The Second Apocalypse

Earwa => General Earwa => Topic started by: What Came Before on June 02, 2013, 04:20:55 pm

Title: The Inchoroi
Post by: What Came Before on June 02, 2013, 04:20:55 pm
Quote from: Auriga
This thread is for speculations about the Race of Lovers.

What sort of place do you think the Inchoroi came from, originally? What background might they have had, before they became a species obsessed with their own damnation in the afterlife and eventually landed on Eärwa? Were they always an all-male (in the human sense) species? How do you think the society of the Inchoroi looks like? 

How long has the Inverse Fire been with them, and how long have the Inchoroi known about the No-God (and these two are definitely connected)?

Feel free to speculate.
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: What Came Before on June 02, 2013, 04:21:04 pm
Quote from: bbaztek
I find the Inchoroi one of the most fascinating (and revolting) aspects of the series. Given enough technological prowess, it's not far-fetched that a sapient species might go the way of the Inchoroi.

We are one of the few life forms on the planet that derive pleasure from sex. Think about it, for 99.99% of the planet's life reproduction is the biological equivalent of chores. You need to do it if you want to survive, but animals get as much pleasure from it as we do from drinking a glass of water. And there's us, whose conceptions of sex run the whole gamut: from beautiful and divine, to shameful and debased. What if one day our understanding of the human body will enable us to open a door to a dimension of pleasure as unfathomable to us as a one-night stand is to a frog? What if we could manufacture joy , and fulfillment, and yes, the greatest orgasm ever at the touch of a button? What will be the point of work if we could skip right to the chemical rewards?

I think Bakker's Inchoroi are the logical endpoint of a race that threw caution to the wind with their space age genetic engineering and eventually transformed into a malevolent race of pleasure-seekers.
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: What Came Before on June 02, 2013, 04:21:12 pm
Quote from: Swense
I wonder if the malevolent aspect hasn't come from the Inverse Fire. After all, it's not as if the Consult were exceptionally brutal (by Earwan standards) before they saw the Inverse Fire - but afterwards they became violent simply for the sake of violence. The Inchoroi don't HAVE to hurt anyone to derive pleasure (that seems to be the way for the weapons races, but that's different) - they do so because they're seeking a greater goal than just pleasure, the abolition of damnation. And at some point they became convinced you have to kill to abolish damnation.

Which leads us back to all the questions we'll have to wait until the Unholy Consult for answers to.
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: What Came Before on June 02, 2013, 04:21:20 pm
Quote from: bbaztek
yeah, we just don't know at this point. the idea of there being something so horrific to comprehend that you become instantly desensitized to the violence and torture is such a powerful and out-there plot device.
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: What Came Before on June 02, 2013, 04:21:27 pm
Quote from: Callan S.
Quote from: bbaztek
We are one of the few life forms on the planet that derive pleasure from sex.

?

How do you know that?
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: What Came Before on June 02, 2013, 04:21:35 pm
Quote from: Callan S.
Quote from: Swense
And at some point they became convinced you have to kill to abolish damnation.
To be fair, the no god just stopped people having kids.

Do that long enough and the Earwa population would drop below the magic number and the gods would be disconnected from the network. That's actually really quite a humane method! Their only humane method, I grant!

If they could just hold up on the damn raping and making rape murder species, they'd be the tragic good guys.
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: What Came Before on June 02, 2013, 04:21:43 pm
Quote from: Auriga
I never thought of the Inchoroi as a decadent and amoral species, really. They seem to be moralistic crusaders in their own way, it's just that their moral values are totally alien and repulsive to us.

There's also the fact that Inchoroi are an all-male race, and obviously want to remain so. They could bio-engineer their own bodies and grow female parts, but they didn't. The idea that a whole species obsessed with pleasure would only have one cock doesn't make any sense at all, when you know anything about women’s orgasms. If they're really a "race of lovers", then having just a single cock seems rather pointless.

The only conclusion here is that the Inchoroi get their thrills from violent rape, not just any sexual acts. For that, they only need male genitals. Maybe they grew those alien phalluses when they also "birthed mouths"? Since we know that the Inchoroi have attacked several planets in the past, it's likely that they also underwent sex changes on each planet, to better get their torture-raping thrills with the native species.

(IIRC, Ridley Scott once touched on a similar topic: he said something about the Alien in the first movie having special twisted feelings for human women, because its host was a human man, and thus the newborn is the ultimate predator to its "host species". I imagine the Inchoroi's sexuality works along similar lines.)

Quote from: Swense
I wonder if the malevolent aspect hasn't come from the Inverse Fire. After all, it's not as if the Consult were exceptionally brutal (by Earwan standards) before they saw the Inverse Fire

Good answer. But I get the impression that the Inchoroi were a pretty depraved species even before the Inverse Fire revealed their fate to them - after all, they're destined to hell for a reason. The books imply that the Inchoroi are damned because they are monsters, not that they are monsters because they are damned. They weren't exactly "driven mad by the revelation", in the same way that Shaeönanra was.  However, us readers just don't know enough about the Inverse Fire yet, and it might not work at all in the way we think it does. For all we know, it might be a brainwashing device and not telling the truth at all. Only TUC will tell.
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: What Came Before on June 02, 2013, 04:21:51 pm
Quote from: Madness
bbaztek highlighted much of what I might have. Further thoughts:

Do they leave their planet before or after the discovery of the Inverse Fire?

Is Earwa something of a binary universe - with only the Void and the Outside, with Earwa as the nested concentric centre? Is the Inverse Fire simply a portal or window?

What is the distinction between the Inverse Fire and the Inverse Flame, the skin-spies claim to carry?

What is the "mark of the void" that Esmenet mentions seeing in Men and Cnaiur mentions seeing in the skin-spies?

Does the Inchoroi's own immortality function no differently than the Nonmen, Womb-Plague, or are the Inchoroi simply a poorly - as Auriga mentioned - engineered homogenous species (a woman's pleasure is very easily arguably better than a man's)? It is also easier to derive pleasure at the expense of others with a penis than it is with a vagina... assuming there couldn't be other reproductive dualities.
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: What Came Before on June 02, 2013, 04:21:58 pm
Quote from: Auriga
A few other comments on the Inchoroi:

- We don't know anything at all about their society, apart from them having a monarchy (Sil being the last king).

- They seem to have fixed roles (Aurang is military, Aurax is a tekne scientist), rather than tweaking their own DNA and brains to fit many different tasks.

- Dragons might be from the Inchoroi home planet, since Wutteät (who all the Eärwa-dragons were apparently cloned from) isn't native to Eärwa and has been with traveling with the rape-aliens for a very long time.
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: What Came Before on June 02, 2013, 04:22:07 pm
Quote from: Anasurimbor Bob
The Ichorois are indeed a particular thing,so particular in fact that I have my doubts that the Ichorois we see in the books or those mentionned really are a species and not some kind of Living automatas created by their own ship,the real ones(as in the ones having created their tech and their ship)having died out a long time ago.
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: What Came Before on June 02, 2013, 04:22:15 pm
Quote from: Madness
That, Anasurimbor Bob, is quite the worthy entree into the Second Apocalypse.

Space Golems... The Automata of Damnation, you say ;). Welcome.
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: What Came Before on June 02, 2013, 04:22:23 pm
Quote from: Curethan
A few facts and some speculation on the Inchoroi.

Bakker has stated that they were moribund before they ever came to Earwa, and that they were already losing their mastery of the Tekne.
Add to this that they are immortal, and, as noted above, that all examples so far appear male - perhaps we can speculate that the nostrums tendered to the Cunoroi were derived from a similar treatment they administered to themselves.

Their forms are mutable (when first discovered by the Cunoroi, they were very different from the descriptions of the twins).

They prefer to clad themselves in the corpses of their foes as armour (!?) in battle.

They exhibit only desire, pleasure, hate and anger from the spectrum of emotions.

The ark isn't big enough to contain an entire planet full of Inchies.  It's the size of a large modern city, at best.

The weapon races are created (with the exception of the Wracu) from indigenous, souled creatures.  I speculate that the Wutteat was brought maily along because he could be cloned and because his ability to persist in the objective world beyond death interested the Inchoroi 'scientists'.
There is no weapon race created from the Inchie genome, despite the fact that they have souls.  They have not cloned themselves or grown new bodies.  The Inchies that did not survive graftings went into the Pits of the Aborted.

It's fairly safe to say that the Inchies were united by a common purpose, so much so that they were willing to risk their lives in their quest to 'save their souls'. 

I have specualted in another thread that the Inverse Fire was, in fact, developed as a neurological tweaker designed to remove certain inhibitions and tendencies - something to cure Bakker's Blind Brain condition, enable the ultimate warrior or get everyone behind the same socio-political mores, perhaps. 
In practice, it removes compassion and empathy and as a side effect it somehow allows one to glimpse/experience the fate that awaits them in the afterlife (and without compassion and empathy, you are DAMNED).  Faced by this, those who were subjected to the Inverse Fire had to show others in order to convince them.  Cue semantic apocalypse on the Inchoroi homeworld as the 'wicked' convert or destroy all opposition and then set about trying to evade their fate.
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: What Came Before on June 02, 2013, 04:22:31 pm
Quote from: lockesnow
I disagree that the Inchoroi are necessarily male.  The description of them before they birthed mouths invoked Oyster.

To me that suggests: giant walking vagina, which makes sense for a race of pleasure seekers.

and the form we see Aurang take is a synthese or a much grafted version of the GWV.  There's no particular reason for an alien race to have a phallus that works with humans and nonmen unless it was grafted on.

Even calling them 'male' because they possess a grafted phallus may be incorrect and more indicative of the tendencies/limitations of the English language than anything else (speaking of the lack of a good gender neutral and the widespread cultural heritage of presuming maleness into situations, it's a bit like saying, "A new CEO, really? Who is He?"
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: What Came Before on June 02, 2013, 04:22:39 pm
Quote from: Anasurimbor Bob
Quote from: Madness
That, Anasurimbor Bob, is quite the worthy entree into the Second Apocalypse.

Space Golems... The Automata of Damnation, you say ;). Welcome.
Well thank you,furthermore I would add that their being what they are(if I am right)is the very reason why they(and their creators) are damned:In a universe where believing the wrong thing gets you damned I only imagine what you get if a mortal has the gall to create souled beings and thus usurp the role and authority of the local deity.
Also Curethan's post conforts me in my(crackpot ?)theory on the Ichoroi's nature because what it describes to me is an autonomous probe/colonizing engine designed to find worlds to it's creators' specification and then either monitor it or conquer it.The whole thing with the capability to create drones needed for diffrent specified fonctions.
Oh and I saw this was not noticed yet:the term Ichoroi is very similar to the word"Ichor"which is the Blood of the gods in the Greek Myths.It is also funny to know that the same word,used in a medical context,describes a fetid watery discharge from an ulcer or an ugly wound.
As for the Ichoroi genders I do not think they have any originally,I think that all thair sexual organs are grafts that they can change whenever they like.
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: What Came Before on June 02, 2013, 04:22:49 pm
Quote from: Madness
+1... So something worse than the Inchoroi is their creators lol...

lockesnow, I think the question is what the Inchoroi began as biologically? Definitely agree, and evidently the consensus is forming, that the Inchoroi are not currently limited to and are homogenous as modules, organized by successful generations of grafts.

Unless AB's whole Automata conception has any merit. That's a game changer, that one.
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: What Came Before on June 02, 2013, 04:22:57 pm
Quote from: Triskele
Quote from: Auriga
- They seem to have fixed roles (Aurang is military, Aurax is a tekne scientist), rather than tweaking their own DNA and brains to fit many different tasks.

Do we have any textual confirmation on the role of Aurax?

I certainly recall references to Aurang being the Horde-General, but I do not recall any references to Aurax beyond him being a brother to Aurang.
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: What Came Before on June 02, 2013, 04:23:05 pm
Quote from: Auriga
Quote from: Triskele
Do we have any textual confirmation on the role of Aurax?

The Thousandfold Thought appendix:

Aurax (? - ?) - A surviving Prince of the Inchoroi. Very little is known of Aurax, save that he is a ranking member of the Consult and twin brother of Aurang. Mandate scholars speculate that it was he who first taught the Tekne to the Mangaecca.

The False Sun:

It was just as Aurax had said: Truth becomes ignorance when Men make gods of Deceit. "I know how this sounds,” Shaeönanra said. “But what of the Ark? The Inchoroi? They prove the existence of other Grounds, do they not? Grounds like our own!”


We don't know much about Aurax, but from these scraps of info, we can infer that he's a "guru" character and a thinker, rather than a doer. The part about him teaching bio-tech to the Consult is a big hint. I have no idea what role Aurax has in the current Consult - the dude is only mentioned once in the False Sun.
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: What Came Before on June 02, 2013, 04:23:12 pm
Quote from: Madness
I'm a +1 for Aurax being the Inchoroi at the end of TWP. Different speech patterns from all evidence of Aurang's activities.
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: What Came Before on June 02, 2013, 04:23:19 pm
Quote from: Auriga
Quote from: Madness
I'm a +1 for Aurax being the Inchoroi at the end of TWP. Different speech patterns from all evidence of Aurang's activities.
I don't think the book says outright if the rapes at the end of TWP are done by Aurang or Aurax. It seems to be the latter, though, because we haven't yet seen Aurang communicate by telepathy and refer to himself as "we".

I have no idea what the relationship between the two brothers is, though.
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: What Came Before on June 02, 2013, 04:23:26 pm
Quote from: Mog Kellhus
Also Kellhus mentions that Aurang is at Golgotterath while his consciousness is within the Synthese stalking the holy war.I don't think that he had the time to roam Akksersia interrogating people.So yes it probably was Aurax.
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: What Came Before on June 02, 2013, 04:23:38 pm
Quote from: Madness
Quote from: Mog Kellhus
Also Kellhus mentions that Aurang is at Golgotterath while his consciousness is within the Synthese stalking the holy war.

+1 for description.
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: What Came Before on June 02, 2013, 04:23:46 pm
Quote from: Auriga
Quote from: Mog Kellhus
Also Kellhus mentions that Aurang is at Golgotterath while his consciousness is within the Synthese stalking the holy war

Yeah, he says at one point that he could see Aurang's body asleep in Golgotterath, surrounded by the Mangaecca sorcerers who kept him connected to the Synthese.

