There is one disturbing similarity between Mandate & Consult, when both factions are driven by irresistable revelation (Seswatha’s Dreams for the first and Inverse Fire for the second). In fact, they even share the same outcome, for remorseless of Quorum members are limited only by their short life-spans (compared to mangaeccans) and overall pettyness (caused by 2-3 hundred years of lull). So, here's a quick crackpot.

When speaking about plans witnin plans, you can always split their viscera between explicit goal, hidden goal and real goal.

What is the explicit goal of the Dreams? To show dreamers both their enemy and it's heavenly danger.
What is the hidden goal? To make dreamers as zealous and persistent as possible, there is a kinda literal convertation of their bittering souls to the world's welfare.
What is the real goal? Here I stand for the Inverse Fire. Like, while nicking the Heron Spear, Seswatha also witnessed the IF, so reliving that Ses experience should count as witnessing the IF by yourself. It's not an easy task, considering Dreams to have a common, rare and exclusive parts, but nonetheless easier than storming Min Uroikas or siding with Consult.

I like this guess mostly becase of a certain promethean motif. A titan (Ses is badass battlemage) sneaking atop mountain of gods (Horns of Golgottherath are towering high) to steal their secret fire and carry it out to the mundanes? Check all three and add a little bonus for the Wall of Torment in Dagliash, where they fixed Ses with nails.

Also, a few questions.

Is it possible to go though the Grasping while being not of a Few? Can a generic mandati heart become a base for a second foundation artifact with diluted properties (so grasped ones will relieve the life of, let's say, Drusas Achamian, who sometime dreams of Seswatha's Apocalypse and mostly never about witnessing IF)? Is there any chance of different outcomes after looking into IF? Could inchoroi and mangaeccans have mistaken and taken a wrong path? Can a mandate adept take a good path and is there a shortest one? What will a duniyain see through the IF?

Being smarter doesn't make him above consent, he just seizes and violates upon the moment of first meeting, he's basically got a permanent sranc erection of the metaphysical variety, constantly penetrating, trying to slake his unquenchable lust, and failing.

Almost certainly I'm going to regret this, but... Consent is a concept and thus born of necessity. Dunno if dunyain have overgrown it, but modern rapist are certainly not.

Perhaps, yes, they planned to rediscover it later when the other, more mundane principles had been conquered.

I like this idea, Wilshire. It somehow sticks with that overall duniyain image of calm & long-term designers.

You can't have the end of the world twice ....

In fact, you can! I have a lil theory about gods' blindness to all things consulty & inchoroiy.

As out-of-time beings, gods are witnessing all various scenarios of apocalypses ever possible (different and/or multiple No-God's successful promenades are among them). That's a hell of a bright sun to leave their eyes with light spots inside, that's a causality blindnspots places on their perception like a scar on a tissue. So, if someone or something is capable of destroying the world even with a chance close to zero, he or it is retroactively invisible to the gods' sight.

Like, one crafty Sil, who shut the world even without landing on promised ground, he grants invisibility to thousands of these Sils, who were slain helplessly by Cinmoi's hand, died through crude grafting, were eaten alive by crazied mothership or never became a passengers of one.

PS And that's where the catchprase of our cute black whirlwind could have come from. What do they see? Nothing. Unceasing ends. Meta-apocalypse.

woah that's cool -- so Mek was strolling about his garden when he ran into Kellhus?  i could see something like this happening, he would be able to spy on them from a distance, perhaps direct a clan of sranc to the right place whenever he wanted them to send one of their own into the world

He's a Quya, so there is always a possibility for consealment cants and a very close touch. Also Ishual bastion may be a backdoor of a cunuroi mansionette and thus from cunuroi perspective - a nice roof garden.

First, why did the Dunyain lie to their antecedants about sorcery when they surely knew it was around and not a lie?

1) If there are any Cants to detect Marks on a long-range distance, using sorcery is a dangerous thing for a cult, trying to hide from the world gone mad. Risk of detection can outweight the powers of the sorcery.
2) Using Plato's "Republic" as a hint, before his quest Kellhus was not of the pragmas (philosophers-kings), but of the guardians of the good city. I bet they had a pragma of Gnosis, skulking somewhere in the Thousand Thousand Halls.
3) Dunyain could be quite right in discarding the sorcery. They wanted to hack reality with a nice and elegant move, but not to mutilate it, producing insane amount of T.D.T.C.B. Who knows, may be they even had sorcerer followers before First Apocalypse and found sorcery totally irrelevant and useless for their purpose?
4) Dunyain are people even with their nurtured skills of governing their nature. They simply forgot. Even if they had sorcerers in their refuging crowd, they had no proper school to pursue it's reproduction or population large enough to have a steady supply of the Few to reproduce skills from lonely master to lonely pupil. Remember, how Akka taught Kellhus thing dunyain didn't happen to use because of their peculiar lifestyle? Also, two thousand years ago they were... much more human-like, for they hadn't fully elaborated their ideas. That why they could make a mistake here.
5) Deus ex machina. Let it be Cet'Ingira and cants of compulsion, for I love them so badly. Yep, simple is that. Cunuroi, who opened the Arc, now cultivates a human garden, growing a twisted social culture in Ishual. Or, maybe, he's making people to shut it again, who knows. He's a insane erratic after all.

The cuteness of this topic is unceasing, without beginning or end.