[TGO SPOILERS] Inchoroi Weaponry

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JerakoKayne

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« on: August 27, 2016, 01:07:35 pm »
They have many different varieties. I've been puzzled since PoN about the laser weaponry... but now that it's revealed they had nukes, too?

I really don't understand why they ever had the need to fashion sranc, bashrag, wracu, skin-spies etc. If their goal is to reduce the soul-count why didn't they just do that with their weaponry that clearly sorcery doesn't effectively defend against? It's not like they were particularly attached to Earwa; irradiating the whole land doesn't seem like something that would stop them from their salvation.

Borric

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« Reply #1 on: August 27, 2016, 05:12:26 pm »
I kinda assumed the hardware or the knowhow was lost in the crash.
I suspect the Nuke was a one off functional device, saved for a real emergency?

Cynical Cat

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« Reply #2 on: August 27, 2016, 05:40:45 pm »
Almost their entire population died in the crash, including most of their experts, and most of their technology was also smashed.  They've been forced to use whatever they could jury rig into functioning and salvage.  They've been using half trained, trial and error bioengineering using what remaining semi functional tech they have, because that's all they got.  When they fought the Nonmen they used up almost all their remaining weaponizable technology and that's what ultimately lead to their defeat because their Weapon Races alone weren't strong enough to prevail.  It's surprising that they had a nuke left, but the Consult has had two thousand years to search the Ark and try to repair anything they found.

themerchant

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« Reply #3 on: August 27, 2016, 05:54:56 pm »
They have many different varieties. I've been puzzled since PoN about the laser weaponry... but now that it's revealed they had nukes, too?

I really don't understand why they ever had the need to fashion sranc, bashrag, wracu, skin-spies etc. If their goal is to reduce the soul-count why didn't they just do that with their weaponry that clearly sorcery doesn't effectively defend against? It's not like they were particularly attached to Earwa; irradiating the whole land doesn't seem like something that would stop them from their salvation.

They had to live in Earwa after they "cleansed" it of souls. Somewhere in one of the books it's said they wanted to live in earwa so fashioned weapons that wouldn't render it inhabitable. Or words meaning similar. Trying to think where but drawing a blank at the moment, maybe a post by Bakker in zombie 3 seas.

Plus only 0.1% of the inchoroi survived the "landing" so lost the vast majority of their skills and workers.

The Sharmat

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« Reply #4 on: August 28, 2016, 03:09:13 am »
Yeah. Biotech can be quite a bit less infrastructure heavy than, say, manufacturing tanks. And once you've got sranc they just go ahead and manufacture themselves.

They did, as Cynical Cat says, use tekne artifacts. Apparently Nonmen Quya could at least counter them a bit with wards, long enough that they all either exhausted their power-sources or lost irreplaceable parts or simply became nonfunctional due to lack of people capable of maintaining them. If all but one out of a thousand humans died today in modern western civilization, it wouldn't be long before we'd have trouble fighting off spear armed tribesmen ourselves.

JerakoKayne

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« Reply #5 on: August 28, 2016, 11:34:13 am »
I kinda assumed the hardware or the knowhow was lost in the crash.
I suspect the Nuke was a one off functional device, saved for a real emergency?

They clearly had to have more than one, and to have used them in the antique wars. Even with his ubermensch deductive reasoning, Kellhus' knowledge of the effects of the weapon, had to come from somewhere. Especially detailed knowledge of things like radiation sickness among the survivors, implies that much at least. Predicting the effects of a technology that otherwise doesn't exist in the world really stretches suspension of disbelief, even for Kell. He has to know what came before to know what comes after.


Almost their entire population died in the crash, including most of their experts, and most of their technology was also smashed.  They've been forced to use whatever they could jury rig into functioning and salvage.  They've been using half trained, trial and error bioengineering using what remaining semi functional tech they have, because that's all they got.  When they fought the Nonmen they used up almost all their remaining weaponizable technology and that's what ultimately lead to their defeat because their Weapon Races alone weren't strong enough to prevail.  It's surprising that they had a nuke left, but the Consult has had two thousand years to search the Ark and try to repair anything they found.