I wonder what the mechanics behind the Synthese are? The man who interrogated Esmenet and pumped her full of black semen, was he a Synthese or was it Aurang possessing some random guy (the same way his mind possessed Esmenent in the third book)?

Maybe I'm totally wrong here and it wasn't Aurang at all, but just a skin-spy?
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: What Came Before on June 02, 2013, 04:23:54 pm
Quote from: Madness
You might want to gander at:

The Synthese/V. Bird (http://secondapocalypse.forumer.com/the-synthese-v-bird-t1246867.html)
TDTCB, Ch. 9 (http://secondapocalypse.forumer.com/tdtcb-ch-9-t1247957.html)
Esmenet & Aurang (http://secondapocalypse.forumer.com/esmenet-aurang-t1253167.html)

;)
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: What Came Before on June 02, 2013, 04:24:02 pm
Quote from: Callan S.
Quote from: Curethan
I have specualted in another thread that the Inverse Fire was, in fact, developed as a neurological tweaker designed to remove certain inhibitions and tendencies - something to cure Bakker's Blind Brain condition, enable the ultimate warrior or get everyone behind the same socio-political mores, perhaps. 
In practice, it removes compassion and empathy and as a side effect it somehow allows one to glimpse/experience the fate that awaits them in the afterlife
The inverse fire has the intention to...?

As a side effect it shows...?

Okay, I'm being picky on a side point, but describing the inverse fire as an intention or that knowledge of the damnation machines presence is merely a side effect - this is dressing things in human robes!

RAW knowledge! Impacting - there isn't an intention involved here - raw knowledge of horrific torture for eternity! Horrific torture for eternity!

Someone decided to remove inhibiition and tendencies? No - RAW knowledge of horrific torture for eternity! JUST that. No intentions!

Okay, just had to get on that side point. And the books prompt little rants, so it's not my fault at all that I wrote this! (oh, that's so bad of me to even write in jest!)
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: What Came Before on June 02, 2013, 04:24:09 pm
Quote from: Curethan
Um, what?

I was describing as a manufactured object that had effects other than those intended.  Like a TV show for kids that induces seizures.

There are naturaly occuring windows into Hell (Topoi) and they don't match the IF in description or effect.
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: What Came Before on June 02, 2013, 04:24:18 pm
Quote from: Madness
Quote from: Curethan
There are naturaly occuring windows into Hell (Topoi) and they don't match the IF in description or effect.

I had never actually thought about this before - the IF either shows the Hellish Outside or it doesn't - but we don't actually have any textual evidence that there's a discrepancy, right? What Shaeonanra recalls seeing in the False Sun isn't enough to say that it doesn't reflect Topoi.

Also, thinking now, I'm not sure they would even reflect each other. I like the thoughts about the IF causing neurological change, like the TV analogy above, however, Topoi reflect the bleeding of the Outside into the World and the Wight brought his entire experiential frame with the Seal.

To me the difference is markedly in experience. One (the IF), we're theorizing to have immediate changes in long-lasting behavior, the second (Topoi) have to be internalized and digested within the normal gamut of experience (how we make sense of and explain dreams, waking life, altered states)...
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: What Came Before on June 02, 2013, 04:24:26 pm
Quote from: Auriga
Quote from: Madness
To me the difference is markedly in experience.

This.

The Topoi are windows into the afterlife, an "echo" of Hell if you will. Looking into the Topoi is much like standing behind a window and looking at Hell from a distance. It's not a direct experience, just a faint echo. You can obviously see the damned (in dreams, altered states, etc) but they're at a distance and fundamentally disconnected from you. 
The Inverse Fire, on the other hand, makes you directly experience the worst suffering in Hell. It's far more personal. It doesn't give you a look at the damned in the Outside, but an actual first-hand feeling of what they feel. The descriptions we get of the Inverse Fire aren't totally unlike Mimara's nightmarish visions of Galian's fate after death.

(I've also speculated about the Inverse Fire being a neurological weapon that changes the brains of people. Not unlike Scött's other book, Neuropath, where the character Neil makes people experience reality differently.)
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: What Came Before on June 02, 2013, 04:24:34 pm
Quote from: Madness
See, I imagine that slightly different.

I figure the IF for either a total window experience (like watching the most horrifying porn ever) or, let's say, a total embodied experience (this speculated immediate, permanent neurological change). No halfway on the gradient for the IF.

Topoi on the other hand are experienced like dreams, altered states, and "normal" consciousness. I feel like there's no opportunity for conscious internalization or digesting with the IF but Topoi or the Wight's Seal do... whether sanity or madness ensue.

Not sure how much I'm actually agreeing, disagreeing, or just seeing things differently. As I said, never really thought about this "experience the Outside gradient" before today. Collecting thoughts.
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: What Came Before on June 02, 2013, 04:24:42 pm
Quote from: bbaztek
Crackpottery ahead:

There are female Inchoroi. They inhabit the Nail of Heaven mothership. Female inchoroi are the leaders of the primarily all-female inchoroi race, who are a sexually enlightened race that came to prominence ages ago. The Inchoroi base their society on the divine power of sexual union, and how peak experiences are vehicles for the contemplation and understanding of God. Connection between souls, all the way up from having a conversation to sexual activity, is seen as the ultimate realization of the God's purpose for Creation. Love is the rule of the real Inchoroi society.

Their vision of damnation is what prompted their old matriarchs to construct the mothership and send the inchoroi in every corner of the universe to prevent their sexualized yet enlightened lifestyle from being snuffed out by fear of damnation. Realizing the need to seal off the Outside as soon as humanly (inchoroily?) possibly, they created the male inchoroi who were an inversion of everything true inchoroi stood for: using sexuality as a tool for domination instead of love and peace.

Essentially female inchoroi use male inchoroi as their mad dogs to subjugate as many worlds as possible because as horrific as the male inchoroi's methods are, the ends are justified by the means.

This of course comes to a head at the end of TUC when the protagonists learn that they are actively working to ensure the spiritual damnation of an enlightened and progressive race.
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: What Came Before on June 02, 2013, 04:24:52 pm
Quote from: Auriga
Quote from: bbaztek
There are female Inchoroi.

The Seswatha flashback in the third book implies that all Inchoroi are male and that the Ark is the "female" of their species - Seswatha basically says that Golgotterath is a dead womb. It seems that the Ark was a bio-mechanical thing and a mothership in the literal sense, which gave birth to the Inchoroi and then died upon crashing into Eärwa. (Of course, this seems to contradict Wutteät's comments about the Inchoroi traveling from planet to planet and waging an inter-stellar genocide.)

My own theory is that the Inchoroi aren't "male" or "female" in the human sense, but undergo sex changes whenever they land on a new planet.

(This brings up another point - was "Ganus the Blind" an alien?)
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: What Came Before on June 02, 2013, 04:25:00 pm
Quote from: Madness
+1, again, lockesnow. Bravo. Echos of Chapterhouse.

Quote from: Auriga
The Seswatha flashback in the third book implies that all Inchoroi are male and that the Ark is the "female" of their species - Seswatha basically says that Golgotterath is a dead womb.

This was always my interpretation as well, that the Inchoroi were some kind of symbiotic species that had evolved in the Void (read Bakker's space, Universe). A creature birthed little monsters in its space womb.

Edit:

The Unholy Consult, Ch. 1 Excerpt:

(click to show/hide)

Thought this had some fuel for speculation.
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: What Came Before on June 02, 2013, 04:25:09 pm
Quote from: Auriga
Quote from: Madness
Thought this had some fuel for speculation.

Indeed. The story about the Inchoroi making the Ark into their surrogate world, as well as them being a damned species who have traveled from planet to planet, doesn't really square with the story about the Ark being the "mother" of the Inchoroi.
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: What Came Before on June 02, 2013, 04:25:17 pm
Quote from: Curethan
Well, we don't know what the Iyisku are. 
Are they some subtype of Inchoroi?   
Or the proper word for Wutteat's genus (father of the Wracu might entail a different species - like Cunoroi and Sranc) ... a 'bottomless' pit might fit with being a mostly airborne species.
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: What Came Before on June 02, 2013, 04:25:24 pm
Quote from: Madness
To be quite honest, I did flag this to inspire wanton and rampant speculation - as always - but likely, it is what the Inchoroi call themselves, what Shauriatas knows them as - whereas Inchoroi is simply the Nonmen name for the Inchoroi.
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: What Came Before on June 02, 2013, 04:25:32 pm
Quote from: bbaztek
Quote from: Auriga
Quote from: Madness
Thought this had some fuel for speculation.

Indeed. The story about the Inchoroi making the Ark into their surrogate world, as well as them being a damned species who have traveled from planet to planet, doesn't really square with the story about the Ark being the "mother" of the Inchoroi.

Both explanations can work. The 'real' inchoroi are lazing around on their homeworld/mothership while they seed the universe with Arks. The Arks are like gigantic von neumann machines that carry inchoroi souls/embryos and tekne blueprints for any possible permutation of their genotype. The Ark lands, the souls/embryos develop into their desired bodies, and then they go kill shit. Rinse, repeat.
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: What Came Before on June 02, 2013, 04:25:39 pm
Quote from: Galbrod
You're thinking something 'Avatar'-ish?
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: What Came Before on June 02, 2013, 04:25:46 pm
Quote from: bbaztek
I guess? All I'm saying the Arks are cargo ships that carry dormant inchoroi and tekne technology. So in a sense golgotterath is the 'mother' of the inchoroi landing parties, but not the actual originator of the race.

gotta say the idea of the Ark being a void-born organism that carries inchies like humans carry gut flora is pretty fucking rad though
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: What Came Before on June 02, 2013, 04:25:56 pm
Quote from: Curethan
Istriyu just the aboroginal word for Inchoroi... ou mean what they called themselves before they had mouths? ;) 
If it were that straight forward I think we would have heard the term before, but maybe.

So why a bottomless pit as a surrogate world? 

Re. the ark as mother, from a convo between Seswatha and Nau Cayuti in TTT
Quote
"There are some" ... "who argue that the entire Ark is a thing of bone, that vein and skin once pulsed across these walls."
"You mean the Ark once lived?"
..."The Inchoroi called themselves Children of the Ark.  The most ancient Nonmen lays refer to them as the Orphans."
"So this thing ... this place ... mothered them?"
..."Or fathered ... The fact is, we haven't the words for such things."...
"But I understand full well, you're saying that Golgotterath is a dead womb."
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: What Came Before on June 02, 2013, 04:26:04 pm
Quote from: Madness
The passage Curethan has quoted is what I believe inspires the speculation Auriga and I share about, as bbaztek so succinctly put it, the Ark and Inchoroi being a vengeful "void-born organism that carries inchies like humans carry gut flora."

However, bbaztek also offers a concise synthesis...

The quote from the excerpt, the word surrogate specifically, suggests that the Iyisku had to leave a preceding world, neh? Or is that just mine own connotation :)?
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: What Came Before on June 02, 2013, 04:26:28 pm
Quote from: Duskweaver
Surrogate world, or surrogate Ground?

Was the Ark itself their first attempt to escape damnation, before they discovered the phenomenon was non-local?

When the consequences of our sins against our own birth-world become too bitter to survive, will we attempt the same?
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: What Came Before on June 02, 2013, 04:26:35 pm
Quote from: Curethan
Just flying off on random tangents now, but;
Perhaps the Iyisku were the progenitors of the Inchoroi, rather than the Ark itself?
And the inchies are themselves a weapon race
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: What Came Before on June 02, 2013, 04:26:43 pm
Quote from: Auriga
"Iyisku" is pretty clearly the endonym of the Inchoroi.

Quote from: Duskweaver
Was the Ark itself their first attempt to escape damnation, before they discovered the phenomenon was non-local?

This was my theory as well, that the Ark was their attempt to create a new self-contained world with its own moral rules (thus, preventing damnation in the afterlife) before I re-read the third book and came across the "Golgotterath is a dead womb" line.

Quote
When the consequences of our sins against our own birth-world become too bitter to survive, will we attempt the same?

Possible, if space technology allows it. But we'll probably destroy the planet long before technological progress gets that far. Moreover, the destruction of the biosphere is very slow and insidious. There will be no giant flashing sign that says PUSH HERE TO DESTROY EARTH, nor will the response be sudden. It will be very gradual, but at a certain point, like any other chemical reaction, it will have gone too far to be reversed.
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: What Came Before on June 02, 2013, 04:26:53 pm
Quote from: Madness
Lol at insight. Auriga, are you suggesting that Iyisku means "Children-of-the-Ark," as loosely as the Inchoroi could translate to Ihrimsu once they birthed mouths?

+1 to Curethan who also suggested this on the last page.

Based on both those comments, I wonder at how the Inchoroi constructed and communicated meaning before grafting a vocal apparatus to their form, suitable to vibrate air at Earwan gravity ...

+1 to Duskweaver and Auriga: They discover damnation on their original Ground (which at this point in my speculative life, I'm using synonymously with Planet) and built a surrogate world:

Quote from: Auriga
This was my theory as well, that the Ark was their attempt to create a new self-contained world with its own moral rules (thus, preventing damnation in the afterlife) before I re-read the third book and came across the "Golgotterath is a dead womb" line.

The thing about Seswatha's theory is that it's so densely layered by degrees of separation from the source. Unless there was some specific commentary by the Inchoroi to one of the native Earwans, then everything is subject to the biases of speculating fantastically about science fiction technology (pardon the associative short-cut I took there) through the lens of a handful of cultures and hundreds of thousands of possible deviating perspectives.

If it is a truly a dead womb, then something along the lines of AB's Space Golem/Automata, bbaztek's Void Organism, or a generation vessel, is most likely. But we just don't know :shock: ...
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: What Came Before on June 02, 2013, 04:27:00 pm
Quote from: Duskweaver
Quote from: Madness
Ground (which at this point in my speculative life, I'm using synonymously with Planet)
I threw out that distinction between "world" and "Ground" for a reason. To me, "world" or "planet" are purely physical terms, whereas "Ground" has metaphysical connotations in the Bakkerverse. In The False Sun, Shaeönanra doesn't seem to appreciate this distinction at first, speaking of "other Grounds ... like our own", and Aurang is quick to point out that "This Ground" is unique because Salvation is possible there as nowhere else in the Universe. IMO, that's what the Inchoroi were seeking to create when they built/birthed/grew the Ark: a Ground where Salvation would be possible. In the event, it turned out to be merely a means to eventually discover that Promised Ground, rather than the Promised Ground itself, but the Inchoroi could not have known that until they left their original homeworld.

