war with the Nonmen sapped them of their strength and likely most of their knowledge of their own teknology.

What they ended up doing to the  Nonmen might have been what the Inchoroi did to themselves, eons ago, with similar effects, killing all women and almost killing the men (or whatever their equivalent would be). It wasn't some new invention that they come up with, some new 'treatment' or use of the tekne, but an old, old technology that they could still extrapolate from and use as a weapon. The Inchoroi knew what would happened, planned to destroy the weakened nonmen that remained (Of Sranc and Men), and barring that, knew they had not the means to stay sane through the toll of ages, and would eventually go mad,  either joining their side, or become easily disposed of.
Title: Re: The Womb-Plague (A new theory, perhaps?)
Post by: The Great Scald on March 26, 2015, 06:29:59 pm
I don't think the Womb Plague makes sense strategically at all, but it makes a lot of poetic sense.

Bakker has drawn on the Old Testament and the Iliad for inspiration a lot, and this bit of Nonman backstory has a very "ancient legend" feel to it - the proud and arrogant king demanding that the gods give him immortality, which they do, at a terrible price. God gives with one hand and takes away with the other, be careful what you wish for, etc etc.
Title: Re: The Womb-Plague (A new theory, perhaps?)
Post by: Darzin on March 28, 2015, 07:34:21 am
The thing is the information in the appendix is taken from the Isûphiryas of which just one copy was given to men by Nonmen and one copy of which  survived the apocalypse. The information we have in the appendix has some contradictions as well.

Quote
The Nonmen did in fact attain immortality, and the Inchoroi, claiming their work done, retired back to the Incû-Holoinas. The plague struck shortly after, almost killing males and uniformly killing all females. The Nonmen call this tragic event the Nasamorgas, the “Death of Birth.”

Quote
According to the Isûphiryas, the first victim of the Womb-Plague was Hanalinqû, Cû’jara-Cinmoi’s legendary wife. The chronicler actually praises the diligence and skill of the High King’s Inchoroi physicians. But as the Womb-Plague killed more and more Cûnuroi women, this praise becomes condemnation. Soon all the women of the Cûnuroi, wives and maidens both, were dying. The Inchoroi fled the Mansions, returning to their ruined vessel

That is a contradiction however you slice it. And why would the non men state their shame to men? That they killed their wives and daughters, much easier to lay the blame on the Inchoroi, it is true after all in a way.

Also their some hints of this in the four revelations of Cinialjin.

Quote
And he stands in the blackness, the eternal dank that rules the guttural foundations of Siol, his hand upon the neck and shoulder of his daughter, Aisralu, who even now clutches her belly, her womb, groaning against her headstrong pride, whispering, Please… Father… Please… You… Must…



Quote
That is the sole curse of the Ishroi, she hisses. He is sack, a net bound about furious, ice-cold fish, each part of him thrashing, fleeing, and he howls realizing, for the first time in ten thousand years comprehending, that he is a thing of meat, that he is of the self-same flesh, the very thing that nourishes him, boar-squealing, bloody and alive. To only hope they had fathered their sons!


Quote
And he just… pushes… her… Aisralu… A motion too banal to be anything but murderous and insane, opening a door, perhaps, or closing one, and he feels it, the kiss of skin forming to skin, the hand of the father across the nape of the daughter, thecherished daughter; a push and nothing more, an effort slight enough to slip the nets of awareness, to be no effort at all, and still, miraculously, impossibly, violent with excess, savage, a crime unlike any other; the bare palm against the nape of her neck, her shoulders hunched about a ravaged womb,

It's describing the Womb plague and him killing his daughter, note all the references to ravaged wombs and this his much to soon for him to be killing her to remember. She also says this to him Bakker's emphasis not mine "That is the sole curse of the Ishroi To only hope they had fathered their sons", As opposed to who fathering them? The Inchoroi of course.

 It still keeps with poetry of the idea the King asks for his immortality and gets it at first things seem great the Inchoroi retire and the Nonmen are preparing for a new golden age, but soon they realize their children are different... maybe it's just little things at first odd things for a baby to do, strange actions for a child to take, at first it's just written off but soon they begin to wonder did we make these or did they come from something else. Eventually it's clear that while these look like Nonchildren what moves them is Inchoroi and so rather than let their ancient and noble race fall to the corruption of their enemies, they destroy these abominations and the vessels that made them and set out to destroy the fathers of their children. Alternatively perhaps the Nonwomen cannot bear the shame of their wombs corruption and kill themselves. Remember Nonmen view life and death differently then we do for them living is always a choice. 
Title: Re: The Womb-Plague (A new theory, perhaps?)
Post by: Wilshire on May 19, 2015, 03:38:25 am
I think living being a choice was a post-immortality bit.

