[What Came Before]

I don't understand what Kellhus would need the Tekne for.

Are there some hints to secret desires that he wishes to gratify that I have missed?

It would take more than one lifetime to achieve the Dunyain goal of self moving soul, unless that 1 lifetime was infinite.

[What Came Before]

I've never understood this confusion, Curethan - to me, that's like asking why Kellhus wanted sorcery or the Gnosis over the Anagogis?

Power? Ultimate agency? I'm not sure why he wants it. And no, it's never been hinted at, I don't think.

[What Came Before]

Clearly, he needed sorcery for his mission.  Either to overcome Moe or to defeat the Consult.
Best tools for the job and all that.  It's all about the mission.

Beyond that its just about control.  If he can already conquer and dominate the world, what point to making abominations?
I just don't see the designs that would eclipse the TFT.

Re: immortatlity.
Either he has already grasped the Absolute or he never will imo. 

Shauritias uses sorcery to prolong his life, not the Tekne. 
I'm sure Kellhus could do the same if he wanted.
Tekne methods didnt seem to work out too well for the nonmen at any rate.

[What Came Before]

It worked to some measure for the Inchoroi.

I'm not sure you can make the distinction between him grasping the Absolute or never going to. The No-God is clearly a product of both.

We don't know anything about Shauriatas' immortality - we know what Achamian says he knows about ancient soul-binding techniques. We don't know how form-bound Shauriatas is or whether he's able to project himself a la Aurang's Bird Synthese.

Also, transhumanism is a big kick over at TPB, if you hazard that way. I cannot see him spending so much time on a theme within the sphere of philosophy and not the sphere of fiction.

[What Came Before]

what point to making abominations?
...
Tekne methods didnt seem to work out too well for the nonmen at any rate.

You are confusing the limitations of the surviving Inchoroi for the limitations of the Tekne itself. Just because Aurax and Aurang only seem to be able to use it to make abominations doesn't mean that's all it's capable of, or that that would be all Kellhus could do with it.

[What Came Before]

Kelhus is both after Tekne and Consult.

Tekne - as its something new and he must absorb this knowledge to be closer to self moving soul. Since all knowledge disperse the darkness that comes before.     We are Borg. You will be asssimilated. Resistance is futile.

Consult - as those are the ones that he did not Condition and it might be thet their own Conditioning is preceding him (aka their influence on Tusk and humans).

+ Eternal life of course

[What Came Before]

I've never understood this confusion, Curethan - to me, that's like asking why Kellhus wanted sorcery or the Gnosis over the Anagogis?

Power? Ultimate agency? I'm not sure why he wants it. And no, it's never been hinted at, I don't think.

agreed

Kelhus is both after Tekne and Consult.

Tekne - as its something new and he must absorb this knowledge to be closer to self moving soul. Since all knowledge disperse the darkness that comes before.     We are Borg. You will be asssimilated. Resistance is futile.

Consult - as those are the ones that he did not Condition and it might be thet their own Conditioning is preceding him (aka their influence on Tusk and humans).

+ Eternal life of course

all that

Immortality worked great for all the nonmen males. No real downside until they used up all the brain space. But Kellhus can already manually delete memories of others, a la Whelming, so he can do it for himself. So there goes the only downside. No reason for him not to want to be immortal. So, there is 1 reason to go to Golgotterath.

Why wouldn't he be able to obtain the absolute? The whole point is to come before the darkness that comes before. You can't do that without knowing what the darkness is, i.e absolute knowledge. It is stated several times that the Dunyain knew this would take more than one generation, breeding for intellect over thousands of years. If he can skip the next 10,000 years of breeding and just change his genetic makeup to become super-smart, that would help him become a self moving soul more than any other method available.  Reason 2.

Also, the Tekne is something he doesn't yet fully comprehend, so in order to achieve the Dunyain goal he would need to know all about that just like everything else. Reason 3.