So I don't think the terms are entirely interchangeable.

The Ark can be both a Ground and a Womb, though. I think those terms might be a bit closer to synonymous in this context. Yatwer would agree, I think. It can't be a coincidence that it is she who most openly opposes Kellhus' attempt to reshape Eärwa's metaphysical Ground, nor that it is her domain of Birth that is most obviously overturned when the No-God walks.

Mother's Womb makes a nice metaphor for the Darkness that Comes Before.
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: What Came Before on June 02, 2013, 04:27:08 pm
Quote from: Madness
I would argue that Earwa is the only Ground by your connotation - despite our theorized attempt at making the Ark a Ground where Damnation didn't apply.

Just thoughts but to distinguish I'll use world for Planets.

Inchoroi have a homeworld. Some plucky fuck invents/discovers a technology/portal/tear/hole that results in the revelations of the Inverse Fire. Inchoroi are Damned and mistake their world for a Ground.

- Minor nitpick as I'm constructing this but anyone have any theories on whether the Inverse Fire shows my Damnation vs. Damnation itself? Imagine a scenario where the Judging Eye could look on the Inchoroi-who-discover-IF before they attempt anything to free themselves and they weren't Damned under its gaze, despite the "truth" of the Inverse Fire. This is something that bothers me. Does Shaeonanra, as I feel, have only the word of the Inchoroi that what he experiences in the Inverse Fire is what he will in fact experience when he dies because of his actions in life and the narrative of the Tusk or does Shaeonanra (or whoever) experience the truth of their personal Damnation when they experience the IF? The former gives even more credence to the Second Imperative theory, that the Inchoroi also added Sorcerers as Unclean to the Tusk.

Back to: the Inchoroi decide that nothing they do on their world is helping so they try and make the Ark - perhaps, it is a biological machine, which informatically stores their consciousnesses, and birthed physical clones back onto the Ark. Perhaps, they felt this process would sever the connection and allow them to go onto a new world free of their Damnation. Yet like a tv with one channel... the IF still showed damnation.

This is where I have to distinguish between our perspective and theirs. Aurang says "This Ground" is not like other Grounds. Within the context of my summary, Aurang most certainly has been previously referring to all planets as Grounds and doesn't actually understand the distinction as you make it.

They keep hunting world after world, following some prophecy about 144,000 but no world is a Ground as you've defined it until Earwa.

I think, Duskweaver, you and I are able to make the distinction you are because we can view the narrative without. Perhaps, Aurang and the Consult have come in time to recognize Earwa as the only Ground (read Topoi, basically, if I understand your metaphysical connection correctly) and all other Grounds as physical grounds or worlds.

EDIT:

"Inrau had found his grotto in the shrine of Onkis, the Singer-in-the-Dark, the Aspect who stood at the heart of all men, moving them to forever grasp far more than they could hold ... Her image never failed to stir something within him, and this is why he always returned to her: she was this stirring, the dark place where the flurries of his thought arose. She came before him" (TDTCB, p132).

It seems Onkis usurps Yatwer as this aspect, good sir.
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: What Came Before on June 02, 2013, 04:27:16 pm
Quote from: Curethan
Its interesting that most of us speculators lead with the assumption that Moenghus and Kellhus lie (despite the fact that they are always shown to prefer to use the truth and allow individuals to decieve themselves) and that the Consult always speak the truth.

What if the Inchies were flat out wrong? 
Let's say they irrevocably damned themselves and sealed off the outside on their home planet, found that didn't help and then started their interplanetary genocidal quest.
Every planet they come to, they believe that THIS is the promised land, this time they will save their souls, and every time they are wrong and their souls just get damned to some other hell which they then track using the IF.

Perhaps the existence of sorcery there, and the consult's subsequent invention of the No-god is what makes Earwa different - this time they have an actual chance only because they can create an alternate outside.  (which would mean they are lucky they didn't defeat the Nonmen first up)

Now, my initial speculation that the bottomless pit might be a biosphere for Wutteat and his kin was based on the fact that he is a creature of the sky - the walls would provide nesting places and there is NO GROUND.  Thinking further, Shae has adopted it because it provides a means for him to avoid death via his soul trapping and who else do we know of that cannot die?  Wutteat...
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: What Came Before on June 02, 2013, 04:27:26 pm
Quote from: Madness
Firstly, I think the only commentary that Moenghus or Kellhus made on the Inchoroi specifically is when Kellhus is interrogating Esmenet Compulsed by Aurang.

I think, Curethan, that we're all, every reader, subject to the game of greater frames, the Layers of Revelation, that Bakker is using to toy with ambiguity.

The False Sun has offered us a greater reversal or inversion of objectivity within the books... which, we're interested in for some reason.

Honestly, you'd be surprised how much I view the interpretations we consensually commit to, the validations we provide, as more important than the text...

Bakker keeps providing an alternate truth and we seem to cling to those most novel.

What does it mean?!
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: What Came Before on June 02, 2013, 04:27:32 pm
Quote from: Duskweaver
Quote from: Madness
I would argue that Earwa is the only Ground by your connotation - despite our theorized attempt at making the Ark a Ground where Damnation didn't apply.
Maybe. Shaeonanra's explanation in The False Sun is hamstrung by the problem that his culture apparently has only one word to cover the concepts of "big ball of rock floating in space", "society with its laws and customs", "reality with associated physical laws" and "divine creation and its metaphysics, including the rules determining damnation and salvation".

That whole conversation in The False Sun feels a little like we're listening in to someone attempting to explain M-theory to a caveman. ;)

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Inchoroi have a homeworld. Some plucky fuck invents/discovers a technology/portal/tear/hole that results in the revelations of the Inverse Fire. Inchoroi are Damned and mistake their world for a Ground.
*Nods* They assume their world's metaphysics are unique and that they can be escaped through mere physical distance. And/or they assume any world has its own unique set of metaphysics, and that creating a new world to their own specifications (literally playing God) will allow them to choose that artificial world's metaphysics.

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- Minor nitpick as I'm constructing this but anyone have any theories on whether the Inverse Fire shows my Damnation vs. Damnation itself?
I don't think that's a minor nitpick. I think that's one of the most important "known unknowns" (things we know we don't know) in tSA right now.

The impression I get is that the IF lets you experience your own personal damnation. Just being a window into Hell doesn't seem like it would have the deep psychological effect it is described as having. So, a genuinely non-damned person looking into the IF would presumably see Heaven instead.

But my gut feeling is that damnation is pretty much the default in Earwa. IIRC, the only person Mimara has ever seen with the Judging Eye who isn't damned is herself.

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Imagine a scenario where the Judging Eye could look on the Inchoroi-who-discover-IF before they attempt anything to free themselves and they weren't Damned under its gaze, despite the "truth" of the Inverse Fire.
Which would mean they damned themselves by the actions they took to escape the damnation they wrongly assumed they were already destined to? And then carried that damnation to other worlds by interfering with those worlds' cultures, preaching the 'reality' of damnation and persuading people to betray and murder each other in self-defeating attempts to achieve a false 'salvation' that's not even necessary?

That's probably what I'd do if I were writing tSA. I don't think RSB shares my deep-seated-and-probably-not-very-psychologically-healthy hatred of religion, though, so I don't think that's the route he's going to take. :P

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This is something that bothers me. Does Shaeonanra, as I feel, have only the word of the Inchoroi that what he experiences in the Inverse Fire is what he will in fact experience when he dies because of his actions in life and the narrative of the Tusk or does Shaeonanra (or whoever) experience the truth of their personal Damnation when they experience the IF? The former gives even more credence to the Second Imperative theory, that the Inchoroi also added Sorcerers as Unclean to the Tusk.
I think, at the very least, the IF itself must utterly convince you that what you're experiencing is genuinely your own damnation. If it were just a matter of the Inchoroi telling you that it's true, then what's the point of the IF at all?

I don't give any credence to the Second Imperative theory, incidentally. Bakker outright told us that the bit about the Nonmen was the only thing the Inchoroi added to the Tusk. Everything else was just a record of the already-extant beliefs and laws of the Men of Eanna (and, really, the idea that a bunch of devout pre-literate savages wouldn't already have a proscription against sorcery is pretty absurd).

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Back to: the Inchoroi decide that nothing they do on their world is helping so they try and make the Ark - perhaps, it is a biological machine, which informatically stores their consciousnesses, and birthed physical clones back onto the Ark.
Serious shades of Warhammer 40,000 again. The Eldar created living biotech world-ships to store their souls, in order to escape the damnation brought about by their own carnal excesses.

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Perhaps, they felt this process would sever the connection and allow them to go onto a new world free of their Damnation. Yet like a tv with one channel... the IF still showed damnation.
They made the same assumption a lot of readers did initially: that damnation is local. Maybe that old theory that the Inchoroi are future Earth-humans isn't so far-fetched, after all... ;)

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This is where I have to distinguish between our perspective and theirs. Aurang says "This Ground" is not like other Grounds. Within the context of my summary, Aurang most certainly has been previously referring to all planets as Grounds and doesn't actually understand the distinction as you make it.
Yeah, maybe the misunderstanding wasn't Shae's, but was actually a result of the Inchoroi (then) having only an incomplete understanding of what they were trying to explain to him. (Or the Inchies just referred to all planets as "Grounds" because of the limitations of Shae's language.) Aurang certainly seems to understand the distinction by the time he speaks in The False Sun, though.

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They keep hunting world after world, following some prophecy about 144,000 but no world is a Ground as you've defined it until Earwa.
This puzzles me a bit. I have literally no idea how the Inchoroi could have come up with the idea that reducing a world's population to 144,000 would close it off from the Outside. I kinda think this was just RSB being too clever for his own good and shoe-horning a cool-sounding biblical reference into the story without any real thought behind its plausibility.

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I think, Duskweaver, you and I are able to make the distinction you are because we can view the narrative without. Perhaps, Aurang and the Consult have come in time to recognize Earwa as the only Ground (read Topoi, basically, if I understand your metaphysical connection correctly) and all other Grounds as physical grounds or worlds.
Hmm. I'm not sure 'Ground' is any more interchangeable with 'topos' than it is with 'planet'. There's obviously a connection, though, and I suspect Earwa is the only place in the universe where topoi can form.

On the other hand, part of me wants to say the IF is a sort of controlled topos, which would disprove that idea...

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It seems Onkis usurps Yatwer as this aspect, good sir.
For Inrau, maybe. But Yatwer still serves as a handy metaphor for the inescapable influence of our genetic/biological makeup.
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: What Came Before on June 02, 2013, 04:27:44 pm
Quote from: Curethan
Quote from: Duskweaver
The impression I get is that the IF lets you experience your own personal damnation. Just being a window into Hell doesn't seem like it would have the deep psychological effect it is described as having.

Just on this part, there is that quote from Bakker where he says that the Scarlet Spires' records show that Damnation is different for each person.
I think the IF shows each veiwer the same damnation, which is why they see it as the truth.  Which is why I suspect the IF is also a neural cookie cutter - all its, erm, patients' ... souls become the same grotesque shape.
The SS haven't come to the same conclusions after all, or Iyokus would've been whole a lot nastier than he was and probably run off with the first skin spy he could find.
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: What Came Before on June 02, 2013, 04:27:53 pm
Quote from: Madness
Quote from: Duskweaver
I don't give any credence to the Second Imperative theory, incidentally. Bakker outright told us that the bit about the Nonmen was the only thing the Inchoroi added to the Tusk. Everything else was just a record of the already-extant beliefs and laws of the Men of Eanna (and, really, the idea that a bunch of devout pre-literate savages wouldn't already have a proscription against sorcery is pretty absurd).

...

Serious shades of Warhammer 40,000 again. The Eldar created living biotech world-ships to store their souls, in order to escape the damnation brought about by their own carnal excesses.

Big old +1 to your post, Duskweaver, but I wanted to address these two points specifically. Like your thoughts, I will mull them over.

The latter is just such an awesome conception. I love when Warhammer writers hit their stride and reading the universe can really be awe inspiring - though some of it is total crap. It just takes one alien species to make Xenocide it's special ambition and the rest of would have to make the decision to fight or perish ;).

The thing to remember, though, and we have very little textual evidence of this, though I could go digging on another occasion: Shaman.

Apparently, some of the Prophets of the Tusk were the perfect balance of Sorcerer and Prophet. If I remember right, there is even an obscure thread on the old Three-Seas where White Lord (much love wherever you are) got Bakker discussing power struggles among the Five Tribes between the generic Prophets and the Shamans.
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: What Came Before on June 02, 2013, 04:31:11 pm
Quote from: Anasurimbor Bob
The idea of the Ark being some kind of early solution to their little damnation situation is a good one,I like it however it still begs a question:Do the Ichoris born from it and within it really count as the same race as the ones who made the ark and were born another way before it was made ?
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: What Came Before on June 02, 2013, 04:31:18 pm
Quote from: Wilshire
I'd say, at least in a physical sense, yes. Like clones or any kind of artificial insemination, though created in a tube and not organically, the products of such science are made to be the same as the template.

Same question different universe:
Are the tleilaxu spawned from their axlotl tanks still the tleilaxu? :P (couldnt help myself)
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: What Came Before on June 02, 2013, 04:31:26 pm
Quote from: Anasurimbor Bob
Quote from: Wilshire
I'd say, at least in a physical sense, yes. Like clones or any kind of artificial insemination, though created in a tube and not organically, the products of such science are made to be the same as the template.
Well yes and no:yes in the physcal sense they might be the same as the original ones before any modification,however they are also different since unlike the original ones,they are incapable of reproducing by themselves and are completely depedent of the ark for this,furthermore it is also highly possible that the ark used to grow it's children with predefinite roles.
Quote from: Wilshire
Same question different universe:
Are the tleilaxu spawned from their axlotl tanks still the tleilaxu? :P (couldnt help myself)
Well it is a bit different when you know the nature of their axolotl tanks.
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: What Came Before on June 02, 2013, 04:31:34 pm
Quote from: Wilshire
But it could have always been that way. The Inchoroi could have just been a weapon race that got out of hand and killed their masters and set off on their own to find a haven. They may have never been able to do much on their own.
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: What Came Before on June 02, 2013, 04:31:43 pm
Quote from: Anasurimbor Bob
Which brings us back to my automata theory that they are not a natural race but creations of someone else,the product of Tekne themselves...Well at a higher level that the vestigial one they currently use.I wonder if they tried to fill the gaps in their remaining Tekne knowledge with Apropos and  Mangaecca sorcery BTW
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: What Came Before on June 02, 2013, 04:31:52 pm
Quote from: lockesnow
I just sort of love how we're all using Ark, when biblically, Noah and his family used the Ark to escape damnation as well. :D

so to speak.

crackpot--unholy consult ends with a tsunami flood that drowns the entire world, caused by arks of other species crashlanding onto the planet, ala planet killing asteroids.
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: What Came Before on June 02, 2013, 04:31:58 pm
Quote from: Duskweaver
Quote from: lockesnow
I just sort of love how we're all using Ark, when biblically, Noah and his family used the Ark to escape damnation as well. :D
Biblically, an Ark is both "a colossal ship used to escape a world-breaking cataclysm" and "an ornate box made to contain a culture's most holy artefacts".

