The only reason I doubt the Wutteät destroyed it theory is the feeling I have that nothing random is happening in this series. Everything has been calculated by someone somewhere If not Kellhus, then the Dunyain themselves.

You say this, but many things have transpired by accident outside of Dunyain calculation. They are not Gods. They're not quite human, but they're not Gods.

One of the most important events in the series, the unmasking of the Consult skin-spies, happens purely by accident. The entire thing comes about because a highly paranoid Emperor just happens to notice Kellhus scrutinizing The-Thing-Called-Skeos. The fallout from this affects the entire series, but it was not by the calculated action of a Dunyain or the Consult. Just an accidental glance at the wrong time from an extremely paranoid man.

I'll further that.
Moenghus requested only one Dunyain - his son. So by both his and Kellhus' appraisal, only one is required for the purposes of TTT.  Adding more Dunyain probably only serves to enlarge the chances of a struggle for primacy, evidence being Moenghus' fate.

Incidentaly, I think that it hasn't been noted by anyone that the name of Ansurimbor is probably borne by the majority of the Dunyain by the time of AM and AK because the original scion was probably prime breeding stock. Assuming that the Dunyain carefully track and control successful lines whilst limiting the effects of breeding closely related individuals (to avoid inbreeding and crazy mutations), I think it's reasonable to assume that at least 50% of them are direct descendants.  I'm pretty sketchy about such things, so do correct my assumptions if you know more.

After two thousand years of inbreeding within a likely very small and completely isolated population, it would take a tremendous concerted effort to avoid literally everyone in Ishual being a direct descendant of the original Anasurimbor in the sample. Given enough time, your descendants are either everyone, or no one (See: the tremendous number of direct descendants of Genghis Khan, a fact that is often stated as if it were somehow remarkable when it is in fact true of a great deal of historical figures of sufficient age. A tremendous number of Europeans are directly descended from Charlemagne, for example.)

That said, if they continued only using the male line for transmission of the family name, and practiced very limited breeding and heavy culling of population due to eugenics (all of which seems likely) many or most of them would not bear the name Anasurimbor.

I imagine that Kellhus was far from the only Anasurimbor at Ishual though, yes. And any unaccounted for Anasurimbor is a potential threat to Kellhus' image. I strongly suspect that Kellhus is the one that destroyed Ishual. He would likely estimate that if the Dunyain were to discover what was happening in the world, they would side with the Consult, as he believed his father would. This is not something he can allow. The threat must be eliminated, and the cost of doing is small. As long as the chance of this happening is >0%, Kellhus must teleport to Ishual and nuke it thoroughly.

If the Consult offered to fix the Inchoroi's little oversight with the Nonmen (upgrading their memory capacity to match their limitless age instead of keeping mortal minds in immortal bodies until the memories overflow and become garbled) that might explain why the mansion went over to the Consult.

Although it just strikes me another option is possible. The Consult have re-mastered the tekne. The Skin-Spies are new, so that means they understand it on a fundamental level now. No longer are they reliant on half-remembered techniques and blind aping of what Inchoroi scientists did untold eons ago.

If they wanted too, they could probably clone some Nonmen females. Their race could have a future again, if they just accepted the No-God.

Sranc flesh would be a beautiful transmission vector for a Console designed bio-weapon targeted enough to kill the Great Ordeal but not broad enough to risk wiping out human civilization entirely (which they can't do because they need 44,000 alive or whatever).

If Kellhus has switched goals and now walks the road he outlined for his father (the "string of calculated defeats), he might even do such a thing knowingly...

But this is just idle speculation. I don't really believe it myself.

WHO ARE THE DUNYAIN?

Monsters. Abominations. /Cnaiur

I think you'll need more than selective breeding to change Sranc. They seem to have changed remarkably little in the thousands of years they've existed considering their extremely fast rate of reproduction. Their genes are still true enough that the pheromone triggers or whatever the Consult agents use to command Sranc bands they take over mostly work. I imagine the Consult, being good engineers, has filled their genome with selfish genetic elements that prevent mutations from successfully infiltrating the genome and propagating, watering down the product. At least around key genes. Such things are possible and highly effective even against selection pressure, to the point that some selfish genetic elements that are highly detrimental to their host have spread any way in a number of insect species, driving them to complete extinction when they wound up having no males being born.

On Simas...I wonder when he was replaced? If it was all the way back when he was a student, then that means he touched Seswatha's heart and dreamed the dreams. I wonder what that would do to a Consult agent?

Although I suppose to a Skin-Spy, Seswatha's dreams might be pure ecstasy. Perfect masturbatory fantasies of death and destruction and obscenity.

Yeah I'm pretty sure the crash is accidental. Something like 90% of their remaining species died in the crash, and that clearly included a lot of their scientists and such given how they seem to have gradually lost most advanced knowledge of the tekne as time advanced. There's also the fact that the Inchoroi know for a fact there is no cause in the world worth dying for, since for them death means an eternity of torment.

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.

It'd be interesting to me to see one of the Inchoroi's previous purges from the perspective of the guys getting purged but that might be redundant and predictable. I just want more Inchoroi.