Fascinating. This makes a great deal of sense. Thanks! I need to alter a few assumptions; I had the impression it was more a predisposition of their species to utilize the biologic components of the Tekne over the technological, and any loss of ability to comprehend it was due to a cognitive decline from their repeated augmentations.

Golgotterath itself seems to be the source of the Tekne, and skin-spies among other things seem to be a new invention which implies it's still functional post-Arkfall to some degree, so the infrastructure, as it were, already seems to be there. Perhaps this means it produces biological Tekne only? I've always thought if it could make one, it could make the other. But I suppose there are different classes of 'Tekne', or perhaps this has simply become a blanket term for any artifacts the Inchoroi brought with them, regardless of origin? It does explain a finite supply of some Tekne, but not others.

Cynical Cat

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« Reply #6 on: August 28, 2016, 11:57:37 am »
Tekne is general term for Inchoroi technology, but it must be remembered that this is seen through the perception of people who don't have modern science.  They know Inchoroi science can produce fantastic results and they know it is distinct from sorcery, but they treat it like a kind of sorcery because that's their closest analogue to super science.  So they know skin spies and ray guns are both products of the Tekne but they don't know the biology or engineering principles behind them or how different those two fields are.  That's also how they can confuse skin spies for products of strange sorcery because that's what it is to them.  The Inchoroi were heavily into biological modification and augmentation and that the Ark is huge and supported a vast population.  That probably resulted a wider spread of biolotech skills and an extensive network of supporting machinery that might have survived in one form or another.   

The Sharmat

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« Reply #7 on: August 28, 2016, 03:05:51 pm »
Doesn't someone at some point even erroneously call the Tekne the "sorcery of the material" or something like that?

MisterGuyMan

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« Reply #8 on: August 28, 2016, 10:20:53 pm »
I think there's one more big reveal for how the Consult is trying shut out the world.  If all they wanted to do was kill everyone then they could have just waited inside the Ark and let the No-God let humanity die of old age and stillborn babies.

Cynical Cat

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« Reply #9 on: August 28, 2016, 11:47:41 pm »
I think there's one more big reveal for how the Consult is trying shut out the world.  If all they wanted to do was kill everyone then they could have just waited inside the Ark and let the No-God let humanity die of old age and stillborn babies.

And let humans unite with Nonmen, gather their numbers and strength, and beseige the Ark?  Not a good plan until you've broken human civilization's capacity to resist.   That giant horde of wild Sranc has to be harnessed and directed by the No-God to do that.  Remember the Sranc aren't nearly as numerous because the North is still full of human nations and there are fewer Erratics and more Nonman Mansions standing.  The No-God guarantees eventual victory, but you need all those Sranc, Bashrags, and Wracu to prevent humans and Nonmen from kicking the Consults ass in the here and now.

MisterGuyMan

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« Reply #10 on: August 29, 2016, 12:00:04 am »
I think there's one more big reveal for how the Consult is trying shut out the world.  If all they wanted to do was kill everyone then they could have just waited inside the Ark and let the No-God let humanity die of old age and stillborn babies.

And let humans unite with Nonmen, gather their numbers and strength, and beseige the Ark?  Not a good plan until you've broken human civilization's capacity to resist.   That giant horde of wild Sranc has to be harnessed and directed by the No-God to do that.  Remember the Sranc aren't nearly as numerous because the North is still full of human nations and there are fewer Erratics and more Nonman Mansions standing.  The No-God guarantees eventual victory, but you need all those Sranc, Bashrags, and Wracu to prevent humans and Nonmen from kicking the Consults ass in the here and now.
Even as a worst case scenario, the Consult can't really lose so long as the No-God is kept safe.  The humans never regained any sense of initiative in the first Apocalypse.  The Consult could have just settled for a stalemate and they'd have won.  The No-God has no business fighting in actual battles so I think we're missing something if the No God.

Cynical Cat

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« Reply #11 on: August 29, 2016, 12:05:38 am »
I think there's one more big reveal for how the Consult is trying shut out the world.  If all they wanted to do was kill everyone then they could have just waited inside the Ark and let the No-God let humanity die of old age and stillborn babies.