The word comes from the Latin arcus ('vessel', 'coffer'), though the Turkish translation would be tekne.

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planet killing asteroids.
Looking at that map with all the impact craters (http://www.rscottbakker.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/EARWA2.Bare-1.jpg), this may have happened already.
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: What Came Before on June 02, 2013, 04:32:06 pm
Quote from: Wilshire
wow Dusk, you and your latin and other translations. Thats really interesting
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: What Came Before on June 02, 2013, 04:32:17 pm
Quote from: Madness
+1 for forum apokalypsis. We can't simply think all these thoughts for ourselves :D.
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: What Came Before on June 02, 2013, 04:32:32 pm
Quote from: lockesnow
Quote from: Duskweaver
Quote from: lockesnow
I just sort of love how we're all using Ark, when biblically, Noah and his family used the Ark to escape damnation as well. :D
Biblically, an Ark is both "a colossal ship used to escape a world-breaking cataclysm" and "an ornate box made to contain a culture's most holy artefacts".

The word comes from the Latin arcus ('vessel', 'coffer'), though the Turkish translation would be tekne.

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planet killing asteroids.
Looking at that map with all the impact craters (http://www.rscottbakker.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/EARWA2.Bare-1.jpg), this may have happened already.
What has come before determines what comes after. 

So if this has happened before...

I was referencing the thread that was about all those craters. :p  what if it's all for naught and everyone dies in the end because of a biblical flood.

And I specifically said that Noah escaped damnation on the ark because I was twisting it.  You could say the whole Lot were damned to death and God only 'saved' Noah, surely, none of those who were slain by the righteous and mighty hand of God were saved and wound up in heaven.  Nay, they were all damned, and sent to hell via a watery route.

In any event, I love your take on the ark, as simultaneously a way to escape a planet killing cataclysm and the receptacle holding the holy of holies.

Also that Turkish is amazing. Oh Bakker.
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: What Came Before on June 02, 2013, 04:33:59 pm
Quote from: Madness
Lol +1, lockesnow.
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: What Came Before on June 02, 2013, 04:34:07 pm
Quote from: Auriga
I wonder what relationship the Inchoroi had to the dragons? Wutteät (and, by extension, his genetic clones) isn't a product of the Tekne, but an alien creature in his own right. Where did they pick him up, and how come?

The dragons are also thematically interesting, since they have a cold mechanical quality (iron bones, quicksilver eyes, a reptilian laziness) that is totally at odds with the Inchoroi, who are associated with flesh and sexuality. The rape-obsessed hedonists and the cold-blooded lizards who prefer to just hoard treasures. The organic and the bio-mechanical. Weird that such polar opposites would be drawn to each other.
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: What Came Before on June 02, 2013, 04:34:16 pm
Quote from: bbaztek
Perhaps dragons were a spacefaring race that hitched along for the ride.
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: What Came Before on June 02, 2013, 04:34:22 pm
Quote from: Wilshire
It did mention that they picked up Wutteat in space. A derelict survivor of some other plant-wide catastrophe? Or did he exterminate his whole race to prove he was the mightyest, then float around the void bored and looking for more shit to blow up?
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: What Came Before on June 02, 2013, 04:34:30 pm
Quote from: Madness
Bakker used the metre stick as an analogy in an interview - there's a metre stick in France that all other metre sticks take their form from. This ensures, among other things, uniformity of measurement.

Wutteat is the metre stick.

Perhaps, the Inchoroi conquered Wracu planet and took Wutteat as an optimum sample - convinced him he's damned? Or he could be a machine of another world, or the Inchoroi themselves?

I find it interesting that the Inchoroi don't have a bunch of weapons races... or have their lazguns lasted all way til now?

When did they start using the Tekne again to construct new biotech? On Earwa? Or are there countless planets with nothing but weapon race societies on them?

Thoughts ;). I'm inspired by the speculations today.
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: What Came Before on June 02, 2013, 04:34:36 pm
Quote from: Curethan
Wutteat doesn't seem concerned with damnation.  I think he just wants to die, but the Inchies have mad it so he can't until they have achieved their objective.
Possibly they already destroyed the Wracu afterlife, but it didn't free the Inchies.
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: What Came Before on June 02, 2013, 04:34:45 pm
Quote from: Wilshire
Quote from: Madness
Bakker used the metre stick as an analogy in an interview - there's a metre stick in France that all other metre sticks take their form from. This ensures, among other things, uniformity of measurement.

Wutteat is the metre stick.

Perhaps, the Inchoroi conquered Wracu planet and took Wutteat as an optimum sample - convinced him he's damned? Or he could be a machine of another world, or the Inchoroi themselves?

I find it interesting that the Inchoroi don't have a bunch of weapons races... or have their lazguns lasted all way til now?

When did they start using the Tekne again to construct new biotech? On Earwa? Or are there countless planets with nothing but weapon race societies on them?

Thoughts ;). I'm inspired by the speculations today.

Sorry going to have to disagree with you on the meter stick in France. They got the weight  measurements in France I believe, but the meter is defined differently.


Since 1983 a meter is the length of the path traveled by light in vacuum during a time interval of 1/299,792,458 of a second.
A very, very precise measurement.
http://www.bipm.org/en/CGPM/db/17/1/     (if you want to check the source)


" Or are there countless planets with nothing but weapon race societies on them?"
Probably. I get from the Inchoroi musings (TTT glossary maybe, cant remember exactly) that they are rather adapt at making weapon races. They crafted the sranc to kill and eat only Nonmen so as to preserve the world for themselves. That sounds to me like they have done it before. Probably once they found that each world isn't the promised land, they just leave their old shit behind. Each race is constructed for a purpose on each planet, and they may not function properly on a different world.
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: What Came Before on June 02, 2013, 04:34:55 pm
Quote from: Duskweaver
Quote from: Madness
Wutteat is the metre stick.
That would explain why he is... unceasing.
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: What Came Before on June 02, 2013, 04:35:01 pm
Quote from: Auriga
Quote from: Madness
Perhaps, the Inchoroi conquered Wracu planet and took Wutteat as an optimum sample - convinced him he's damned? Or he could be a machine of another world, or the Inchoroi themselves?

An alien species from another planet, would be my guess. A bio-mechanical species that doesn't obey the same physical laws as us organic creatures. (The undead Wutteät, who can never truly die, is described in a similar way to a rusting machine.) The text's descriptions of dragons are pretty "metallic" - they have bones of iron, claws of bronze, golden flames, and quicksilver eyes - unlike the Inchoroi, who are a race of flesh and always described in organic terms. Maybe they even reproduce asexually, since their disinterest in sex is the total opposite of the Inchoroi obsession with it.

I wouldn't be surprised if the dragons are largely metallic, and that the dragons' love of hoarding treasures is because they share a lot of metallic properties.

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I find it interesting that the Inchoroi don't have a bunch of weapons races... or have their lazguns lasted all way til now?

I'm sure they have created weapon races before (perhaps they "bombed" other planets with them, like bioweapons), just that they didn't think it was necessary on Eärwa. They went in with guns blazing, got smacked by the Nonmen, and only started breeding the armies of Sranc after that first defeat. 

One wonders why a species so obsessed with damnation, and how to avoid it at all costs, would carelessly risk their own lives in battle. I guess the best explanation is that Sil and his warriors were absolutely 100% convinced that Eärwa was the "chosen world" where they wouldn't be damned, and that they simply couldn't imagine that the primitive spear-chucking natives of Eärwa had any real chance of harming them.

(Until those primitive natives started firing thunderbolts from their hands and geometries of light from their asses, that is.)

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When did they start using the Tekne again to construct new biotech? On Earwa?

According to the TTT appendix, after they got beaten by the Nonmen in the first battle.

I think Bakker mentioned somewhere that the Tekne wasn't working perfectly as it should, since most of the Inchoroi scientists were killed in the crash landing. They were mostly throwing shit at the wall and seeing what stuck.

(Of course, this begs the question - why didn't they clone more of themselves, since they evidently were cloning Wutteät?)

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Or are there countless planets with nothing but weapon race societies on them?

Possible.
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: What Came Before on June 02, 2013, 04:35:10 pm
Quote from: Curethan
The Inchies needed sranc to combat sorcery.  I doubt they had so much problems previously with flight and deaths rays readily available.

Scott said that the Inchies were moribund well before they came to Earwa.  Presumably they also lost interest in furthering or properly understanding their technology a long time ago.  Raping, killing and their quest is all that matters.
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: What Came Before on June 02, 2013, 04:35:20 pm
Quote from: Auriga
Quote from: Curethan
The Inchies needed sranc to combat sorcery.  I doubt they had so much problems previously with flight and deaths rays readily available.

They were beaten at Pir-Pahal, where they did use their normal weapons (but not bioweapon races, which were created later). I don't think the Nonmen would stand a chance against a space-faring species if they didn't have Quya sorcerers. 

Neither are Sranc especially useful against sorcery, apart from being meat-shields. IIRC, Bakker once said that the Inchoroi tried arming the Sranc with chorae, but they were too dumb to use them. 

Quote
Scott said that the Inchies were moribund well before they came to Earwa.  Presumably they also lost interest in furthering or properly understanding their technology a long time ago.  Raping, killing and their quest is all that matters

True, true. But they evidently did have the technology of cloning Wutteät, even if they'd lost interest in furthering the Tekne, so it does seem weird that they didn't simply clone more of themselves. 

(I wonder what other lost technology they have? Their bio-tech must have been incredibly advanced in the past, since they were even able to make the Nonmen physically immortal.)
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: What Came Before on June 02, 2013, 04:35:27 pm
Quote from: Madness
Quote from: Wilshire
Sorry going to have to disagree with you on the meter stick in France. They got the weight measurements in France I believe, but the meter is defined differently.

No apologies. Please, correct me. I don't like maintaining irrelevant information :). You have knowledge I want.

The analogy really still stands - Wutteat is the precisely measured vacuum to all other metre sticks. Was it how I described in the past, Wilshire?

Quote from: Auriga
An alien species from another planet, would be my guess. A bio-mechanical species that doesn't obey the same physical laws as us organic creatures. (The undead Wutteät, who can never truly die, is described in a similar way to a rusting machine.) The text's descriptions of dragons are pretty "metallic" - they have bones of iron, claws of bronze, golden flames, and quicksilver eyes - unlike the Inchoroi, who are a race of flesh and always described in organic terms. Maybe they even reproduce asexually, since their disinterest in sex is the total opposite of the Inchoroi obsession with it.

I wouldn't be surprised if the dragons are largely metallic, and that the dragons' love of hoarding treasures is because they share a lot of metallic properties.

+1. Why then don't have the Inchoroi have a "Hall of Dead Aliens" (to use a working term from one of my fictions)? Wouldn't they keep optimum samples of all "worthy" species?

Wow... short story: Inchoroi with Lasguns vs. Wracu planet... what!?

Quote from: Auriga
One wonders why a species so obsessed with damnation, and how to avoid it at all costs, would carelessly risk their own lives in battle. I guess the best explanation is that Sil and his warriors were absolutely 100% convinced that Eärwa was the "chosen world" where they wouldn't be damned, and that they simply couldn't imagine that the primitive spear-chucking natives of Eärwa had any real chance of harming them.

...

I think Bakker mentioned somewhere that the Tekne wasn't working perfectly as it should, since most of the Inchoroi scientists were killed in the crash landing. They were mostly throwing shit at the wall and seeing what stuck.

It's interesting that Wracu are the plotline to unravel the Inchoroi society but this thread of thoughts is yielding dividends.

We cannot take anything from Operation Earwa as their standard M.O. ... so what's standard op? Assuming they're at full operating capabilities before landing on Earwa? Why did they crash at all - does this give credence to some of the speculation we have about the Inchoroi running from something worse...?

Quote from: Curethan
Scott said that the Inchies were moribund well before they came to Earwa. Presumably they also lost interest in furthering or properly understanding their technology a long time ago. Raping, killing and their quest is all that matters.

Does that have to mean that the Ark isn't self-sufficient?

Big +1 for Quya Being the Factor.
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: What Came Before on June 02, 2013, 04:35:37 pm
Quote from: Auriga
Quote from: Madness
+1. Why then don't have the Inchoroi have a "Hall of Dead Aliens" (to use a working term from one of my fictions)? Wouldn't they keep optimum samples of all "worthy" species?

Well, what we've seen of Golgotterath is only the tiniest fraction, so there's nothing that says the Inchoroi don't have a trophy hall of species that they've destroyed. The Ark is larger than the largest city. It's possible that they do have a "hall of aliens", actually, because we know that the Inchoroi take trophies from their victims.

(The short story on Bakker's blog has a flashback of Inchoroi wearing the severed faces of Nonmen, among other stuff. This habit seems to have passed to the Sranc, who have weapons and jewelry made of human bone.)

Quote
Wow... short story: Inchoroi with Lasguns vs. Wracu planet... what!?

A spin-off about the Inchoroi raping and killing their way through the galaxy? Why not?

Scött could make a board game or a spin-off cartoon or maybe a Grand Theft Inchoroi rape-simulator videogame out of it. It'd be an instant hit.

Quote
We cannot take anything from Operation Earwa as their standard M.O. ... so what's standard op? Assuming they're at full operating capabilities before landing on Earwa?

If I was the Inchoroi, my standard op would be orbital bombing of the target planets, "seeding" them with bioweapon monsters. I imagine that the Inchoroi have done this in the past, when they had full capability.