Nonmen don't necessarily view life/death differently, but rather how they view touching (and ostensibly, killing) oneself/one-another.

Odd timelines and contradictions abound, if nothing else, the womb plague is not as straight forward as it seemed at first glance.

Maybe the Inchoroi physicians  did not just do work on the Nonmen. Perhaps they manipulated the Harlori's genetics, making it possible for live-births from inbreeding possible. If it was a standing, if not outspoken, tradition for Nonwomen to sleep with their slaves, it would be quite the surprise if they suddenly started getting pregnant. I find this more 'likely' than the nonwomen being inseminated by the Inchoroi...
Title: Re: The Womb-Plague (A new theory, perhaps?)
Post by: The Sharmat on May 20, 2015, 02:08:18 am
Clinical immortality was the price for the watch being lifted on the Ark. I imagine the Inchoroi were watched like hawks until Cunuroi began to de-age. I doubt the immortality was part of the womb plague at all.
Title: Re: The Womb-Plague (A new theory, perhaps?)
Post by: mrganondorf on May 21, 2015, 07:54:46 pm
Darzin, thanks for sharing this, fascinating! 

if this is true, i wonder if the nonwomen were giving birth to things like the nameless children-abominations that Kellhus produces?  Esmi having residual problems from being possessed by Aurang?

your post made me wonder if the Inchoroi stole some of the nonwomen back to the Ark to use like Axltel (sp?) tanks--making monsters that we will see in TUC
Title: Re: The Womb-Plague (A new theory, perhaps?)
Post by: Wilshire on June 25, 2015, 08:09:32 pm
Tleilaxu axolotl tanks.

I'd remind that its not just Esmi who has trouble with the births though, its all Kellhus' concubines, most of whom die giving birth to their mutants.
Title: Re: The Womb-Plague (A new theory, perhaps?)
Post by: The Great Scald on June 25, 2015, 08:35:57 pm
The total lack of female Dûnyain, apart from Kellhus' daughters, does suggest that the Dûnyain women in Ishuäl are more or less Axolotl Tanks. There's absolutely no mention of Kellhus even having a mother, which is really weird unless the Dûnyain were an all-male society who only used women as breeding stock.

(I imagine Bakker will get even more flak for "misogyny" if this is even brought up in the books, lol. But he should keep the shockingly inhuman stuff in, and just own it instead of apologizing.)

Title: Re: The Womb-Plague (A new theory, perhaps?)
Post by: H on June 25, 2015, 08:41:34 pm
We don't know that there aren't female Dunyain.  All we know is that we haven't seen a female Dunyain, which doesn't really tell us much.  Even the number of male's we've seen has been vanishingly small.
Title: Re: The Womb-Plague (A new theory, perhaps?)
Post by: The Great Scald on June 25, 2015, 09:46:42 pm
We don't know that there aren't female Dunyain.  All we know is that we haven't seen a female Dunyain, which doesn't really tell us much.  Even the number of male's we've seen has been vanishingly small.

Yeah, I'm just speculating here.

But the childhood flashbacks of Kellhus are very telling - not only are the onscreen Ishuäl Dûnyain all male, but he never even makes a single reference to women in Ishuäl. Not a single one. Not a thought about his mother at all. He may not even have a mom.

We do know that there were Dûnyain women in the group that settled Ishuäl in the prologue, but during all these millennia of isolation and eugenics, they may well have gone down the Axolotl Tank route.
Title: Re: The Womb-Plague (A new theory, perhaps?)
Post by: profgrape on June 25, 2015, 10:16:33 pm
On a semi-related note, Cnaiur's mother was impregnated by Moenghus and gave birth to a daughter.  It's not mentioned whether the child was a mutant but the mother definitely survived... to get killed for her infidelity.
Title: Re: The Womb-Plague (A new theory, perhaps?)
Post by: The Great Scald on June 25, 2015, 10:53:07 pm
On a semi-related note, Cnaiur's mother was impregnated by Moenghus and gave birth to a daughter.  It's not mentioned whether the child was a mutant but the mother definitely survived... to get killed for her infidelity.

Well, yeah, both Moenghus and Kellhus had daughters when they impregnated normal women in the outside world.

