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.
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.
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.
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.
Quote from: bbaztekWe are one of the few life forms on the planet that derive pleasure from sex.
?
How do you know that?
Quote from: SwenseAnd 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.
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: SwenseI 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.
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.
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.
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.
That, Anasurimbor Bob, is quite the worthy entree into the Second Apocalypse.
Space Golems... The Automata of Damnation, you say ;). Welcome.
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.
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?"
Quote from: MadnessThat, Anasurimbor Bob, is quite the worthy entree into the Second Apocalypse.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.
Space Golems... The Automata of Damnation, you say ;). Welcome.
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.
+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.
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.
Quote from: TriskeleDo 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.
I'm a +1 for Aurax being the Inchoroi at the end of TWP. Different speech patterns from all evidence of Aurang's activities.
Quote from: MadnessI'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.
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.
Quote from: Mog KellhusAlso Kellhus mentions that Aurang is at Golgotterath while his consciousness is within the Synthese stalking the holy war.
+1 for description.
Quote from: Mog KellhusAlso 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?
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)
;)
Quote from: CurethanI 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.The inverse fire has the intention to...?
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
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!)
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.
Quote from: CurethanThere 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)...
Quote from: MadnessTo 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.)
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.
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.
Quote from: bbaztekThere 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?)
+1, again, lockesnow. Bravo. Echos of Chapterhouse.Quote from: AurigaThe 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.
Quote from: MadnessThought 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.
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.
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.
Quote from: AurigaQuote from: MadnessThought 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.
You're thinking something 'Avatar'-ish?
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
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 TTTQuote"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."
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 :)?
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?
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
"Iyisku" is pretty clearly the endonym of the Inchoroi.Quote from: DuskweaverWas 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.QuoteWhen 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.
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: AurigaThis 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: ...
Quote from: MadnessGround (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.
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.
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...
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?!
Quote from: MadnessI 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. ;)QuoteInchoroi 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.Quote- 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.QuoteImagine 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. :PQuoteThis 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).QuoteBack 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.QuotePerhaps, 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... ;)QuoteThis 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.QuoteThey 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.QuoteI 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...QuoteIt 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.
Quote from: DuskweaverThe 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.
Quote from: DuskweaverI 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.
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 ?
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)
Quote from: WilshireI'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: WilshireSame question different universe:Well it is a bit different when you know the nature of their axolotl tanks.
Are the tleilaxu spawned from their axlotl tanks still the tleilaxu? :P (couldnt help myself)
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.
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
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.
Quote from: lockesnowI just sort of love how we're all using Ark, when biblically, Noah and his family used the Ark to escape damnation as well. :DBiblically, 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.Quoteplanet 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.
wow Dusk, you and your latin and other translations. Thats really interesting
+1 for forum apokalypsis. We can't simply think all these thoughts for ourselves :D.
Quote from: DuskweaverWhat has come before determines what comes after.Quote from: lockesnowI just sort of love how we're all using Ark, when biblically, Noah and his family used the Ark to escape damnation as well. :DBiblically, 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.Quoteplanet 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.
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.
Lol +1, lockesnow.
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.
Perhaps dragons were a spacefaring race that hitched along for the ride.
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?
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.
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.
Quote from: MadnessBakker 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.
Quote from: MadnessWutteat is the metre stick.That would explain why he is... unceasing.
Quote from: MadnessPerhaps, 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.QuoteI 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.)QuoteWhen 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?)QuoteOr are there countless planets with nothing but weapon race societies on them?
Possible.
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.
Quote from: CurethanThe 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.QuoteScott 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.)
Quote from: WilshireSorry 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: AurigaAn 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: AurigaOne 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: CurethanScott 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.
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.)QuoteWow... 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.QuoteWe 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?)QuoteBig +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.
Quote from: AurigaWell, 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.QuoteScött 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.
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.QuoteTwilight 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.QuoteI 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.)
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?"
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?
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?
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.
Quote from: MadnessI'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.QuoteDoubt 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.
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.
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: MadnessI 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.
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.
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.
Quote from: Cu'jara Cinmoi, 2006The 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, 2006Regarding 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, 2005So 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.
Kudos for copy-pasting those Bakker quotes. Where do you find them?Quote from: MadnessI 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.
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.
+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].
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...
Lol... remember Nerdanel and Cleric is Nin'janjin.
Quote from: MadnessLol... 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.
And Triskele was the one who reasoned out that it would be Nil Giccas though I don't remember how he did so.
Quote from: lockesnowRE: 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.
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.QuoteThe 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.
Quote from: lockesnowAnd 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.
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?
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.
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?
How do we know that there are more than the one screw at Cil'?
I feel like the holy water is threatening to drown this thread (I couldn't find it :p)
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.
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?
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"
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.
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.
That's what's going to eat the Great Ordeal.
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...
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.
Chapter Twelve: KûniüriThanks to Locke's work of pulling in all the headers for each book.
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
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.
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.
Fuel for fire:Quote from: TTT, p366Once 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.
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Lol, I think stylistically Bakker simply uses that repetition a lot ;). But read into how you like.
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?
Who's the First Father? The inventor of sorcery?Perhaps a creator/progenitor myth?
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.
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.
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?
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.
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 crashlol, 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, p366Once 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.
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
It seems far fetched my testicles could house 100 million sperm
All typ0s courtesy of Samsung.
It seems far fetched my testicles could house 100 million sperm
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.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.
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.
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.)