(Basically, I'd do what the Inchoroi didn't. Especially their fuck-up in the Apocalypse. Whose idea was it to unleash the No-God and risk it all, instead of letting humanity slowly go extinct? Or maybe the No-God's makers don't have any power over him at all?)

Quote
Big +1 for Quya Being the Factor.

Definitely. Without the Quyan sorcerers, the Nonmen would be doomed, and the alien invaders would turn Eärwa into a depopulated wasteland. None of the PON characters would ever be born, except for Cleric, who'd be gargling black semen in the cells of Golgotterath.
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: What Came Before on June 02, 2013, 04:36:01 pm
Quote from: Madness
Quote from: Auriga
Well, what we've seen of Golgotterath is only the tiniest fraction, so there's nothing that says the Inchoroi don't have a trophy hall of species that they've destroyed. The Ark is larger than the largest city. It's possible that they do have a "hall of aliens", actually, because we know that the Inchoroi take trophies from their victims.

(The short story on Bakker's blog has a flashback of Inchoroi wearing the severed faces of Nonmen, among other stuff. This habit seems to have passed to the Sranc, who have weapons and jewelry made of human bone.)

+1. I just feel like they would've duplicated and used them, like the Wracu, if Wutteat is indeed the last of his kind.

Quote
Scött could make a board game or a spin-off cartoon or maybe a Grand Theft Inchoroi rape-simulator videogame out of it. It'd be an instant hit.

Twilight Imperium, friend.

And, of course, +1 the rest.

I suspect the No-God is its own entity with autonomy. It simply suffers from something all great powers do... reliance on lesser beings.
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: What Came Before on June 02, 2013, 04:36:10 pm
Quote from: Auriga
Quote from: Madness
+1. I just feel like they would've duplicated and used them, like the Wracu, if Wutteat is indeed the last of his kind.

Yeah, I also wondered about this. Still, it's even weirder that the Inchoroi didn't replicate themselves but went extinct.

Quote
Twilight Imperium, friend.

Or those Warhammer games (not the ones with green boar-looking things, but the ones with space-age marines and flesh-eating aliens). I had a cousin who was really into them, although I never saw the point.

Quote
I suspect the No-God is its own entity with autonomy. It simply suffers from something all great powers do... reliance on lesser beings.

True, true. It's mentioned that the Consult are its "slaves", and that they worship it. So, yeah, the No-God is beyond anyone's control, after it's been unleashed.

(I also find it interesting how the No-God is the exact opposite of a god in so many ways - it's not even omniscient like gods are supposed to be, but asks "WHAT DO YOU SEE?" of all people it meets. My guess is that the No-God is made of dead souls, since it communicates with living people in the same way as the Nonman ghost in Cil-Aujas.)
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: What Came Before on June 02, 2013, 04:36:19 pm
Quote from: Madness
Yeah, while I do have perfectly useless vices, board gaming was never one of them.

I'd imagine he's not much of a conversationalist if his vocabulary doesn't expand beyond what we've seen on screen?

"WHAT DO YOU SEE?
TELL ME WHAT I SEE.
YOU MUST SEE WHAT I SEE.
DO YOU SEE ME?
MUST I SEE?"
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: What Came Before on June 02, 2013, 04:36:32 pm
Quote from: bbaztek
I wonder if we'll see some new Tekne weapons in TUC. Bakker told an interviewer that we'd "have to wait and see" when asked about the full extent of the Consult's depravity. The guy's got a wickedly morbid imagination so I'm pumped what horrible abominations we're in store for.

edit: forgot to ask the million dollar question: so why black semen?
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: What Came Before on June 02, 2013, 04:36:38 pm
Quote from: Curethan
Humanoid weapon races and synthese are probably made by adapting the grafting machines rather than cloning technology.
Clues;
They are all souless.
Bashrag
Skin spies and sranc made using Inchoroi risk/reward style nervous systems.

(Kinda funny to think that skin spies largely have to fake orgasms when under cover)

Wracu would be something different, but again they are souless.  Wutteat's status as Father of Dragons perhaps indicates they are more regular sort of progeny? 
Maybe he was brooding eggs until Pir Pihal, and can't lay any more with his neck broken?
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: What Came Before on June 02, 2013, 04:36:50 pm
Quote from: Madness
I'll bet we see new weapons races - Ursranc and Skin-Spies are novel innovations by the Tekne. Doubt we'll see any Heron Spears though.
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: What Came Before on June 02, 2013, 04:36:59 pm
Quote from: Auriga
Quote from: Madness
I'll bet we see new weapons races - Ursranc and Skin-Spies are novel innovations by the Tekne.

This is gonna be interesting, for sure. After all the aeons of being a decaying and moribund species who have forgotten their bio-technology, the creation of Skin-Spies is an obvious sign that Team Phallus has now re-learned the Tekne and kick-started it again.

TUC might even be the best of the TSA books, because I'm a sucker for the whole sci-fi aspect of the story.

Quote
Doubt we'll see any Heron Spears though.

Yeah. The way Bakker wrote it in the TTT appendix, "the Scylvendi sacked the city and it was lost", was basically a history-textbook way of saying that we won't see it again.
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: What Came Before on June 02, 2013, 04:37:09 pm
Quote from: Madness
Wow. Team Phallus. The Project. The Ordeal needs a good name too.

+1 for Sci-Fi Elements.

I actually meant that I don't see Team Phallus creating say... projectile weapons.

I do think we'll see the Heron Spear again - I don't think the Metagnosis is enough to defeat the No-God.
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: What Came Before on June 02, 2013, 04:37:19 pm
Quote from: Auriga
By the way, what do we know about the Consult's membership?

Team Phallus is clearly a triumvirate of sorts, being led by Shaeönanra and the Inchoroi twins. However, the rest of the Consult is a mystery. The Mangaecca has been totally absent, apart from its boss. There's also a big group of Nonman Erratics, although the only named one is Mekeritrig.

(One would think that Nin'janjin was an early Consult member, although he's never described as such. Nin'janjin seems to have vanished from history by the time Nil'giccas finished the Nonman-Inchoroi Wars, and he was definitely long gone when Shaeönanra brought back Team Phallus from the grave. What do you think happened to him?)

Quote from: Madness
I don't think the Metagnosis is enough to defeat the No-God.

Hmmm, maybe. I always suspected that Kellhus is the No-God, or at least has the potential to be.
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: What Came Before on June 02, 2013, 04:37:29 pm
Quote from: bbaztek
We'll probably see the rest of the Mangaecca in TUC, modified beyond recognition by the Tekne and Shae's soul-ping-pong wankery. I expect the grunts have lost all sense of individuality and are pretty much just heavy assault bio weapons at this point, if they've even retained their knowledge of the Gnosis.
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: What Came Before on June 02, 2013, 04:37:40 pm
Quote from: Madness
I think Mekeritrig is lucid/capable enough to maintain a coherent narrative for himself, Auriga, to qualify as the fourth - the Consult's a quadruped.

I expect to see some Gnosis on Gnosis at Dagliash. Even though Bakker could get away with contesting the fortress with only weapon races.

The Mangaecca are one of, I believe, twelve original Gnostic Schools in Sauglish... The Mandate might qualify as an offspring of the Ancient North, if only because Seswatha was Grandmaster of the first Gnostic School, the Sohonc.
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: What Came Before on June 02, 2013, 04:37:47 pm
Quote from: Madness
Quote from: Cu'jara Cinmoi, 2006
The Bashrags are roughly analagous to trolls - in keeping with my shameless blur of Tolkien. The Bashrag are the only viable result of several botched attempts by the Inchoroi to create slave warriors able to physically overcome the ancient Nonmen Ishroi. The redundant skeletal structure, understood in out terms, was the only way they could coax the mass and strength they needed out of the Nonman genome. Even in this pre-apocalyptic age, their understanding of their own Tekne was far from complete.

Quote from: Cu'jara Cinmoi, 2006
Regarding biological warfare, the suggestion is that the Inchoroi have long ago ceased understanding their own technology. This is a function of their moribund state as well as their immortality. The idea is that they've inherited an arsenal from their past, much of it damaged, and that those genomic weapons they do get off the ground, are the result of centuries of blind tinkering, cannibalizing, and scrounging. The Womb-Plague (see the Cuno-Inchoroi Wars in TTT), for instance, is an example of an ad hoc microbial weapon.

Quote from: Cu'jara Cinmoi, 2005
So far, the deepest the histories go is to the Fall, which is to say, the arrival of the Inchoroi in the last Age of Nonmen. At the moment, that feels plenty deep, and it precedes the Tusk by quite a few thousand years. I haven't been looking at the history of Earwa so much from the standpoint of an 'absolute observer,' as from from the standpoint of what is known or thought to be known at the time of the Holy War. This isn't a rule that I adhere to, just a tendency I seem to have largely followed. There are things from the time of the Tusk I do want to flesh out, such as the conflict between the Old Prophets and the Shamans, the question of how the surviving Inchoroi brought Chorae, the 'Tears of God' to the Five Tribes before the Breaking of the Gates, and the Cuno-Halaroi Wars (Halaroi is the Nonman name for Men). Stuff like that.
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: What Came Before on June 02, 2013, 04:37:53 pm
Quote from: Auriga
Kudos for copy-pasting those Bakker quotes. Where do you find them?

Quote from: Madness
I think Mekeritrig is lucid/capable enough to maintain a coherent narrative for himself, Auriga, to qualify as the fourth - the Consult's a quadruped.

Possible. That's not the impression I get from Mekeritrig's scenes, though. He seems totally scatterbrained from old age, much like Cleric. Hell, in that short story on Bakker's blog, he was sitting outside the Ark like a crazed homeless dude for hundreds of years. 

Obviously, the Consult keep him around because he's so powerful in the Gnosis, but I can't imagine that Mekeritrig has any authority over the big decisions. I wouldn't be surprised if the Big Three point him around in the same way Kosoter points Cleric around.
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: What Came Before on June 02, 2013, 04:38:01 pm
Quote from: Curethan
Rock over to the news section and you'll find a link to the resurected Three Seas forum, Auriga.
The No-Forum walks again.
(There was a considerable 'ask the author section there - most of these quotes come from a thread called 'A few questions')

I tend to agree with you on the points you make. 
Mek was using a sranc for an elju back in TDTCB (in the same way that Kosoter was Cleric's elju i.e. book).
I'm of the opinion that Mek betrayed the Consult and helped Seswatha escape from the corpse wall and possibly told him where to find the Heron Spear back in the first apocalypse - erratic indeed.
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: What Came Before on June 02, 2013, 04:38:13 pm
Quote from: Madness
+1 Curethan. +1 for Crazed Homeless Imagery, Auriga... I'd give a Nonman change.

Give aengalas the thanks. I was simply perusing some juicier morsels last night that I thought the forum would find interesting...

We really need a Nonmen specific thread as well. That's why most of Cu'jara Cinmoi's Nonmen quotes ended up in the Speculation about the end of the Unholy Consult (http://secondapocalypse.forumer.com/speculation-on-the-end-of-the-unholy-consult-t1272352-20.html#p12136194)[/b][/u].
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: What Came Before on June 02, 2013, 04:38:21 pm
Quote from: lockesnow
If Bashrag, which are vastly larger than other creatures we've seen, are based on the Nonman genome with the explicit intent of overcoming the Nonman warriors, then it seems to lend credence to the comment that the Nonman Warrior class never stopped growing and thus could be monstrously huge.

RE: Nin'Janjin, he was of Viri.  The likely place for him (or his wight) to be would be within the bowels of his mansion, Viri.  So the possibility is there that he would encounter Titirga, if Titirga survived.

Or maybe he hid in a mountain fastness and built and exalted grotto for himself, in exile.

Or maybe he founded in secret a philosophical school of ascetics called the Dunyain.  certainly he could be in contact with Sauglish if he was lurking in the nearby ruins of Viri...
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: What Came Before on June 02, 2013, 04:38:27 pm
Quote from: Madness
Lol... remember Nerdanel and Cleric is Nin'janjin.
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: What Came Before on June 02, 2013, 04:38:35 pm
Quote from: Triskele
Quote from: Madness
Lol... remember Nerdanel and Cleric is Nin'janjin.

Nerdanel actually was going for Cleric as Mek while Cleric as Nin'janjin seemed to be the consensus around Westeros for a while.
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: What Came Before on June 02, 2013, 04:38:43 pm
Quote from: lockesnow
And Triskele was the one who reasoned out that it would be Nil Giccas though I don't remember how he did so.
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: What Came Before on June 02, 2013, 04:38:51 pm
Quote from: Auriga
Quote from: lockesnow
RE: Nin'Janjin, he was of Viri. The likely place for him (or his wight) to be would be within the bowels of his mansion, Viri. So the possibility is there that he would encounter Titirga, if Titirga survived.

My impression is that Viri was ruined by the Ark's crash, and that Nin'janjin didn't go back to his former home after his years of living in the Ark. From reading that bit, I got the vibe that he was with the army of Siöl when they marched to battle, and then backstabbed Cujara-Cinmoi when he got the chance.

No idea where he might be, if he's even alive at this point. My guess is either Ishterebinth or Golgotterath.
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: What Came Before on June 02, 2013, 04:38:57 pm
Quote from: lockesnow
Quote from: Auriga

My impression is that Viri was ruined by the Ark's crash,

Viri wasn't completely ruined, something being built on top of it was the key to Shaeonanra's plans to kill Titirga.

Quote
The Sky has cracked into potter's shards,
Fire sweeps the compass of Heaven,
Ash has shrouded all sun, choked all seed,
The Halaroi howl piteously at the Gates,
Dread Famine stalks my Mansion.
Brother Siöl, Viri begs your pardon.

That says famine ruined Viri.  further, we know that Siol conquered Viri after receiving this information, so it would have been sacked, but we shouldn't assume that they demolished or ruined Viri irreparably in the sack.   It may have stood empty with neither man, nonman or sranc inhabiting it at this time.
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: What Came Before on June 02, 2013, 04:39:04 pm
Quote from: Triskele
Quote from: lockesnow
And Triskele was the one who reasoned out that it would be Nil Giccas though I don't remember how he did so.

I wasn't the first one to ever throw the name out (and I think it was a boarder named "Inacariol," lol). 

But after the Nin'janjin thing was going for a while it just wasn't jiving for me. 