I'm talking about Dûnyain women in present-day Ishuäl; there doesn't seem to be any. All the elders and teachers are men, all the kids are boys. What happens to the women?
Title: Re: The Womb-Plague (A new theory, perhaps?)
Post by: mrganondorf on June 25, 2015, 11:55:56 pm
On a semi-related note, Cnaiur's mother was impregnated by Moenghus and gave birth to a daughter.  It's not mentioned whether the child was a mutant but the mother definitely survived... to get killed for her infidelity.

Well, yeah, both Moenghus and Kellhus had daughters when they impregnated normal women in the outside world.

I'm talking about Dûnyain women in present-day Ishuäl; there doesn't seem to be any. All the elders and teachers are men, all the kids are boys. What happens to the women?

Bakker is hoarding so many secrets.  What if Ishual works like an ant colony?  There is 1 female, down in the 1000 1000 halls.  Hell, what if that 1 female is the last surviving nonwoman?  A womb plague?  unless it was straight up magic, any nonwoman far enough away from inchoroi should be okay??? 

HANALINQU IS NOT DEAD!!!



akka and mimara will find the Dunyain Queen
Title: Re: The Womb-Plague (A new theory, perhaps?)
Post by: Wilshire on June 26, 2015, 06:18:26 pm
The Dune analogues throughout make it seem like the Tanks are the way the Inchoroi or Dunyain women went. Its not a huge stretch to imagine that the Dunyain women could possible be used for only breeding purposes, but I dont think so.

Also, there are a few references to Dunyain women, at least tangentially. When speaking of world-born women baring his seed, its definitely implied, if not outright said, that only true Dunyain women care bare functional Dunyain children. There are women, we know they breed with the men.

I think its equally as likely that the women are the superiors running Ishual, the Bene Gesserits toying with their puny minded men, sending them out into the world to die, rather than the opposite Tlelaxu analogue.
Title: Re: The Womb-Plague (A new theory, perhaps?)
Post by: The Great Scald on June 27, 2015, 12:31:14 am
The Dune analogues throughout make it seem like the Tanks are the way the Inchoroi or Dunyain women went.

We sorta know how Inchoroi reproduction works - they're a single-gender species and the Ark is their womb, hence Seswatha calling them "the orphans" and the Ark a "dead womb". So their mothership is literally their mother, the female of the species, while also being a self-sustained biosphere. Think of the Inchoroi as white blood-cells that can survive outside the body, or honeycomb produced by bees (the Ark being the bees, not the hive), or even the mitochondria born inside cells. 

I imagine their species works a lot like the aliens in Peter Watts' Blindsight, who are a part of their mothership's ecosystem and don't exist "independently" from the alien environment that birthed them.

But then again, me and you don't exist "independently" either.

Were do you draw the line between organism and environment? The thousands of mitochondria living in our cells are pretty much organisms in their own right; they just need the cell's environment to survive. The human body is the same; it's "self-contained", has its own reproductive ability, but needs an external biosphere to survive at all. How does that make us "individuals", while our mitochondria are just "organelles"? It's nesting circles all the way out. Any coherent definition of "self-reliant individual" will just keep receding to the horizon until you basically have to call the whole biosphere a single being.

Quote
Its not a huge stretch to imagine that the Dunyain women could possible be used for only breeding purposes, but I dont think so.

I have no idea either, and my guess is as good as yours. But from the evidence we've got, I think it's pretty likely that the Dunyain went that way.

Quote
Also, there are a few references to Dunyain women, at least tangentially.

But they're very tangential. Not a single reference to a female Dunyain individual back home. Not a single reference to Kellhus' mother. Does he even have one?

Quote
When speaking of world-born women baring his seed, its definitely implied, if not outright said, that only true Dunyain women care bare functional Dunyain children. There are women, we know they breed with the men.

Well, yeah. I don't doubt that females exist in Ishuäl, since the Dunyain clearly reproduce like we do. However, we have no idea if the women are just breeding stock, reduced to brain-dead Axolotl Tanks for maximum breeding efficiency, or if they're actually persons that the Dunyain think of as mothers and sisters.

Quote
I think its equally as likely that the women are the superiors running Ishual, the Bene Gesserits toying with their puny minded men, sending them out into the world to die, rather than the opposite Tlelaxu analogue.

Bakker-world being what it is, the most misogynistic path will usually be taken...
Title: Re: The Womb-Plague (A new theory, perhaps?)
Post by: Wilshire on July 01, 2015, 03:24:49 am
The ship being anything other than mechanical doesn't seem likely. I think we run afoul technology indistinguishable from magic. Except instead of magic, the ship is being describe in vague biological terms since the creatures that are describing it in most cases are unable to comprehend the technology, or in the Inchoroi's case, unable to convey meaning outside of the biological to the idiot species on Earwa.

