@mrganondorf, since it's been theorized that the No-God traps souls and prevents them from going to the Outside maybe it can also pull souls back from the Outside into the physical world as well, that way no matter the amount of casualties the Inchoroi know they can bring the others back once the No-God has been awakened again.
this makes sense to me since the Inchoroi must have some kind of sufficient motivation--why risk the individual's or hive's eternal damnation unless the prize is worth it?
forging ahead, i wonder if there are any examples of Inchoroi cowards or defectors--individuals that realize they are damned and that they have to do everything to stay out of the grave--they must especially avoid antagonizing nonmen (who were clearly badasses from their first conflicts with the nonmen) and they must avoid making No-Gods that force the whole world to pay attention to you.
it would seem like a few Inchoroi would take off and live in the mountains or something ... or in a dark place ... pass the time doing something like breeding monkeys or something ...
I tend to think that the Inchoroi we
see are actually the defectors. They, perhaps for military reasons, perhaps just in the interests of transcendentalism, followed a path of amoral experimentation on themselves and probably on others. These 'crimes' lead to their discovery of the Inverse Fire and so the knowledge of their own damnation. Fret by this, rather than reverse course and repent, they forged forward believing that following through and completely transcending their nature would yield the answer to the Inverse Fire's problem.
As for defectors on from among those who made The Fall, I think the effect of the Inverse Fire is too strong to overcome. After countless planets scourged, I think those who were possibly wishy-washy on the whole endeavor were probably gone by then.
i know it's not rational from the long-term point of view--the inchoroi might be super long-lived but that doesn't mean that they are immortal, but there are plenty of people that don't do rational things. are the inchoroi incapable of commiting errors in reasoning?
of course, if they are a hive mind, then perhaps you get no one wandering off. their ability to communicate with each other without mouths perhaps suggests this. Sil was just a replaceable arch-drone?
I think the Inchoroi that we see are functionally immortal, in the sense that old-age would not kill them. It might lead them to diminished capacity in some ways, but I don't believe they could actually die.
I think their 'reasoning'
is inherently flawed, because it is based on
ego. The idea that rather than
submit to judgement, which they feel is unjust, they would rather
master judgement. This follows on what I believe the felt from the get-go, from the time when they first devised what would become the Tekne. I believe that the Inchoroi were 'originally' an aquatic species, hence the "fluting of gill-tissues along the neck" when they speak. I think the Tekne was probably first a way for the Inchoroi to transcend their water-bound nature, in other words, not
submit to their nature, but to
master it.
As for communicating with each other, Cincûlic is probably what their language became, adapted from it's original aquatic nature to air-breathing. It is probably a function of the Inchoroi using thier gills as vocal cords. Since there are presumably multiple gills, the sound is probably has multiple tones and probably requires more air to produce, which might explain why the Nonmen called it "the gasp of many reeds."
As for Sil, since he was "King After-the-Fall" which presumes he wasn't King before the Fall. Chances are he was just the biggest, strongest and most bellicose of those left, post-Fall. The idea that they shouldn't waste time, sally forth and waste Earwa post-haste was probably the prevailing sentiment. Considering how ego-driven the Inchoroi are, I doubt if they really considered the idea of an actual dangerous resistance effort seriously.
the only other alternatives i can think of is that: 1) the Inchoroi are some kind of super-altruists (from the perspective of what they think is 'good'), they risk hell from nobility; or 2) they are incapable of reasoning on this point--they are hardwired to risk going to hell maybe like the way that one skinspy knew that it was likely to die after Kellhus captured it (after Kellhus' Aurang encounter) and simultaneously believed it would be rescued.
who hardwires an Inchoroi? the Ark? othere Inchoroi? the stupid Engineer things from Prometheus?
I think there are several 'motivators' for Inchoroi behavior. First is ego, so headstrong and self-assured that their original design (and so, the path they took) is inherently just that they feel they must be right (even if that means the rest of the universe is wrong). Second is their nature and their 'grafted' nature, which lead them so willingly to hedonism (a function of their transcendental ideals). Third is the Inverse Fire, which ratifies all the rest and assures them that they are justified in doing what they feel they must.
have we discussed who their supposed to be hiding their voices from? does "hiding your voice" imply that it is being hidden from the gaze of someone? if they are hiding it from the gods, then the task seems to be apiece with Mog who dwells in the gods' blind spot
“The Nonmen…” he said evenly. “They have taught us how to hide our Voices. How to bypass the Outside, find Oblivion.”
Eyes like bladders of ink, each reflecting the tripods across their shining curve. The fluting of gill-tissues along the neck. “You worship the spaces between the Gods…”
“Yes.”
A rasp like the screams of faraway children tangled in the wind. Inchoroi laughter. “You are already damned. All of you are already damned.”
“So say you.”
A deep chested rumble. Popping mucous. “So says the Inverse Fire.”
This is what makes piety and devotion so important: the more favour an individual can secure in the Outside (primarily through the worship of Gods and the honouring of ancestors), the greater the chance of finding bliss rather than torment in the afterlife.
The idea, I think, is that by not being pious and devoted, your soul will have attracted no scrutiny from any Outside agents, therefor, when you die, your soul might pass unmolested through the Outside. Aurang seems to find this laughable though. I would actually tend to think the Aurang is being truthful here, that this 'method' is not sufficient, because if it was, why wouldn't the Inchoroi have just done it? A possible other explanation would be that they are totally mislead by the Inverse Fire or that the Inchoroi have done too much 'wrong' to attempt to dodge scrutiny now.