The one thing that I caught was that Akka is having a Seswatha dream in Cil-Aujas that ends w/ "Even Nil'Giccas rides w/ you..." or something like that, and he wakes up w/ Cleric staring at him.  I never had full confidence that it was a clue, but it made me very suspicious.  After that it was just reasoning that Cleric had to be someone rather than just some random Nonman, and I just didn't buy Mek or Nin, so NG was the winner.
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: What Came Before on June 02, 2013, 04:39:11 pm
Quote from: Madness
Lol, Big +1 lockesnow and Triskele.

Auriga, I seem to recall that Nogaral is built two centuries before Shaenanra lived so I doubt it could be with the intention of entrapping Titirga. By the point of its building, I'm pretty sure its so the Mangaecca and its former Grandviziers could aid Mekeritrig in breaking the Architect's Glamour.

Although, you've made me think - Nin'sariccas calls himself a "Dispossessed Son of Soil," yet Nin'janjin is of Viri.

Bakker probably giggled himself silly writing that, Trisk lol.

Btw, ftw on Incariol, right? What was the point of Cleric's third name? Incariol was the name he took as an Erratic Identity and Cleric is the name men gave him?
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: locke on June 03, 2013, 08:13:24 am
Quote
The Sky has cracked into potter's shards,
Fire sweeps the compass of Heaven,
Ash has shrouded all sun, choked all seed,
The Halaroi howl piteously at the Gates,
Dread Famine stalks my Mansion.
Brother Siöl, Viri begs your pardon.

This has two sentences. So we can take it as two parts.

In the first sentence, and the epistle as a whole, the first character after a carriage return is capitalized, we can probably ignore these capitalizations as insignificant, mere style.

In the second part, two proper nouns are capitalized.

In the first part, common nouns are not capitalized, but Famine is capitalized (used in context as though it were a proper noun and Famine represented an anthropomorphicpersonification), and a race name is capitalized, Halaroi, also used as a proper noun.

This leaves three words standing out in the middle of a sentence and possessing unusual capitalization, signifying perhaps additional meaning that justifies their capitalization.

Heaven, Gates, Mansion

Heaven
Gates
Mansion

We know the Heavens are the skies above the surface of the earth.
We know that Mansions are the bowels and pits beneath the surface of the earth.

We could posit that this suggests a Heaven/Hell traditional dichotomy, with the mansions as Hell.

We could further posit that The Gates suggests a middle ground, or a middle earth, in between the Heavens above and the Mansions (Hell) below.  Or, more literally, The Gates suggest there is literally a Gate between Heaven and Hell, that connects the two together and affixes them to each other.

Interestingly, You could argue a Great Medial Screw might be a lynchpin device that attaches Heaven to Hell (mansion) as literally as a screw attaches drywall to a stud.  Interestingly, when characters approached such a Great Medial Screw, they were attacked by a creature described as bringing Hell with him, a creature who complained/screamed that the Gates were unguarded when they approached the screw...  Almost as if they were approaching the Gates.

Interestingly, we have a building/trap constructed on top of a similar Screw at Viri, and the assessment of this depth/pit was described as "a warning to those who would delve to deep."  Which could perhaps be interpreted as, if you dig deeper into hell in your Screw/Gate, you open an even bigger Gate, a Gate that would be harder to guard.

Interestingly, we also have a story about the holiest of holy humans to ever live ascending to Heaven at a Screw/Gate.

Interestingly, the Halaroi pits, where they were imprisoned was very near the Great Medial Screw, which could suggest they were perhaps part of the guard, or more like the great seal of the library of sauglish or shaeonanra's circle of immortality, perhaps The Halaroi were lashed to the Screw to power it, and as they starved, they howled piteously at the Gates.

All of this comes together to suggest that the nonmen were committing unfathomable atrocities and perhaps literally tried to pin heaven to earth with their screws, perhaps to allow them to ascend, perhaps to allow them to descend.  But perhaps these screws had consequences beyond, galactically far beyond anything the nonmen ever conceived, and the portals they believed connected the heavens to the earth was causing all sorts of havoc throughout the universe and caused a ship to fall from the heavens to the earth, and very nearly into the deepest mansions.

Which would all go to explain the second part of the quote as "begs your pardon" As literally what it is asking for, not a metaphor for an apology or a metaphor for a plea for assistance.  It's a plea for forgiveness and absolution because Viri was the cause of the suffering detailed in the first part of the quote.
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: Cüréthañ on June 03, 2013, 11:36:20 am
Heh, similar line to my thoughts here (http://second-apocalypse.com/index.php?topic=801.0), Locke.

Was thinking that by digging deep (kneeling in the deep caverns is holy according to Cleric) and creating a powerful topoi they displaced a piece of the outside that fell into a galaxy far away, a long time ago (remember that time flows differently in the outside).  Consequently the Inchoroi arrived to complete the task of inverting the heavens and the ground and thus seal the outside in.

Quote from: Madness
What was the point of Cleric's third name? Incariol was the name he took as an Erratic Identity and Cleric is the name men gave him?

It might just be confirmation bias, but I felt like they were discernably different characters on my reread.  He doesn't choose different names - they are different people.  NG was the last king of nonmen, Incariol is an erratic and Cleric is the Skin-eater's pet quya.
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: What Came Before on June 03, 2013, 04:21:53 pm
Neat thoughts.

I really enjoyed originally participating in that thread and rereading parts of it in porting it, Curethan. Where have all the Nonmen (other posters) gone?
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: locke on June 04, 2013, 11:24:50 pm
I feel like the holy water is threatening to drown this thread (I couldn't find it :p)
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: Wilshire on June 05, 2013, 02:02:24 am
How do we know that there are more than the one screw at Cil'?
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: Madness on June 05, 2013, 12:47:13 pm
How do we know that there are more than the one screw at Cil'?

You mean, how do we know there is such a staircase in the Mansions of Viri?

I feel like the holy water is threatening to drown this thread (I couldn't find it :p)

Lol, the Deluge has ceased.

I went back to reread your earlier post to look for what Wilshire commented on (unless it's in the earlier thread) - small nitpick: the Halaroi are the peoples of the Four Tribes. Emwama is the term used to otherwise denote the peoples of the generationally enslaved human populations. The Halaroi are never enslaved by the Nonmen.

Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: Wilshire on June 05, 2013, 02:46:51 pm
Well it seemed that Locke was implying at least 2 other screws. How do we know of either? The pit that Titirga fell into was not a screw at all. It was a standard mansion, and all the floors happened to collapse one on top the other.
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: locke on June 05, 2013, 06:55:35 pm
I was totally making an assumption that all mansions would have screws, particularly since Earwa Jesus ascended to heaven from atop a mansion, and Titirga was 'trapped' via standing on top of an abyss that is seemingly equivalent to TGMS
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: Wilshire on June 06, 2013, 03:25:40 pm
Its plenty possible that there are other Screws, but Titirga didn't fall into one. He crashed through floor after collapsing floor. If it was just ground a long way below him, he would have been able to find the echo and be alright. But he kept falling because the ground kept dropping, and before he could get his barings, the rest of the mountain was pulled in on him.


Anyways, what about half-inchoroi? Either half nonman or half man? Or some Dilute amount of Inchi 'blood'.
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: mrganondorf on July 01, 2014, 04:48:16 pm
The Inchoroi do so much killing, I wonder if they have any special relationship to Gilgaol?  Perhaps they don't even know it.  Some kind of Birth vs War situation coming up in TUC?  If I were Kellhus, pitting those two against each other might be the route to victory over the gods.
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: Wilshire on July 01, 2014, 06:21:56 pm
Interesting thought. The Inchoroi are certainly the antithesis of Yatwer, would it be that here little brother fights against her?
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: mrganondorf on July 02, 2014, 01:08:21 am
Maybe that's it Wilshire, War wants to usurp Birth's place in the pantheon.

Something else weird: form the interlude at the end of WLW:

"The Wizard explains their [the sranc] manufacture, how in ages lost the Inchoroi used the Tekne to pervert the Bios of the Nonmen.  'They coveted the world,' he says, 'so they fashioned a race that would spare it, creatures that would hunt their foes only, consuming the low things of the earth otherwise.'"

The Inchoroi not only wanted this world, they wanted it a certain way (if Akka is right).  I have a strange picture in my mind of the Inchoroi, having killed enough people and shut the World against the Outside, tending to gardens and strolling down tree-lined lanes.
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: mrganondorf on July 08, 2014, 09:00:55 pm
I was just thinking about how the Nonmen seem to love to dig deep and how Titirga mocks Shae for thinking of truth as a matter of digging deep.  Perhaps the Inchoroi were interested in crashing the Ark in Earwa to puncture the deepest pit possible. 

I had always assumed that Ark was damaged before coming to Earwa or upon finding it (by who knows, Ajokli?) and it crashed against their purposes.  But now I'm wondering if they crashed it on purpose.  It would have to be some kind of awesome reason to kill off so many of their own, but there you go.  Erasing damnation could be that important to them. 

If it is the case that they purposefully crashed it, then were they aiming for a particular spot and did they hit it?  Maybe they were aiming for Atrithau?  So, what's down at the bottom of Golgotterath?
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: Wilshire on July 19, 2014, 10:38:15 pm
Lol Inchoroi villages ala Tolkein's Hobbits :P

I doubt there could have been any reason for them to purposely crash their ship, especially if they wanted to preserve the world as it is... They created their own mountain range with that move.

Interesting idea that they meant to touch down in a different spot.

Anarcane ground, what do you mean.
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: Francis Buck on July 20, 2014, 06:29:45 am
I feel there's more to the crashing of the ship that we don't know yet, but will be semi-important. The big question for me is WHY it crashed in the first place, assuming it was not an intentional move (I don't think it was -- far too many deaths, and that's the one thing the Inchoroi most fear, for good reason). We know the Inchoroi went to countless worlds across the cosmos exterminating their populations until they found "the right one" (Earwa), so what was the issue here? I think maybe the ship failed for metaphysical reasons. Even though the Inchoroi had no sorcery, it does at least seem like they were messing around with technology that bordered on metaphysical (the Inverse Fire possibly being the main example, though we don't when that was actually created...I suspect it was before crashing though).

Another possibility could be that they had thought the only people on Earwa were the Nonmen, and so crashing the ship made sense as a sort of weapon (and it's not like they'd ever need it again -- they at least THOUGHT that they'd found their solution, and indeed it seems they did, and so they'd likely have no real reason of ever wanting to leave Earwa). It was a last ditch effort once they found the right planet -- the Inchoroi either win, or they die and are damned anyway. Regardless, there's no motivation for them sparing the ship, so it IS possible that Sil and his highest followers made a calculated risk that ended up being kinda stupid -- use the ship as a makeshift nuke to try and kill as many Nonmen as possible.

I do find the idea of them "sparing the world they covet" rather interesting. It implies that the Inchoroi have ideas for a future after the No-God -- I think it probably involved them wanting to repopulate Earwa once the other indigenous species were gone. I personally believe that the reason the Gods (and thus the rules of damnation) are anthropocentric is not because humanity is special in-and-of-itself, but rather than Earwa is special. Whatever the dominant "moral noosphere" of Earwa is also dictates what the Outside is like. For this same reason, I suspect there were always more humans than Nonmen, and the latter simply didn't realize it early on since almost of humanity's bulk was still on the other side of the Kayarsus.
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: Aural on July 20, 2014, 02:13:53 pm
Quote
Another possibility could be that they had thought the only people on Earwa were the Nonmen, and so crashing the ship made sense as a sort of weapon (and it's not like they'd ever need it again -- they at least THOUGHT that they'd found their solution, and indeed it seems they did, and so they'd likely have no real reason of ever wanting to leave Earwa). It was a last ditch effort once they found the right planet -- the Inchoroi either win, or they die and are damned anyway. Regardless, there's no motivation for them sparing the ship, so it IS possible that Sil and his highest followers made a calculated risk that ended up being kinda stupid -- use the ship as a makeshift nuke to try and kill as many Nonmen as possible.

If they win and can leave, why on earth would they stay? They would end damnation, and if they could, leave and go back to their homeworld. Or return to whatever they were doing before they discovered damnation.
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: Francis Buck on July 20, 2014, 07:28:07 pm
Well, that's the question, isn't it? Why WOULD they stay? Why covet the world? Why spare it if, upon "winning", they just want to leave anyway? As I mentioned, my personal belief is that they intend or (or intended) to populate Earwa with Inchoroi, replacing the present dominant species, and thus creating an Outside that reflects their own alien morality rather than that of humans. So, in that case, they'd almost have to stay. Although I think this plan was eventually replaced with the No-God (which only became possible upon discovering sorcery) and whatever he/it does, which I suspect perhaps involves creating another Outside for the Consults souls to flee to.
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: Zadok on July 20, 2014, 09:12:28 pm
It strikes me as odd that the first Inchoroi plan seemed to be open battle and war with the Nonmen.  Even if they did manage to seal the Outside wouldn't anyone that already died still be damned for all eternity?  Why not start with peace while they developed their weapons races, the Womb-Plague, etc?
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: Simas Polchias on July 20, 2014, 09:51:45 pm
It strikes me as odd that the first Inchoroi plan seemed to be open battle and war with the Nonmen.  Even if they did manage to seal the Outside wouldn't anyone that already died still be damned for all eternity?  Why not start with peace while they developed their weapons races, the Womb-Plague, etc?

It's possible they acted right that way. On the one hand, they certainly bided their time to shield themselves with allies and conspiracies:
Either because of original inconsistencies or because of subsequent corruptions, extant version of the Isûphiryas are unclear as to the subsequent order of events. At some point a secret embassy of Inchoroi reached Nin’janjin at Viri. Unlike the Inchoroi brought to Cû’jara-Cinmoi by Ingalira, these possessed the ability to speak Ihrimsû. They reminded Nin’janjin of Cû’jara-Cinmoi’s treachery in his time of need, and offered an alliance to break the yoke of Siöl over Viri. They would undo, the Inchoroi said, the misfortune their coming had wrought upon the Cûnuroi of Viri.

On the other hand, we don't know exactly which part of inchoroi army actually had souls:
Aurang and his brother Aurax, along with four others, were the only survivors of a genetic rewriting to give the Inchoroi the ability to perform sorcery.

May be it's just their nobility (king Sil and princes like Aurax/Aurang) who had souls and all others were just husks, cannon fodder, insignificant machines like skin-spies.
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: Zadok on July 20, 2014, 10:16:14 pm
How long they waited isn't clear but inciting the rebellion and meeting the other Nonmen in battle at Pir Pahal almost has to be the first action the Inchoroi took after coming out of the Ark and Sil was right in the middle of that battle.