For the rest, I think Bakker has alluded to some big switch regarding the importance or women, and I think the Inchoroi, Nonmen, and Dunyain women will all be a part of that.
Title: Re: The Womb-Plague (A new theory, perhaps?)
Post by: H on July 01, 2015, 11:04:27 am
Well, my theory is that Wracu are essentially cyborgs (part machine, bound and controlled by flesh).  I could see the ship being the opposite, part living, but bound and controlled by mechanism.
Title: Re: The Womb-Plague (A new theory, perhaps?)
Post by: The Great Scald on July 25, 2015, 06:44:13 pm
The ship being anything other than mechanical doesn't seem likely .I think we run afoul technology indistinguishable from magic. Except instead of magic, the ship is being describe in vague biological terms since the creatures that are describing it in most cases are unable to comprehend the technology, or in the Inchoroi's case, unable to convey meaning outside of the biological to the idiot species on Earwa.

It's described as a "dead womb" and the Inchoroi as "orphans". That's more than just metaphor.

And yeah, it's mechanical - after all, organic life forms are just mechanical processes created by random evolution instead of human craft. Biology is biomechanics.

Quote
For the rest, I think Bakker has alluded to some big switch regarding the importance or women, and I think the Inchoroi, Nonmen, and Dunyain women will all be a part of that.

The Inchoroi seem to be a single-gender race, if terms like "male" and "female" are even relevant to them - they're at the point where they can do genetic rewrites of their bodies to grow a vagina or twenty more phalluses.

The Nonmen are a single-gender race because their women are all dead (as far as we know, at least). We don't know much about the Nonwomen, other than what we saw in Bakker's short story with the Nonman's stream-of-consciousness narration.

The Dûnyain...well, they're the big mystery here.
Title: Re: The Womb-Plague (A new theory, perhaps?)
Post by: geoffrobro on September 23, 2015, 12:51:11 am
A theroy that popped in my head after reading The Four Revelations of Cinial'jin, the Non Men raped and beat their wives to death. Whatever gave them immortality must of drove their sexual craving crazy.
  "And he stands in the blackness, the eternal dank that rules the guttural foundations of Siol, his hand upon the neck and shoulder of his daughter, Aisralu, who even now clutches her belly, her womb, groaning against her headstrong pride, whispering, Please… Father… Please… You… Must… again and again, searching for his eyes, her face a summit, a beauty he worships, bent into a pageant of strangers by anguish."

Aisarinqu screams and Aisarinqu screams, again and again, not so much words as a storm of occasions, her delicate face crushed into instants and flayed across an age, for theirs had not been a happy union.

to me it seems he raped his daughter who maybe became pregnant. and he beat his wife to death but can really remember her face because he didnt really love her.
 Im starting to think everything we know of the Non men isnt what it seems. almost like a father not telling you them did wrong.
Title: Re: The Womb-Plague (A new theory, perhaps?)
Post by: The Great Scald on September 23, 2015, 11:44:55 am
Bakker just likes to use "crushed" to describe facial movements. Sranc faces are repeatedly described that way, the same with Kelmomas' face when he's crying crocodile tears.

"Crushed into instants" is just a poetic Bakkerism, like when he writes "his agony was spread like milk over the endless ages" to describe the damned's fate in Hell, or "she was absurd with pounding girth" to describe a fat porker running for her life.

It doesn't mean anything more than that.


Title: Re: The Womb-Plague (A new theory, perhaps?)
Post by: H on September 23, 2015, 01:10:29 pm
Well, to me, "crushed into instants" speaks to the how Nonmen perceive time, flattened out and non-linear, in a fashion.  Like Auriga, says, I don't believe her face is literally crushed, more figuratively reduced.  Her, face, rather than being the flowing beauty of the living, is a face reduced only to glimpses of it's former self.  In other words, composed not in the now, but in memory, a collection of former instants.  This speaks to a lack of self-ness, which is actually set up by the context, I think.  Look at the whole sentence:

"Aisarinqu screams and Aisarinqu screams, again and again, not so much words as a storm of occasions, her delicate face crushed into instants and flayed across an age, for theirs had not been a happy union."

He, I think the crux is "not so much words as a storm of occasions" which is what "her delicate face crushed into instants and flayed across an age" is describing.  So, she screams, not in the sense of sound, but with her face showing all the anguish of all the instants splayed across the ages of their unhappiness.