Kellhus is a bit of a megalomaniac, maybe he just wants to have the biggest penis. (reason 4)

[What Came Before]

Erm, the nonmen nearly all died from the wombplague.  Then you have the brain rot which seems to include some kind of corrosion of the soul. 
If Tekne immortality techniques work so well, then why haven't the Mangeaca employed them?  They were able to use the Tekne to create the No-god which is something the Inchies alone were unable to do...
I don't think Whelming works like that.  He recalls having emotions as a child (the sword training flashback in TTT) despite his Whelming that allowed him to properly control those emotions - if it just made him forget such things he would not be able to understand them.

Khellus has either grasped the Absolute or become polluted by TDTCB. 
The axioms and techniques of the dunyain demonstrate that progress towards their goal can only be made in ignorance of the Darkness and thus they shield trainees from it.
He is already able to dominate all circumstance, to the point that he rules the world and can confidently oppose and destroy outside agencies.
If the Tekne can achieve genetic progress, would the Inchies not have already done this?

The dunyain are fantastic at understanding and manipulating, but they don't hoard knowledge.  Quite the opposite.  Knowledge is the darkness that comes before.
Kellhus takes what he needs for his mission.

Megalomania?  I don't see that.  For example, his personal quarters are spartan. 
At no time in any of his POV's do we see him fantasizing about wealth or power and when he gains those things it is only to facillitate his goals.

I really don't think that death would bother Kellhus or any dunyain as long as he completes his individual mission first.

Transhumanism is already included.  We already have neuro-tweaking concience removers, rapacious evolutionary dead ends and skill grafting psycopaths so its not somewhere new that the plot needs to go thematicly.

I think he is genuinely against the Consult or he is craycray and is being subverted by the No-god.

The only other possibility is that he wants to close the world AND prevent the Consult from summoning Mog so that he can become the God in its place, but I don't really see why that is something anyone would want to achieve.  "Yay, everyone is dead and I'm an allseeing, nothing-doing, eternally bored, omnipotent douchebag with nothing to do."

[What Came Before]

Erm, the nonmen nearly all died from the wombplague. Then you have the brain rot which seems to include some kind of corrosion of the soul.

All the woman is not nearly all Nonmen.

If Tekne immortality techniques work so well, then why haven't the Mangeaca employed them? They were able to use the Tekne to create the No-god which is something the Inchies alone were unable to do

...

If the Tekne can achieve genetic progress, would the Inchies not have already done this?

The Inchoroi's understanding of the Tekne was degrading before crashing on Earwa. The Inchoroi/Aurax had enough memory for it that, together with the Mangaecca, they figured out the No-God after a millenia of tinkering. After the No-God's destroyed, the Mangaecca labour again, without even that limited Inchoroi guidance for another 1700 years until they create Skin-Spies, new creations of the Old Science - leading Achamian to believe that they are close to the second advent of the No-God, on their own.

Straightforward enough? Why would Kellhus' understanding of the Tekne not dwarf everyone else's?

Khellus has either grasped the Absolute or become polluted by TDTCB.

I can think of some arguments for you but you can't simply offer this as self-sufficient evidence...

Transhumanism is already included. We already have neuro-tweaking concience removers, rapacious evolutionary dead ends and skill grafting psycopaths so its not somewhere new that the plot needs to go thematicly.

Do you feel like Bakker's beaten this horse to death yet though ?

"Yay, everyone is dead and I'm an allseeing, nothing-doing, eternally bored, omnipotent douchebag with nothing to do."

The series is going to disappoint someone... and it has to end somehow...

[What Came Before]

Straightforward enough? Why would Kellhus' understanding of the Tekne not dwarf everyone else's?

Yeah - If Kellhus gets the Tekne I don't see how he couldn't construct a ship that could travel back to all of the previous Inchie planets and then master the Bios and all other manners of things as well. 


I really don't know where it's going which is part of what's so exciting....does Kellhus really want the Tekne?  I can see that, but I can also see all of the other scenarios such as serving Mog, slaying Mog, saving the world, dooming the world, using the GO for good, leading the GO to its destruction, and even simply being completely insane.

ETA:  I love how the emoticons on this board are a little different than what I'm used to.  That's not a smiley face.  That's a neuropunctured smiley face.

[What Came Before]

All the woman is not nearly all Nonmen.