It could be that the "rank and file" of the Inchoroi didn't know about their damnation and were happy just to rape and pillage planets, but they wouldn't be the ones making the decisions anyway
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: Phallus Pendulus on July 21, 2014, 06:19:20 am
I'm pretty sure that none of the Inchoroi themselves were soulless husks, just the Sranc and other bio-weapon races.

With their massively superior tech, it's not surprising that Sil went for open battle, although I can imagine what he was thinking at the end......"Oh, well, just another of those battles, our plasma cannons against spear-chucking primitives, the masturbation will be fun.....AAAAAAAGGHH, THE PRIMITIVES ARE SHOOTING ENERGY BLASTS FROM THEIR EYES, FUCK FUCK FUCK"
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: Wilshire on July 21, 2014, 03:43:07 pm
This is exactly as I imagine it PP.
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: Zadok on July 21, 2014, 07:30:42 pm
Recklessness and overconfidence don't seem like traits a race of immortals obsessed with avoiding death would have.  Especially when they've just had who knows how many of them wiped out when the Ark crashed.  Thinking about it some more that's probably why they attacked, they panicked after losing so many in the crash along with whatever technology they lost or was fading, and they figured it was now or never.
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: Francis Buck on July 22, 2014, 03:55:07 am
I'm pretty sure that none of the Inchoroi themselves were soulless husks, just the Sranc and other bio-weapon races.

With their massively superior tech, it's not surprising that Sil went for open battle, although I can imagine what he was thinking at the end......"Oh, well, just another of those battles, our plasma cannons against spear-chucking primitives, the masturbation will be fun.....AAAAAAAGGHH, THE PRIMITIVES ARE SHOOTING ENERGY BLASTS FROM THEIR EYES, FUCK FUCK FUCK"

Yeah, these are pretty much my exact thoughts on it. I think they knew only the most vague details regarding Earwa, what it was like, and what was available there. The whole notion of the Inchoroi even losing these wars at all sort of resides on their ignorance to magic. Upon arriving on Earwa, at first they'd just see pseudo-Antiquity-level cultures, at least so far as technology goes (the Nonmen-- humans were still all hunter-gatherers at this time I believe, aside from the Cunoroi slaves). Which, to the Inchoroi, would have been all that they considered in the very beginning. Ignorance makes more sense than a reckless rush into battle, unless they thought the battle would be an absolute cakewalk. In this case, I could see Sil wanting to take the field in order to be among the first -- if not the first -- of the Inchoroi to step upon Earwa (or in Sil's case, fly down on a freakin' dragon).

As for the concept of souls, I think all of the Inchoroi had them. It seems necessary for the functional plot dynamic of their damnation and motivation in general. The "grafts" are described specifically as being species-wide. Additionally, I don't think they had weapon races before invading (aside from dragons, maybe), as they probably had no use for them before. Once they were on stranded on Earwa though, with their populations radically reduced both from the crash and from the wars with the Nonmen, they realized they needed to cultivate a new army, one that grew quickly, efficient;y, and was easy to manage. Thus, we have sranc. I think a bigger question for me personally is why they used the Nonmen's bios instead of just copying their own DNA. I think there must be a reason for it beyond mocking the Nonmen (and, of course, serving as another Tolkien analogue). They might have believed that using their own "bios" to create soulless husk creatures was taboo, even for them.

The grafting of the onta is something I've wondered a lot about. What the hell did they graft? They used the Tekne to do it, so presumably there is some physical quality that Nonmen and humans possess which allows them to perform sorcery. I think perhaps it has to do with the heart. As aliens, the Inchoroi may not have had a direct equivalent, and even if they did it might not have been enough to use magic (for them, a heart would have just been another organ). So maybe the survivors of the graft were literally giving themselves a Nonman/human heart. Just a thought. I really can't think of any other logical thing that could be physically grafted for the allowance of sorcery, aside from like, adding some portion to their brains or something (I don't see this being the case though).
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: Madness on July 22, 2014, 01:23:01 pm
Fuel for fire:

Quote from: TTT, p366
Once he'd even had occasion to speak at length with Nil-Giccas, who had battled through the halls of this place thousands of years before. But nothing could prepare Seswatha for the horrid immensity of the Incu-Holoinas. According to the Nonman King, not one in a hundred Inchoroi survived the Ark's fall from the heavens, and yet a thousand thousand of them had warred against the Nonmen over the course of their innumerable wars.

My bold.
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: mrganondorf on July 22, 2014, 03:24:41 pm
Goddamnit, Madness.  You must get so much pleasure from picking random passages, bolding bits, and watching us scuttle about trying to make sense of it.

OK, well here goes: that must mean the ark is big, really big, like so fucking big you could hides something just monstrously fucking large in it, like a land-shark the size of a small moon.  That's what's going to eat the Great Ordeal.
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: Madness on July 22, 2014, 03:39:54 pm
Goddamnit, Madness.  You must get so much pleasure from picking random passages, bolding bits, and watching us scuttle about trying to make sense of it.

Not as much pleasure as I did partaking with you all. But it's a salve for my broken soul.
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: Garet Jax on July 22, 2014, 03:47:13 pm
That's what's going to eat the Great Ordeal.

...and come back to life.
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: SilentRoamer on July 22, 2014, 03:49:00 pm
I have already considered the size of the Ark in great detail.

I have some calculations somewhere. Based on the impact Crater, the damage to the local vicinity and the size of the VISIBLE ark. I estimated the Ark to be approximately the size of a large city.

This would make sense as taking the figures literally there were a 100 million Inchoroi prior to the crash. The crash we KNOW must have been controlled to some extent otherwise the impact would have put Earwa into a nuclear winter and constituted an ELE.

If there were that many Inchoroi it would be necessary to contain an entire industrial base which I expect has been steadily failing, the Inchoroi, not producing in the normal fashion do not necessarily need the same facilities as would be required in a human analogue. They are still living, breathing beings with dietary and environmental requirements(we know they breathed via different methods - gills initially.)

Wow maybe too much SciFi for SR recently...
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: mrganondorf on July 22, 2014, 05:46:22 pm
Whoever struck the Ark from the skies is the 'hidden hero' of Earwa.  No way anyone has a chance against the Inchoroi at full strength.
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: Wilshire on July 23, 2014, 03:36:55 am
I have already considered the size of the Ark in great detail.

I have some calculations somewhere. Based on the impact Crater, the damage to the local vicinity and the size of the VISIBLE ark. I estimated the Ark to be approximately the size of a large city.

This would make sense as taking the figures literally there were a 100 million Inchoroi prior to the crash. The crash we KNOW must have been controlled to some extent otherwise the impact would have put Earwa into a nuclear winter and constituted an ELE.

If there were that many Inchoroi it would be necessary to contain an entire industrial base which I expect has been steadily failing, the Inchoroi, not producing in the normal fashion do not necessarily need the same facilities as would be required in a human analogue. They are still living, breathing beings with dietary and environmental requirements(we know they breathed via different methods - gills initially.)

Wow maybe too much SciFi for SR recently...


I'd like to see those calculations.

Anyway, that seems to coincide with the "Blind Prophet" that we get a passage from somewhere, talking about a whole city lifting into the sky. I think? Can't remember.

Controlled decent of some kind would indeed be required, but given the size of that impact crater its likely that there should have been a forced ice-age/nuclear-winter esque impact. You don't create a huge mountain range without throwing a shit ton of particulates into the air. I write that off as "its fantasy, relax", in my brain.
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: Francis Buck on July 23, 2014, 04:51:54 am
Anyway, that seems to coincide with the "Blind Prophet" that we get a passage from somewhere, talking about a whole city lifting into the sky. I think? Can't remember.

Ganus the Blind in WLW, he's one of the chapter headers and he mentions how the sky will be upended like milk poured into tar, cities will burn, and then he goes on about 144,000 people left at the end of the world. I think it's more just a reference to general chaos/destruction, but who knows.

As for the nuclear winter thing, I agree that it's simply going to be one of those things that gets hand-waved. In a series as huge as this (especially a fantasy), that kind of stuff is going to pop up eventually no matter what, I think.
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: Somnambulist on July 23, 2014, 06:51:35 am
We're actually given the exact dimensions of the Ark in TTT (kindle version about 47% in) as this:  3000 cubits long, 500 cubits wide and 300 cubits deep.  The standard definition of a cubit is the length from the elbow to the tip of the middle finger.  The book says that Nil'Giccas ordered the measuring of the Ark, and since Bakker stated that on average the Nonmen we're 6 feet tall, the Nonman cubit should be around 18 inches in length.  So with that in mind, the Ark should be about 4500 feet long (not quite a mile), 750 feet wide and 450 feet deep.  It is also stated as being buried into the ground about two-thirds of its entire length (2000 cubits or 3000 feet).
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: Cüréthañ on July 23, 2014, 09:21:21 am
Somewhere someone muses on the Tekne, a power that can lift whole cities from the ground.
Wish I could remember where that was from.
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: Madness on July 23, 2014, 12:56:41 pm
(click to show/hide)
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: Wilshire on July 23, 2014, 02:55:28 pm
Quote
Chapter Twelve: Kûniüri
Skies are upended, poured as milk into the tar of night.  Cities become pits of fire.  The last of the wicked stand with the last of the righteous, lamenting the same woe.  One Hundred and Forty-Four Thousand, they shall be called, for this is their tally, the very number of doom.
   —ANONYMOUS, THE THIRD REVELATION OF GANUS THE BLIND
Thanks to Locke's work of pulling in all the headers for each book.

1 foot = .3048 meters

So the ship is about 1.3 kilometers long and half that in height and width. Could be much larger as we know that some of the Nonmen are very large, probably especially the rulers. They could also have different forearm length vs. body height ratios.

Hmm General Earwa subforum, not sure TFS needs spoiler tags?
That description of tekne vs. sorcery is delicious. I really like it.
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: Madness on July 23, 2014, 02:59:46 pm
It doesn't. I just did it strictly for ease of notation and access. Maybe as a courtesy for those like MG who sit on the shorts forever (my buddy is an avid follower of the series, can talk shop like us, but yet didn't even know/doesn't have desire to read the shorts online).
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: Wilshire on July 23, 2014, 03:03:40 pm
Hmm I guess. Probably fair. Not like we have any forum rules anyway ;)
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: Somnambulist on July 23, 2014, 03:18:38 pm
I found this on "How Stuff Works" website.  Don't know if it's completely accurate, but seems like I've read similar deductions before:

Quote
By the time you get up to a mile-wide asteroid, you are working in the 1 million megaton range. This asteroid has the energy that's 10 million times greater than the bomb that fell on Hiroshima. It's able to flatten everything for 100 to 200 miles out from ground zero. In other words, if a mile-wide asteroid were to directly hit New York City, the force of the impact probably would completely flatten every single thing from Washington D.C. to Boston, and would cause extensive damage perhaps 1,000 miles out -- that's as far away as Chicago. The amount of dust and debris thrown up into the atmosphere would block out the sun and cause most living things on the planet to perish.

If the Ark is longer rather than wider (as the descriptions imply), then the force of the impact may have been mitigated, thus reducing it below the Extinction Level Event based on its size.  Dunno.
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: Wilshire on July 23, 2014, 03:51:47 pm
Yes and I assume the ark was largely hollow compared to an asteroid. But the fact remains that even if it wasn't an ELE, it would still throw up huge amounts of dust and darken the continent for some time, we should have some record of that somewhere.

Remember when that volcano in iceland went off and grounded all the flights in europe for several days? I would guess something that big essentially exploding into the landscape would have a much greater impact effect.
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: Somnambulist on July 23, 2014, 05:18:45 pm
Much agreement.
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: Madness on July 23, 2014, 06:52:04 pm
Quote from: Cuno-Inchoroi Wars, TTT Glossary
According to the Isûphiryas, the Incû-Holoinas, the “Ark-of-the-Skies”, plunged to earth to the west of the Sea of Neleöst in land ruled by Nin’janjin, the Nonman King of Viri. The letter sent by Nin’janin to Cû’jara-Cinmoi, the King of Siöl, is recorded as follows:

    The Sky has cracked into potter’s shards,
    Fire sweeps the compass of Heaven,
    The beasts flee, their hearts maddened,
    The trees fall, their backs broken.
    Ash has shrouded all sun, choked all seed,
    The Halaroi howl piteously at the Gates,
    Dread Famine stalks my Mansion.
    Brother Siöl, Viri begs your pardon.
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: Wilshire on July 23, 2014, 07:06:06 pm
There we go, a cloud of ash. Only indication for how long it lasted "choked all seed", which isn't much help. Maybe one spring/growing-season, though that could refer to the fact that when the ash settled all the seeds died.
At any rate, there was a plume of some kind, good enough for me :)
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: Aural on July 23, 2014, 09:20:34 pm
Fuel for fire:

Quote from: TTT, p366
Once he'd even had occasion to speak at length with Nil-Giccas, who had battled through the halls of this place thousands of years before. But nothing could prepare Seswatha for the horrid immensity of the Incu-Holoinas. According to the Nonman King, not one in a hundred Inchoroi survived the Ark's fall from the heavens, and yet a thousand thousand of them had warred against the Nonmen over the course of their innumerable wars.

My bold.

Some clue is hidden in there, isn't it? The Thousand Thousand Halls are Inchoroi graves? If not, what did the Nonmen do with the bodies of those thousand thousand Inchoroi they killed in the Cuno-Inchoroi wars?

(click to show/hide)

Who's the First Father? The inventor of sorcery?
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: Madness on July 23, 2014, 09:26:29 pm
Lol, I think stylistically Bakker simply uses that repetition a lot ;). But read into how you like.
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: Aural on July 23, 2014, 09:32:16 pm
Lol, I think stylistically Bakker simply uses that repetition a lot ;). But read into how you like.

Trying to backtrack after giving it away? :P
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: Madness on July 23, 2014, 09:35:09 pm
Lol - sure? But wouldn't conceding you the truth of your wrong conclusion fuel your certainty and my mirth?
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: Wilshire on July 24, 2014, 01:25:59 am
Well he couldn't use "thousandfold" and he already used "million" (a thousand thousand is 1 million). It sounds all mystic-y and old when its described that way.
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: Cüréthañ on July 24, 2014, 02:07:24 am
Some clue is hidden in there, isn't it? The Thousand Thousand Halls are Inchoroi graves? If not, what did the Nonmen do with the bodies of those thousand thousand Inchoroi they killed in the Cuno-Inchoroi wars?
Well, someone built the Thousand Thousand Halls, presumably for a reason.  Both the Cunuroi and Incoroi are burrowers, Halaroi aren't.  Doesn't seem like something the Dunyain would do either, although they do serve some purpose in their training.