The big question isn't, for me, whether they killed their wives and daughters, because I think it's clear they did.  The question is why?  It wasn't just some male caprice it seems, because we see both Aisralu and Aisarinqu goading him to do it.  In this sense, he seems reluctant and they seem determined on this outcome.  This seems to point to the fact that whatever the condition facing the Nonmen women, it was untenable to both the women and the men.

Also, consider this line, "The white spark of some faraway light refracts in her tears, so that her contrition seems holy, and his embittered and profane."  Both have contrition and considering Bakker's Cristian background, I think contrition here is the "the repentance of past sins during or after confession."  Here, context to the Aisarinqu scene, it is an act of confession.  He kills her, not for her sins, or his, but seemingly for both theirs.

Actually, now thinking on all this, what if you are right, with "Whatever gave them immortality must of drove their sexual craving crazy."  That would go right back to my hypothesis that spawned this thread, that the Womb-Plague wasn't a weapon, per se, but was an enlistment.  The Inchoroi gave them exactly what they had given themselves.  The result?  Wanton promiscuity.  The women, rather than be solely objects to be used, ask, nah, perhaps demand, for death instead?

I'm not sure.  Very interesting to think about though.
Title: Re: The Womb-Plague (A new theory, perhaps?)
Post by: mrganondorf on October 06, 2015, 08:01:58 pm
A theroy that popped in my head after reading The Four Revelations of Cinial'jin, the Non Men raped and beat their wives to death. Whatever gave them immortality must of drove their sexual craving crazy.
  "And he stands in the blackness, the eternal dank that rules the guttural foundations of Siol, his hand upon the neck and shoulder of his daughter, Aisralu, who even now clutches her belly, her womb, groaning against her headstrong pride, whispering, Please… Father… Please… You… Must… again and again, searching for his eyes, her face a summit, a beauty he worships, bent into a pageant of strangers by anguish."

Aisarinqu screams and Aisarinqu screams, again and again, not so much words as a storm of occasions, her delicate face crushed into instants and flayed across an age, for theirs had not been a happy union.

to me it seems he raped his daughter who maybe became pregnant. and he beat his wife to death but can really remember her face because he didnt really love her.
 Im starting to think everything we know of the Non men isnt what it seems. almost like a father not telling you them did wrong.

WOW

the nonmen would certainly be inclined to write that out of their history

another possibility?  the ark crashes, without provocation, the nonmen attack the survivors of the crash.  after chasing the inchoroi back into the ark, the nonmen set a watch and go back to fighting each other.  Cujara Cinmoi dabbles in so crzy sht, figuring out how make himself and the males of his race immortal by murdering their wives.  they does it.  later they are so insane because they cannot believe what they have done, they blame it all on the inchoroi, attack again, and kill all but 2. 
Title: Re: The Womb-Plague (A new theory, perhaps?)
Post by: Simas Polchias on October 13, 2015, 01:03:51 pm
the nonmen would certainly be inclined to write that out of their history
Judging by erraticism concept, large part of the cunuroi ended like inchoroi - rapist and murderers with "orange & blue morality". It's not uncommon when enemy figure transforms into a teacher- or sculpturor-like. So, actually, cunuroi could boast their atrocities, throwing vivid descriptions of them right into listeners ears just like Nil'Giccass did with his sermons.

But that's not true with their halaroi pupils, who would certainly want to lighten the image of teachers to a bearable degree.
Title: Re: The Womb-Plague (A new theory, perhaps?)
Post by: mrganondorf on October 13, 2015, 01:46:53 pm
the nonmen would certainly be inclined to write that out of their history
Judging by erraticism concept, large part of the cunuroi ended like inchoroi - rapist and murderers with "orange & blue morality". It's not uncommon when enemy figure transforms into a teacher- or sculpturor-like. So, actually, cunuroi could boast their atrocities, throwing vivid descriptions of them right into listeners ears just like Nil'Giccass did with his sermons.

But that's not true with their halaroi pupils, who would certainly want to lighten the image of teachers to a bearable degree.

i hadn't thought about it like that, that is totally true SP and it really fits with the stuff Kellhus sees when he is descending into the Kyudean mansion.  the nonman descriptions are sooo much like the inchoroi there.  nice!
Title: Re: The Womb-Plague (A new theory, perhaps?)
Post by: H on October 13, 2015, 04:50:09 pm
the nonmen would certainly be inclined to write that out of their history
Judging by erraticism concept, large part of the cunuroi ended like inchoroi - rapist and murderers with "orange & blue morality". It's not uncommon when enemy figure transforms into a teacher- or sculpturor-like. So, actually, cunuroi could boast their atrocities, throwing vivid descriptions of them right into listeners ears just like Nil'Giccass did with his sermons.