I meant nearly killing all, not nearly killing all of...

The plague struck shortly thereafter, almost killing males and uniformly killing all females.

The Inchoroi's understanding of the Tekne was degrading before crashing on Earwa. The Inchoroi/Aurax had enough memory for it that, together with the Mangaecca, they figured out the No-God after a millenia of tinkering. After the No-God's destroyed, the Mangaecca labour again, without even that limited Inchoroi guidance for another 1700 years until they create Skin-Spies, new creations of the Old Science - leading Achamian to believe that they are close to the second advent of the No-God, on their own.

They relearned the principles of the material, the Tekne.  They mastered the manipulations of the flesh. And after generation of study and searching, after filling Min-Uroikas with innummerable corpses, they realized the most catastrophic of the Ichoroi's untold depravities: Mog-Pharau, the No-God.

My bold. I doubt it's a question of trail and error more than a case of fulfilling certain time consuming requirements and finding difficult ' ingrediants.
Consider that at the time of TTT it is known (from tortured Skin Spies) that they have a score of years before the No-God is raised again.  Thus the Ordeal is launched after 20.

Straightforward enough? Why would Kellhus' understanding of the Tekne not dwarf everyone else's?

Well, maybe.  But it is a science of the material, and did not help the Inchoroi, even at their peak, master the outside.  Apparently immortal, but moribund and doomed nevertheless.
Also, don't discount what Kellhus has already learned about the Tekne by torturing, studying and reverse engineering its products.

Khellus has either grasped the Absolute or become polluted by TDTCB.

I can think of some arguments for you but you can't simply offer this as self-sufficient evidence...

Well, it seems self evident to me. 
He is either a self moving soul that is not beholden to causality, or he is part of history's flow and thus moved by some darkness.
The dunyain remove themselves from history for this reason.  You can't learn to come before everything whilst you are a part of it.

A self moving soul would be able to master all circumstance, which Kellhus seems able to do.  Grasping the Absolute would mean understanding the will of the God.

Do you feel like Bakker's beaten this horse to death yet though ?

Lol, no.  But he's already got plenty of plot points through which to explore it.

The series is going to disappoint someone... and it has to end somehow...

Please, don't misunderstand.
I am questioning the speculative line here and demeaning the apparent expectation of Kellhus being evil for evil's sake.
 
I'm sure Scott knows exactly what motivates Kellhus, I just haven't seen any reasonable speculation for his motives for such actions as suggested here.

[What Came Before]

Knowledge motivates him and the will to precede the circumstance, which without knowledge cannot be achieved I feel. He is after Tekne in my opinion and Consult.

But in what way is he after the Consult that is the question. Either to Kill or Dominate. But primarily to study. And so the story unravels.

[What Came Before]

I am questioning the speculative line here and demeaning the apparent expectation of Kellhus being evil for evil's sake.

+1. No worries about the e-tone, Curethan. I'm probably more at fault.

Are not all our words, stories about ourselves?

I don't think anyone is expecting Kellhus to be evil for evil's sake. I think you are the first to use those words.

They relearned the principles of the material, the Tekne. They mastered the manipulations of the flesh. And after generation of study and searching, after filling Min-Uroikas with innummerable corpses, they realized the most catastrophic of the Ichoroi's untold depravities: Mog-Pharau, the No-God.

My bold. I doubt it's a question of trail and error more than a case of fulfilling certain time consuming requirements and finding difficult ' ingrediants.
Consider that at the time of TTT it is known (from tortured Skin Spies) that they have a score of years before the No-God is raised again. Thus the Ordeal is launched after 20.

That's your prerogative. For my part, WHCB is inadmissible as speculative evidence, even less tangible than TTT Glossary. I guess, I should probably do some legwork on that someday.

Well, maybe. But it is a science of the material, and did not help the Inchoroi, even at their peak, master the outside. Apparently immortal, but moribund and doomed nevertheless.
Also, don't discount what Kellhus has already learned about the Tekne by torturing, studying and reverse engineering its products.

Kellhus might have learned everything - its not actionable. Golgotterath is the only place in the world with the equipement to use the Tekne practically. Sure, I suspect Kellhus could probably write a Master's Thesis on the Tekne...