Who's the First Father? The inventor of sorcery?
Perhaps a creator/progenitor myth?
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: Francis Buck on July 25, 2014, 08:16:03 pm
Who's the First Father? The inventor of sorcery?
Perhaps a creator/progenitor myth?
[/quote]

That's what I assumed when I read that. I've always thought it was very suspicious that there are virtually no creation myths whatsoever, especially within the Inrithi faith or even the Fanim. I really hope it's not another case where, like, at some point in TUC Achamian suddenly remembers "the creation myth of the First Father" and explains as if it's common knowledge that everyone in the religion already knew about and it has just been withheld from the audience until now, but I don't think that will happen.
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: Simas Polchias on July 26, 2014, 07:53:13 pm
I've always thought it was very suspicious that there are virtually no creation myths whatsoever, especially within the Inrithi faith or even the Fanim.
Considering the "wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey stuff" about godlings' existence out of time, splintering of a solitary god and no-god creation (just imagine, people living inside time have fabricated something that can literaly stop creatures living outside time)... So, considering all these circumstances, creation might have been cancelled by PhD's of Golgotterath or, from a certain point of view, have never happened at all.

PS Yep, sometimes I`m a slave to an idea what the whole bakkerverse is a dying body of a collapsing time loop. That's my second favoutire, lol.
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: EkyannusIII on July 31, 2014, 10:38:18 pm
Who's the First Father? The inventor of sorcery?
Perhaps a creator/progenitor myth?


That's what I assumed when I read that. I've always thought it was very suspicious that there are virtually no creation myths whatsoever, especially within the Inrithi faith or even the Fanim.

I think that is a reflection of Bakker's worldbuilding process, and specifically the fact that he did not seriously flesh out Inrithism and it's theology (to whatever extent he has done that at all) until well into his writing of TWP. If you recall Inrau's unfortunate meeting with Not!Sarcellus and the Rape Pigeon, there was a brief exchange in which Inrau asks Auranx why he does what he does, and Auranx laughs and replies "You worship suffering."  This enrages Inrau because "it didn't understand!", but it is never expanded upon later and we still know next to nothing about Inrithism.  I think that Bakker originally intended Inri Sejenus to be a much more exact Christ-analog than he has turned out to be, complete with some sort of atoning vicarious death, hence the "suffering" Auranx mentioned, but that Bakker dropped that idea when drafting TWP in order to improve Kellhus' plot arc with the Circumfixion (you'll note that there is no comparable torment in the life of Sejenus that we know of, although he does get a trial before evil King Shikol, presumably an expy of Pilate). If I am right, this would also explain why Auranx's comment angers Inrau so: the Inchoroi's artificially deadened emotions prevent him from recognizing the difference between bearing suffering to save others and his own psychopathic sadism. 

If all of that is on target, then it is possible that Earwa's version of the Biblical Adam is not discussed in the books because Bakker never worked on that aspect of things, just as he hardly worked on Inrithism's central figure beyond the necessary points needed to serve the narrative purposes of TSA.
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: mrganondorf on August 29, 2014, 10:24:04 pm
Lordy Ashtinahgma!  But this is too cool!

Quote
Some clue is hidden in there, isn't it? The Thousand Thousand Halls are Inchoroi graves? If not, what did the Nonmen do with the bodies of those thousand thousand Inchoroi they killed in the Cuno-Inchoroi wars?

Mimara 'let's go, old man, we have bones to inspect' later they find Inchoroi bones

Yatwer shows up and reanimates Sil's corpse like she did with the sranc to Sorweel.  Sil gives Akka the Heron Spear
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: locke on September 02, 2014, 05:53:15 am
The inchoroi crashed. Just like the non men before them and the humans after them crashed.  All advanced races eventually try to seek and find earwa once they realize damnation is real.  earwa is heaven, and it's denizens war for supremacy of heaven whenever a new race crashes the gates of heaven and creates a new impact crater on earwa.

All typ0s courtesy of Samsung.

Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: Cüréthañ on September 02, 2014, 10:08:55 am
3rd impact is the shitter, just like evangelion :D
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: The Sharmat on September 03, 2014, 12:02:49 am
Yeah I'm pretty sure the crash is accidental. Something like 90% of their remaining species died in the crash, and that clearly included a lot of their scientists and such given how they seem to have gradually lost most advanced knowledge of the tekne as time advanced. There's also the fact that the Inchoroi know for a fact there is no cause in the world worth dying for, since for them death means an eternity of torment.

Finally, why use the ship as a nuke? I'd imagine the ship actually had nukes on board before it crashed. They weren't effortlessly destroying every world they arrived at with hordes of Sranc armed with bronze daggers. I imagine they showed up, hung in orbit nuking every population center, then landed to round up and exterminate the survivors.

Obviously these weapons were mostly destroyed in the crash.

Come to think of it, they may have been some kind of "shining pebbles" style relativistic kill vehicles rather than nukes, since that would explain why they weren't used after they lost orbit. Those need the huge acceleration you get from re-entry to work.
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: locke on September 03, 2014, 02:32:45 am
I don't think the inchoroi or the ark died.  Nil giccas et al believed they'd exterminated every last one.  Then mek and shae get in and "discover" the bros.  I think the bros were in an inert state and the non men thought them dead like the others.   When they win, the incorrigible wake the other pilgrims from their seemingly dead state.

All typ0s courtesy of Samsung.

Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: The Sharmat on September 03, 2014, 04:58:14 am
Shaeonanra explicitly makes it sound like all they found were the twins. Aurang and Aurax are the last of their species. Unless they've managed to clone more after re-mastering the Tekne.

And the Ark did die, if the Inchoroi themselves are to be believed. The Ark was a biotechnological construct. The walls inside used to be coated with flesh. Given that the Inchoroi used to call themselves "Children of the Ark", and Seswatha referred to the Ark as their Father, I believe that by the time they arrived in Earwa, the Ark was where new Inchoroi came from. Some sort of synthetic biology engineered mass cloning or artificial insemination factory.

However during the impact, the organic parts of the Ark seem to have died, and the surviving Inchoroi lacked either the knowledge or tools to regrow them. Thus they were unable to replace any of their number, and the Nonmen slowly ground them down until only Aurang and Aurax were left.

I do believe they were basically hibernating, somewhere deep beneath the Ark, like you say.
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: mrganondorf on September 05, 2014, 06:58:56 pm
I don't think the inchoroi or the ark died.  Nil giccas et al believed they'd exterminated every last one.  Then mek and shae get in and "discover" the bros.  I think the bros were in an inert state and the non men thought them dead like the others.   When they win, the incorrigible wake the other pilgrims from their seemingly dead state.

All typ0s courtesy of Samsung.



WOW.  Aurang and Aurax hiding this info from Shae?  I do wonder if their plans include some venture to reclaims dead Inchoroi from hell.  Their seems to be a strong fealty to Sil thing.
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: Wilshire on September 10, 2014, 02:13:16 am
The inchoroi crashed. Just like the non men before them and the humans after them crashed.  All advanced races eventually try to seek and find earwa once they realize damnation is real.  earwa is heaven, and it's denizens war for supremacy of heaven whenever a new race crashes the gates of heaven and creates a new impact crater on earwa.
Well, it at least explains the circles.

Yeah I'm pretty sure the crash is accidental. Something like 90% of their remaining species died in the crash
lol, it was actually >99% died. 1/100 survived (roughly), and a million came forth, (again, roughly), so they had upwards of 100million+ on that ship before the crash

Fuel for fire:

Quote from: TTT, p366
Once he'd even had occasion to speak at length with Nil-Giccas, who had battled through the halls of this place thousands of years before. But nothing could prepare Seswatha for the horrid immensity of the Incu-Holoinas. According to the Nonman King, not one in a hundred Inchoroi survived the Ark's fall from the heavens, and yet a thousand thousand of them had warred against the Nonmen over the course of their innumerable wars.

My bold.

Finally, why use the ship as a nuke? I'd imagine the ship actually had nukes on board before it crashed. They weren't effortlessly destroying every world they arrived at with hordes of Sranc armed with bronze daggers. I imagine they showed up, hung in orbit nuking every population center, then landed to round up and exterminate the survivors.

Obviously these weapons were mostly destroyed in the crash.

Come to think of it, they may have been some kind of "shining pebbles" style relativistic kill vehicles rather than nukes, since that would explain why they weren't used after they lost orbit. Those need the huge acceleration you get from re-entry to work.

We actual know that they never planned to do much damage to Earwa, and I think that should including crashing their ship. The entire reason for the sranc was to hunt down and kill Nonmen, or otherwise eat grubs, so as to leave the landscape untouched. I presume they had reason to believe every world they landed on got a similar treatment. Wouldn't want to spend eternity in your garden of eden if you nuked it ...
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: Aural on September 10, 2014, 10:25:16 am
I think Ni'giccas might have been exaggerating. Someone approximated the measurements of the Ark on this forum once, I don't remember the numbers but it seems far fetched that it could house a hundred million Inchoroi.
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: locke on September 10, 2014, 02:59:37 pm
I think Ni'giccas might have been exaggerating. Someone approximated the measurements of the Ark on this forum once, I don't remember the numbers but it seems far fetched that it could house a hundred million Inchoroi.
It seems far fetched my testicles could house 100 million sperm

All typ0s courtesy of Samsung.

Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: Garet Jax on September 10, 2014, 03:40:22 pm
It seems far fetched my testicles could house 100 million sperm
All typ0s courtesy of Samsung.

Not that far fetched, I think human males produce that much in a day or so and spill even more than that each time they ejaculate.

If the ark was asexual, I think the problem would be with the amount of "eggs" it could produce?

Unless you weren't being serious, locke. ;)
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: Aural on September 10, 2014, 04:08:10 pm
It seems far fetched my testicles could house 100 million sperm

Yeah, that does seem a bit far-fetched.

But based on the measurements made a few pages back (4500*450*750 feet), even if we assume that the Ark is completely hollow from the inside (it's not of course) you could barely stack 80-90 million humans in there, let alone Inchoroi. Taking into account all the machinery and parts of the ship and the fact that the Inchoroi are not stacked like sardines in there the numbers should be significantly lower.
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: The Sharmat on September 10, 2014, 04:21:34 pm
I don't think Non-men or humans are representatives of success waves of extra-planetary invasion of Earwa. They're clearly related species since they can interbreed.

And yeah "A thousand thousand" probably isn't meant to be taken literally. In this case I think it's just a fanciful way of saying "a shitload".
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: locke on September 10, 2014, 09:28:38 pm
It seems far fetched my testicles could house 100 million sperm
All typ0s courtesy of Samsung.

Not that far fetched, I think human males produce that much in a day or so and spill even more than that each time they ejaculate.

If the ark was asexual, I think the problem would be with the amount of "eggs" it could produce?

Unless you weren't being serious, locke. ;)
The point was microscopic is a pretty crazy idea without scientific base knowledge.  It still feels kind of insane that so many sperm could be in a teaspoon of sperm, it's not a number I can really wrap my head around, truthfully,  I would trust scientists on faith just as much if they said there were 1000, and still be unable to really grasp it.

Like wise we don't know what form the inchoroi 100 million were in when they perished, perhaps they were something like sperm, a larval gamete stage, but with consciousness.

All typ0s courtesy of Samsung.

Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: Garet Jax on September 10, 2014, 10:04:58 pm
The point was microscopic is a pretty crazy idea without scientific base knowledge.  It still feels kind of insane that so many sperm could be in a teaspoon of sperm, it's not a number I can really wrap my head around, truthfully,  I would trust scientists on faith just as much if they said there were 1000, and still be unable to really grasp it.

Like wise we don't know what form the inchoroi 100 million were in when they perished, perhaps they were something like sperm, a larval gamete stage, but with consciousness.

All typ0s courtesy of Samsung.


I like that last part.  They could be kept/grown in a fertilized egg state, and born/grafted into whatever was needed within their society at the time.  That could easily account for the numbers and dimensions quoted throughout this thread.
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: Aural on September 11, 2014, 09:09:33 am
Ah, I see what you're going for.

http://i.imgur.com/6YiFP.jpg

eta: Actually, that was a joke but now that I think about it the proportion calculated by Somnambulist are exactly the proportion of Noah's Ark given in the above picture multiplied by 10. It seems Bakker was really going for a pokemon analogy.
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: Cüréthañ on September 11, 2014, 11:03:16 am
Congratulations! Your Aurax has evolved into No-god!
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: EkyannusIII on September 11, 2014, 05:00:13 pm
Shaeonanra explicitly makes it sound like all they found were the twins. Aurang and Aurax are the last of their species. Unless they've managed to clone more after re-mastering the Tekne.

Has it ever been confirmed by Bakker that every member of their species decided to embrace rape as a way of life? There might be some more decent Inchoroi still living on their homeworld, wherever that is.  (A pet theory of mine is that the Ark was fleeing from non-depraved Inchoroi who had decided to exterminate the deviants.)
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: The Sharmat on September 11, 2014, 08:44:09 pm
I got the impression that the modern Inchoroi lifestyle was just building on what came before and that they were always significantly more sex obsessed than humans, but it's just an impression.
Title: Re: The Inchoroi
Post by: Wilshire on September 12, 2014, 01:09:21 pm
Like wise we don't know what form the inchoroi 100 million were in when they perished, perhaps they were something like sperm, a larval gamete stage, but with consciousness.
That's a good point. Though, it was described as something like a city, so maybe they cycled who was small and who was big. Or maybe the arc still had some capacity to produce offspring for a period of time after the arc crashed.

Shaeonanra explicitly makes it sound like all they found were the twins. Aurang and Aurax are the last of their species. Unless they've managed to clone more after re-mastering the Tekne.

Has it ever been confirmed by Bakker that every member of their species decided to embrace rape as a way of life? There might be some more decent Inchoroi still living on their homeworld, wherever that is.  (A pet theory of mine is that the Ark was fleeing from non-depraved Inchoroi who had decided to exterminate the deviants.)

I don't think it has be confirmed anywhere.