[mrganondorf]

The Inchoroi do so much killing, I wonder if they have any special relationship to Gilgaol?  Perhaps they don't even know it.  Some kind of Birth vs War situation coming up in TUC?  If I were Kellhus, pitting those two against each other might be the route to victory over the gods.

[Wilshire]

Interesting thought. The Inchoroi are certainly the antithesis of Yatwer, would it be that here little brother fights against her?

[mrganondorf]

Maybe that's it Wilshire, War wants to usurp Birth's place in the pantheon.

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

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

The Inchoroi not only wanted this world, they wanted it a certain way (if Akka is right).  I have a strange picture in my mind of the Inchoroi, having killed enough people and shut the World against the Outside, tending to gardens and strolling down tree-lined lanes.

[mrganondorf]

I was just thinking about how the Nonmen seem to love to dig deep and how Titirga mocks Shae for thinking of truth as a matter of digging deep.  Perhaps the Inchoroi were interested in crashing the Ark in Earwa to puncture the deepest pit possible. 

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

If it is the case that they purposefully crashed it, then were they aiming for a particular spot and did they hit it?  Maybe they were aiming for Atrithau?  So, what's down at the bottom of Golgotterath?

[Wilshire]

Lol Inchoroi villages ala Tolkein's Hobbits

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

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

Anarcane ground, what do you mean.

[Francis Buck]

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

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

I do find the idea of them "sparing the world they covet" rather interesting. It implies that the Inchoroi have ideas for a future after the No-God -- I think it probably involved them wanting to repopulate Earwa once the other indigenous species were gone. I personally believe that the reason the Gods (and thus the rules of damnation) are anthropocentric is not because humanity is special in-and-of-itself, but rather than Earwa is special. Whatever the dominant "moral noosphere" of Earwa is also dictates what the Outside is like. For this same reason, I suspect there were always more humans than Nonmen, and the latter simply didn't realize it early on since almost of humanity's bulk was still on the other side of the Kayarsus.

[Aural]

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

If they win and can leave, why on earth would they stay? They would end damnation, and if they could, leave and go back to their homeworld. Or return to whatever they were doing before they discovered damnation.

[Francis Buck]

Well, that's the question, isn't it? Why WOULD they stay? Why covet the world? Why spare it if, upon "winning", they just want to leave anyway? As I mentioned, my personal belief is that they intend or (or intended) to populate Earwa with Inchoroi, replacing the present dominant species, and thus creating an Outside that reflects their own alien morality rather than that of humans. So, in that case, they'd almost have to stay. Although I think this plan was eventually replaced with the No-God (which only became possible upon discovering sorcery) and whatever he/it does, which I suspect perhaps involves creating another Outside for the Consults souls to flee to.

[Zadok]

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?

[Simas Polchias]

It strikes me as odd that the first Inchoroi plan seemed to be open battle and war with the Nonmen.  Even if they did manage to seal the Outside wouldn't anyone that already died still be damned for all eternity?  Why not start with peace while they developed their weapons races, the Womb-Plague, etc?

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

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

May be it's just their nobility (king Sil and princes like Aurax/Aurang) who had souls and all others were just husks, cannon fodder, insignificant machines like skin-spies.

[Zadok]

How long they waited isn't clear but inciting the rebellion and meeting the other Nonmen in battle at Pir Pahal almost has to be the first action the Inchoroi took after coming out of the Ark and Sil was right in the middle of that battle.

It could be that the "rank and file" of the Inchoroi didn't know about their damnation and were happy just to rape and pillage planets, but they wouldn't be the ones making the decisions anyway

[Phallus Pendulus]

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"

[Wilshire]

This is exactly as I imagine it PP.

[Zadok]

Recklessness and overconfidence don't seem like traits a race of immortals obsessed with avoiding death would have.  Especially when they've just had who knows how many of them wiped out when the Ark crashed.  Thinking about it some more that's probably why they attacked, they panicked after losing so many in the crash along with whatever technology they lost or was fading, and they figured it was now or never.

[Francis Buck]

I'm pretty sure that none of the Inchoroi themselves were soulless husks, just the Sranc and other bio-weapon races.

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

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

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

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