Kellhus' intelligence would likely dwarf the Inchoroi's, even at their best?

Well, it seems self evident to me.
He is either a self moving soul that is not beholden to causality, or he is part of history's flow and thus moved by some darkness.
The dunyain remove themselves from history for this reason. You can't learn to come before everything whilst you are a part of it.

A self moving soul would be able to master all circumstance, which Kellhus seems able to do. Grasping the Absolute would mean understanding the will of the God.

You don't see these as simple claims, unfounded statements? Sure, they might sound good when you string them together but I don't actually think you are making an argument here.

The Dunyain are not self-moving souls. Its arguable that they are even successful in removing themselves from history.

Does Kellhus actually come before everything? Has he really mastered all circumstance or is he finally up against the circumstances that will actually test him? Grasping the Absolute means understanding the Gods?

Lol, no. But he's already got plenty of plot points through which to explore it.

Bakker hasn't augmented any human yet. Cnaiur/Kellhus are both good candidates. Elysium!

[What Came Before]

+1. No worries about the e-tone, Curethan. I'm probably more at fault.

Are not all our words, stories about ourselves?

I'm was only curious, neither bristled nor offended. 

I don't think anyone is expecting Kellhus to be evil for evil's sake. I think you are the first to use those words.

I am only clarifying my inference.  Contradict me, by all means.
At the least, the claim seems to be that he needs power so he can get more power.

As I understand it, Kellhus only seeks the power of sorcery after the consult is revealed.  As a tool, rather than an end in itself.

For my part, WHCB is inadmissible as speculative evidence, even less tangible than TTT Glossary. I guess, I should probably do some legwork on that someday.

Fair enough.  I think the timetable for the No-god's return might have been mentioned elsewhere though.  As is the proposition that the Tekne is strictly a science of material propogation.

You don't see these as simple claims, unfounded statements? Sure, they might sound good when you string them together but I don't actually think you are making an argument here.

The premises are the self moving soul and the darkness of causality.  Its an inductive arguement as far as I am concerned, based on the principle that the dunyain removed themselves from history in order to incubate the former.  Speculations aside, the dunyain quest does not brook the slightest contamination.  Those contaminated by the Darkness are eliminated.

There they would die, as had been decided.  All those his father had polluted.

The most straightforward speculative explanation for Moenghus and Kellhus' exile over execution is that, as fully conditioned prodigies, they had enough potential to become SMS(self moving souls) despite contamination.
After Kellhus has his revelation and becomes 'more than dunyain' he either conditions the future or is conditioned by the past. 

The Dunyain are not self-moving souls. Its arguable that they are even successful in removing themselves from history.

Nevertheless, their burgeoned power depends on the mastery of the principles of reason and logic rather than the accumulation of knowledge.
The progress they have made is based on the principles they follow. 
For example, knowledge of sorcery and the outside is considered an impediment, therefore it has been removed rather than grasped.
Again, other speculations are merely that.  In this case I'm proceeding from the data as presented.

Grasping the Absolute means understanding the Gods?

Not the gods, the God as presented in Inrithi tradition.  I.e. immanent in history.  As explained by Serwa and Moe Jr to Sorweel.

...

Perhaps the above will serve to clarify my position, but I suspect I lack either some fundamental insight and/or the ability to properly express myself over this matter, so I will probably leave the discussion here.

[What Came Before]

Nevertheless, their burgeoned power depends on the mastery of the principles of reason and logic rather than the accumulation of knowledge.
The progress they have made is based on the principles they follow. 
For example, knowledge of sorcery and the outside is considered an impediment, therefore it has been removed rather than grasped.
Again, other speculations are merely that.  In this case I'm proceeding from the data as presented.

As long as they exist in the world, the Dunyain can't really expect to create a closed system in Ishual, can they? Anything is a candidate for inclusion in circumstance, so wouldn't they want to master everything? I know Kellhus says that history is anathema to the Dunyain, but it is still a player so long as they exist.

If one did attain the absolute in seclusion, it would be tainted as soon as they came into the world.