But that's not true with their halaroi pupils, who would certainly want to lighten the image of teachers to a bearable degree.

Well, more evidence that perhaps my theory that started all this is in fact true?  The Inchoroi gave them a dose of exactly what they gave themselves, knowing the effect it would ultimately have.
Title: Re: The Womb-Plague (A new theory, perhaps?)
Post by: Simas Polchias on October 17, 2015, 12:07:27 am
Well, more evidence that perhaps my theory that started all this is in fact true?  The Inchoroi gave them a dose of exactly what they gave themselves, knowing the effect it would ultimately have.
I love your theory. Especially because it's an alien logic enough one could expect from the race of rapist crusaders.
Title: Re: The Womb-Plague (A new theory, perhaps?)
Post by: The Spaces Between on November 10, 2015, 03:17:04 am
Well, to me, "crushed into instants" speaks to the how Nonmen perceive time, flattened out and non-linear, in a fashion.  Like Auriga, says, I don't believe her face is literally crushed, more figuratively reduced.  Her, face, rather than being the flowing beauty of the living, is a face reduced only to glimpses of it's former self.  In other words, composed not in the now, but in memory, a collection of former instants.  This speaks to a lack of self-ness, which is actually set up by the context, I think.  Look at the whole sentence:

"Aisarinqu screams and Aisarinqu screams, again and again, not so much words as a storm of occasions, her delicate face crushed into instants and flayed across an age, for theirs had not been a happy union."

He, I think the crux is "not so much words as a storm of occasions" which is what "her delicate face crushed into instants and flayed across an age" is describing.  So, she screams, not in the sense of sound, but with her face showing all the anguish of all the instants splayed across the ages of their unhappiness.

The big question isn't, for me, whether they killed their wives and daughters, because I think it's clear they did.  The question is why?  It wasn't just some male caprice it seems, because we see both Aisralu and Aisarinqu goading him to do it.  In this sense, he seems reluctant and they seem determined on this outcome.  This seems to point to the fact that whatever the condition facing the Nonmen women, it was untenable to both the women and the men.

Also, consider this line, "The white spark of some faraway light refracts in her tears, so that her contrition seems holy, and his embittered and profane."  Both have contrition and considering Bakker's Cristian background, I think contrition here is the "the repentance of past sins during or after confession."  Here, context to the Aisarinqu scene, it is an act of confession.  He kills her, not for her sins, or his, but seemingly for both theirs.

Actually, now thinking on all this, what if you are right, with "Whatever gave them immortality must of drove their sexual craving crazy."  That would go right back to my hypothesis that spawned this thread, that the Womb-Plague wasn't a weapon, per se, but was an enlistment.  The Inchoroi gave them exactly what they had given themselves.  The result?  Wanton promiscuity.  The women, rather than be solely objects to be used, ask, nah, perhaps demand, for death instead?

I'm not sure.  Very interesting to think about though.


