The Slog TDTCB - Part Five: The Holy War [Spoilers]

  • 22 Replies
  • 13661 Views

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

H

  • *
  • The Zero-Mod
  • Old Name
  • *****
  • The Honourable H
  • Posts: 2893
  • The Original No-God Apologist
    • View Profile
    • The Original No-God Apologist
« Reply #15 on: December 21, 2015, 11:13:17 am »
"You are the first, Chigra, and you will be the last" the thing call Skeaos said.....

The last what?

The first to see their true face I believe.

That'd be my guess, considering the next thing the skin-spy does is try and pop Achamian's grape with its facial limbs. This scene informed much of my Untitled fan-fiction at Bakker's blog.

If that's true, it raises an interesting question then.  If Seswatha had already seen the true face of the spin-spies before, why would the Mandate not know of them?

It would also seem to throw the idea that spin-spies are "new," i.e. made within the last 300 years when the Consult was "out of contact" to the wind, since Seswatha was gone (dead, maybe, I have my doubts) long before that.
I am a warrior of ages, Anasurimbor. . . ages. I have dipped my nimil in a thousand hearts. I have ridden both against and for the No-God in the great wars that authored this wilderness. I have scaled the ramparts of great Golgotterath, watched the hearts of High Kings break for fury. -Cet'ingira

MSJ

  • *
  • The Afflicted Few
  • Old Name
  • *****
  • Yatwer's Baby Daddy
  • Posts: 2298
  • "You killed the wolf"
    • View Profile
« Reply #16 on: December 21, 2015, 01:45:24 pm »
No, I took it as specifically Akka was the first Mandati to see a Skin-Spy true face. Chigra is just what they call all Mandate schoolmen.
“No. I am your end. Before your eyes I will put your seed to the knife. I will quarter your carcass and feed it to the dogs. Your bones I will grind to dust and cast to the winds. I will strike down those who speak your name or the name of your fathers, until ‘Yursalka’ becomes as meaningless as infant babble. I will blot you out, hunt down your every trace! The track of your life has come to me,

H

  • *
  • The Zero-Mod
  • Old Name
  • *****
  • The Honourable H
  • Posts: 2893
  • The Original No-God Apologist
    • View Profile
    • The Original No-God Apologist
« Reply #17 on: December 21, 2015, 02:13:38 pm »
No, I took it as specifically Akka was the first Mandati to see a Skin-Spy true face. Chigra is just what they call all Mandate schoolmen.

Ah, yes, that would make more sense...more sleep, I need it.
I am a warrior of ages, Anasurimbor. . . ages. I have dipped my nimil in a thousand hearts. I have ridden both against and for the No-God in the great wars that authored this wilderness. I have scaled the ramparts of great Golgotterath, watched the hearts of High Kings break for fury. -Cet'ingira

Madness

  • *
  • Administrator
  • Old Name
  • *****
  • Conversational Batman
  • Posts: 5275
  • Strength on the Journey - Journey Well
    • View Profile
    • The Second Apocalypse
« Reply #18 on: December 22, 2015, 06:07:47 pm »
"You are the first, Chigra, and you will be the last" the thing call Skeaos said.....

The last what?

The first to see their true face I believe.

That'd be my guess, considering the next thing the skin-spy does is try and pop Achamian's grape with its facial limbs. This scene informed much of my Untitled fan-fiction at Bakker's blog.

If that's true, it raises an interesting question then.  If Seswatha had already seen the true face of the spin-spies before, why would the Mandate not know of them?

It would also seem to throw the idea that spin-spies are "new," i.e. made within the last 300 years when the Consult was "out of contact" to the wind, since Seswatha was gone (dead, maybe, I have my doubts) long before that.

My bold - I'm not sure how you made this inference?
The Existential Scream
Weaponizing the Warrior Pose - Declare War Inwardly
carnificibus: multus sanguis fluit
Die Better
The Theory-Killer

H

  • *
  • The Zero-Mod
  • Old Name
  • *****
  • The Honourable H
  • Posts: 2893
  • The Original No-God Apologist
    • View Profile
    • The Original No-God Apologist
« Reply #19 on: December 22, 2015, 06:38:39 pm »
My bold - I'm not sure how you made this inference?

Well, presumably, if Seswatha had seen skin-spies before, it would probably be in a dream and so knowledge of everyone in the Mandate.  Even if it never made it into a dream, you would think Seswatha would have told the Mandate something as important as the existence of skin-spies.

In either case, it really doesn't matter, since I am pretty sure MSJ's explanation is actually the correct interpretation.
I am a warrior of ages, Anasurimbor. . . ages. I have dipped my nimil in a thousand hearts. I have ridden both against and for the No-God in the great wars that authored this wilderness. I have scaled the ramparts of great Golgotterath, watched the hearts of High Kings break for fury. -Cet'ingira

Madness

  • *
  • Administrator
  • Old Name
  • *****
  • Conversational Batman
  • Posts: 5275
  • Strength on the Journey - Journey Well
    • View Profile
    • The Second Apocalypse
« Reply #20 on: December 22, 2015, 10:23:34 pm »
Ah. For my Untitled I basically riffed off that line, in the sense that, the Athrithau Mandate mission would have been the other "first and last" possible place that a Mandate Schoolman - certainly not Seswatha, who would've been dead for 1700 yearsish - would have seen a skin-spy. Assuming that the Mandate really did skirmish with the Mangaecca periodically until about three hundred years ago when the Consult "disappeared" as Achamian's POV in tells us in TDTCB.

Carry on your nerdaneling :).
The Existential Scream
Weaponizing the Warrior Pose - Declare War Inwardly
carnificibus: multus sanguis fluit
Die Better
The Theory-Killer

H

  • *
  • The Zero-Mod
  • Old Name
  • *****
  • The Honourable H
  • Posts: 2893
  • The Original No-God Apologist
    • View Profile
    • The Original No-God Apologist
« Reply #21 on: December 23, 2015, 07:57:32 pm »
The "impossibly ancient" line still has me thinking that skin-spies are far older than anyone realizes/we are lead to believe.  In other words, they long predate the 300 years of no contact.

Which, if true, means that some people in ancient history may well have been skin-spies.  A big if, mind you.
I am a warrior of ages, Anasurimbor. . . ages. I have dipped my nimil in a thousand hearts. I have ridden both against and for the No-God in the great wars that authored this wilderness. I have scaled the ramparts of great Golgotterath, watched the hearts of High Kings break for fury. -Cet'ingira

Wilshire

  • *
  • Administrator
  • Old Name
  • *****
  • Enshoiya
  • Posts: 5935
  • One of the other conditions of possibility
    • View Profile
« Reply #22 on: December 30, 2015, 05:13:49 pm »
I don't know, the Inchoroi don't seem to be all-in on the diplomacy and subterfuge front when the leave the arc initially.

If the spies have been around, maybe the remaining inchoroi lost the keys to the cryo "thaw" button in the blue room, and only discovered it approx 300 years ago.
One of the other conditions of possibility.