And let humans unite with Nonmen, gather their numbers and strength, and beseige the Ark?  Not a good plan until you've broken human civilization's capacity to resist.   That giant horde of wild Sranc has to be harnessed and directed by the No-God to do that.  Remember the Sranc aren't nearly as numerous because the North is still full of human nations and there are fewer Erratics and more Nonman Mansions standing.  The No-God guarantees eventual victory, but you need all those Sranc, Bashrags, and Wracu to prevent humans and Nonmen from kicking the Consults ass in the here and now.
Even as a worst case scenario, the Consult can't really lose so long as the No-God is kept safe.  The humans never regained any sense of initiative in the first Apocalypse.  The Consult could have just settled for a stalemate and they'd have won.  The No-God has no business fighting in actual battles so I think we're missing something if the No God.

The humans never gained any initiative because they were not allowed to.  They were constantly under attack by the No-God.  It's worth noting that the No-God was kept back from the front lines until Megedda because the enemy was so strong at Megedda that the No-God had to put in an appearance.  Offence was the correct strategy.  Break the human nations one by one, before they unify.  At Megedda the combined remnants of the North and South was strong enough to compel the No-God to take the field.  To allow them to combine while the North was full of Nosirai and not ruins would have resulted in absolute disaster.

MisterGuyMan

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« Reply #12 on: August 29, 2016, 12:23:25 am »
The humans never gained any initiative because they were not allowed to.  They were constantly under attack by the No-God.  It's worth noting that the No-God was kept back from the front lines until Megedda because the enemy was so strong at Megedda that the No-God had to put in an appearance.  Offence was the correct strategy.  Break the human nations one by one, before they unify.  At Megedda the combined remnants of the North and South was strong enough to compel the No-God to take the field.  To allow them to combine while the North was full of Nosirai and not ruins would have resulted in absolute disaster.
Humanity was well past the point of no return when the Battle of Mengedda occurred.  I forget where this was mentioned but in the Dreams the only victory they could hope to attain was to take as many of their foe with them before they all died.  It was, for all intents and purposes a last Stand and everyone knew it.  ,Even with an unlikely victory at Mengedda, humanity is still in the same bad position.  They'd have still lost all its most powerful nations and it would just be a few months to replenish the Sranc.  If humanity couldn't gain any ground against the Consult with all its great nations intact, then a stalemate is the best they could hope for and even that would be a long shot.  IIRC the great legends of the Apocalypse seem to be of fortresses standing or halting the Consult advance even temporarily.  Taking the No-God out for that last glorious battle honestly made no sense.

JRControl

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« Reply #13 on: August 29, 2016, 12:33:13 am »
Humans could feel the direction of the NG over the horizon if I remember correctly, so any attempt at evasion would likely be pointless. Difficulties in concealing and transporting a large artifact also would have narrowed down its possible locations. A massive force that could cull the disorganized Horde enough to approach the Sarcophagus would be a threat enough to warrant bringing NG's command mode into play. One could also simply split your armies and have one delay, stall or divert while another attempted a suicide run at the Sarcophagus. The difficulty of adequately managing the Horde to respond to human strategic overtures likely necessitated the application of NG's presence more than the Consult would have liked.

EDIT: Ancient/Medieval warfare is difficult. Inchoroi for all their sophistication and cunning are working with a large set of constraints and I would even say a degree of inexperience. They are likely used to steam-rolling the opposition with technological prowess. Prior to establishment of military academies and official doctrines, commanders also played by the gut a lot of the times which lead to both stupid/brilliant moves in history. At loss for all their technology and knowledge, tactical and strategic fuck-ups are to be expected. Besides they are a race of lovers. I'm betting they were sporting some mighty fine boners at the time, risk of damnation be damned.
« Last Edit: August 29, 2016, 12:49:50 am by JRControl »
“Because you’re a pious man born to a world unable to fathom your piety. But all that changes with me, Akka. The old food pyramids have outlived the age of their intention, and I have come to reveal the new. I am the Slimmest Path, and I say that you are not damned.”

Titan

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« Reply #14 on: August 29, 2016, 05:00:57 am »
I kinda assumed the hardware or the knowhow was lost in the crash.
I suspect the Nuke was a one off functional device, saved for a real emergency?

My assumption has been that the Consult has been working hard for the last few thousand years to rediscover and understand tekne knowledge that was lost, and applying it in new ways. Thus the appearance of skin spies (improved biotech) and nukes (improved understanding of physics)