just read this part in TWLW and i couldnt help but be reminded of your post

Quote
"Do you remember your wife?"
"I remember all that I have lost."
She is beautiful. She knows she is beautiful because she so resembles her mother, Esmenet, who was the most celebrated beauty in the Three Seas. And mortal beauty, she knows, finds its measure in the immortal...
"How did she die?"
A single tear falls from his right eye, hangs like a bead of glass from his jaw. "With the others... Cir'kumir teles pim'larata..."
"Do I resemble her?"
"Perhaps..." he says, lowering his gaze. "If you wept or screamed... If there was blood."
She moves closer, into the smell of him, sits so that her knees brush his shins. His pouch hangs from his waist, partially hooked in a miniature thicket of stems. Vertigo billows through her, a sudden horror of tipping, as if the pouch were a babe set too close to a table's edge. She clutches his forearms.
"You tremble," she whispers, resisting the urge to glance at the pouch. "Do you want me? Do you want to..." She swallows. "To take me?"
He draws away his arms, stares down into his palms. Beyond him, clouds pile like inky flotsam beneath the stars. Dry lightning scorches the plains a barren white. She glimpses land piling atop land, scabbed edges, woollen reaches.
"I want to..." he says.
"Yes?"
He lifts his eyes as if drawing them against weighted threads. "I... I want to... to strangle you... to split you with my—"
His breath catches. Murder floats in the sorrow of his gaze. He speaks like someone marooned in a stranger's soul. "I want to hear you shriek."
And she can feel the musky strength of him, the impotence of her flailing arms, clawing fingers, should he simply choose...
What? a stranded fragment of her asks. What are you doing? She's not quite certain what she intends to do, let alone what she hopes to accomplish. Is she seducing him? For Achamian? For the Qirri?
Or has she finally broken under the weight of her suffering? Is that what it is? After all this time, is she still the child traded between sailors, weeping to the moan of timbers and men?
She glimpses herself climbing into the circuit of Cleric's arms, taking his waist into the circuit of her legs. Her breath catches at the thought of his antique virility, the union of her flower and his stone. Her stomach quails at the thought of his arcane disfigurement, the ugliness heaving against her, into her.
"Because you love me?"
"I..."
He grimaces, and she glimpses Sranc howling by the light of sorcerous fire. He raises his face to the vault of the night, and she sees a world before human nations, a nocturnal age, when Nonmen marched in hosts from their great underworld mansions, driving the Sons of Men before them.
"No!" Cleric cries. "No! Because I... I need to remember! I must remember!"
And miraculously, she sees it. Her purpose and her intent.
"And so you must betray..."
His passion blows from him, and he falls still—very still. Clarity peers out from his eyes, a millennial assurance. Gone is the bewildered stoop, the listless air of indecision. He pulls his shoulders and arms into an antique pose of nobility. He draws his hands behind him, seems to clasp them in the small of his back. It is a posture she recognizes from Cil-Aujas and its innumerable engravings.
The voices of the scalpers continue to feud and bicker. The clouds continue to climb, a shroud drawing across the gaping bowl of Heaven. The Captain is speaking, but low rolling thunder obscures his voice.
The first darts of rain tap across the dust and grasses.
"Who?" Mimara presses. "Who are you, truly?"
The immortal Ishroi watches her, his smile wry, his eyes luminous with something too profound to be mere regret.
"Nil'giccas..." he murmurs. "I am Nil'giccas. The Last Nonman King."


id be interested to know if anyone can interpret "With the others... Cir'kumir teles pim'larata..."

i think the theory that the nonmen murdered their women in a sexual-violence fuelled effort to remember their love for them after being granted immortality/erraticism is disturbing enough to just be true.

definitely an effective weapon to seal the world and damn the nonmen and get them onside with the inchoroi agenda.


Title: Re: The Womb-Plague (A new theory, perhaps?)
Post by: H on November 10, 2015, 12:08:10 pm
just read this part in TWLW and i couldnt help but be reminded of your post

Quote
"Do you remember your wife?"
"I remember all that I have lost."
She is beautiful. She knows she is beautiful because she so resembles her mother, Esmenet, who was the most celebrated beauty in the Three Seas. And mortal beauty, she knows, finds its measure in the immortal...
"How did she die?"
A single tear falls from his right eye, hangs like a bead of glass from his jaw. "With the others... Cir'kumir teles pim'larata..."
"Do I resemble her?"
"Perhaps..." he says, lowering his gaze. "If you wept or screamed... If there was blood."
She moves closer, into the smell of him, sits so that her knees brush his shins. His pouch hangs from his waist, partially hooked in a miniature thicket of stems. Vertigo billows through her, a sudden horror of tipping, as if the pouch were a babe set too close to a table's edge. She clutches his forearms.
"You tremble," she whispers, resisting the urge to glance at the pouch. "Do you want me? Do you want to..." She swallows. "To take me?"
He draws away his arms, stares down into his palms. Beyond him, clouds pile like inky flotsam beneath the stars. Dry lightning scorches the plains a barren white. She glimpses land piling atop land, scabbed edges, woollen reaches.
"I want to..." he says.
"Yes?"
He lifts his eyes as if drawing them against weighted threads. "I... I want to... to strangle you... to split you with my—"
His breath catches. Murder floats in the sorrow of his gaze. He speaks like someone marooned in a stranger's soul. "I want to hear you shriek."
And she can feel the musky strength of him, the impotence of her flailing arms, clawing fingers, should he simply choose...
What? a stranded fragment of her asks. What are you doing? She's not quite certain what she intends to do, let alone what she hopes to accomplish. Is she seducing him? For Achamian? For the Qirri?
Or has she finally broken under the weight of her suffering? Is that what it is? After all this time, is she still the child traded between sailors, weeping to the moan of timbers and men?
She glimpses herself climbing into the circuit of Cleric's arms, taking his waist into the circuit of her legs. Her breath catches at the thought of his antique virility, the union of her flower and his stone. Her stomach quails at the thought of his arcane disfigurement, the ugliness heaving against her, into her.
"Because you love me?"
"I..."
He grimaces, and she glimpses Sranc howling by the light of sorcerous fire. He raises his face to the vault of the night, and she sees a world before human nations, a nocturnal age, when Nonmen marched in hosts from their great underworld mansions, driving the Sons of Men before them.
"No!" Cleric cries. "No! Because I... I need to remember! I must remember!"
And miraculously, she sees it. Her purpose and her intent.
"And so you must betray..."
His passion blows from him, and he falls still—very still. Clarity peers out from his eyes, a millennial assurance. Gone is the bewildered stoop, the listless air of indecision. He pulls his shoulders and arms into an antique pose of nobility. He draws his hands behind him, seems to clasp them in the small of his back. It is a posture she recognizes from Cil-Aujas and its innumerable engravings.
The voices of the scalpers continue to feud and bicker. The clouds continue to climb, a shroud drawing across the gaping bowl of Heaven. The Captain is speaking, but low rolling thunder obscures his voice.
The first darts of rain tap across the dust and grasses.
"Who?" Mimara presses. "Who are you, truly?"
The immortal Ishroi watches her, his smile wry, his eyes luminous with something too profound to be mere regret.
"Nil'giccas..." he murmurs. "I am Nil'giccas. The Last Nonman King."


id be interested to know if anyone can interpret "With the others... Cir'kumir teles pim'larata..."

i think the theory that the nonmen murdered their women in a sexual-violence fuelled effort to remember their love for them after being granted immortality/erraticism is disturbing enough to just be true.

definitely an effective weapon to seal the world and damn the nonmen and get them onside with the inchoroi agenda.

That's a great catch there, I wish we had more examples of Nonmen speaking Ihrimsû so that we would have a better idea what these mean.

If we take the theory that the Nonmen can only remember through reproduction of the context of the original memory, or at least, through it's simulation, then his insistence that the sexualized violence toward Mimara will help him remember his wife signifies that, at the very least, his memory of her is tied to such violence.

It's certainly some strong circumstantial evidence.  I think the closest we come to direct evidence is in Four Revelations (https://rsbakker.wordpress.com/stories/the-four-revelations-of-cinialjin/).  If you haven't yet seen it, I tried to do a color coded version here (http://www.second-apocalypse.com/index.php?topic=460.msg21511#msg21511) in an attempt to render the disjunctive nature of the narrative more readable.

Again, great post, thanks for bring that up.
Title: Re: The Womb-Plague (A new theory, perhaps?)
Post by: profgrape on November 10, 2015, 04:48:09 pm
Awesome find!  Definitely adds fuel to the fire.

I know this has been discussed before. But if the Nonmen were complicit in the death of their women, it would support the theory that the WP caused the women to give birth to the first Sranc. I mean, the fact that Sranc are corruptions of Nonmen can't be a coincidence, can it?

On a related note, did the Sranc come *after* the womb plague but *before* Pir-Pahal?
Title: Re: The Womb-Plague (A new theory, perhaps?)
Post by: H on November 10, 2015, 05:08:31 pm
Awesome find!  Definitely adds fuel to the fire.

I know this has been discussed before. But if the Nonmen were complicit in the death of their women, it would support the theory that the WP caused the women to give birth to the first Sranc. I mean, the fact that Sranc are corruptions of Nonmen can't be a coincidence, can it?

On a related note, did the Sranc come *after* the womb plague but *before* Pir-Pahal?

It's an idea that has been toyed with and the lack of a concrete timeline really gives us no definitive answer.  We have no idea how long was between Hanalinqû's death and (it wasn't Pir-Pahal but) Inniür-Shigogli, the “Black Furnace Plain.”, but anecdotal evidence says not very long, since Cû’jara-Cinmoi lay her corpse before the Ark.  If Nonmen decay at anywhere near the rate of humans, that isn't very long.

Considering this, I'd say that the idea that they made Sranc from being birthed by the Nonmen women very unlikely.  I think it was more the case that the Inchoroi had already been fooling with the Nonmen gnome for a good while before they even unleashed the Womb-Plague, in fact, it may be what allowed to fashion the ability to give the Nonmen immortality in the first place.  That doesn't discount the idea that Nonmen women were giving birth the Sranc and were killed because of it, just that Sranc seeminly must have predated the Womb-Plague, even if only by a few years.