[mrganondorf]

Why would a member of a culture like that build a machine that forced the idea of damnation upon them?

This is what I'm thinking is possible:

http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=2244#comic

In 2150 humanity discovers, definitively, the universe is an empty purposeless place.  To overcome the anxiety, some create an overwhelming lust modification and an attendant intelligence to sate it myriad ways.  When this fails to conquer the anxiety, they invent the Outside and the IF to give purpose to their lives, any purpose, so long as it blinds them to the truth.

[locke]

I very much doubt the Inverse Fire is some kind of illusion or mind control device, since some Inchoroi must have invented it at some point, and they wouldn't want to use such a thing on themself. I imagine the Inchoroi culture, prior to the discovery of the Inverse Fire and damnation, was extremely nihilistic and hedonistic. I greatly doubt they believed in any Gods at all, or any morality that we would understand. Why would a member of a culture like that build a machine that forced the idea of damnation upon them?

I personally suspect they came across the invention of the inverse fire, the discovery of an afterlife, and the knowledge that there was objective morality and damnation, entirely by accident, in the course of other scientific inquiry. Naturally, the discovery and its irrefutability shocked and transformed their entire culture. Enough that they took their entire species to the stars to seek out the source of their damnation, and destroy it.

Clearly they didn't invent it, rather inverse prometheus stole the inverse fire from the inverse gods

All typ0s courtesy of Samsung.

[mrganondorf]

Lol!  Inverse Icarus' dad: if you fly to far down, son, your wings will fail you and you will fall up.  And you'll be damned.

[locke]

The key to flying is to aim at the ground and miss.

All typ0s courtesy of Samsung.

[Cüréthañ]

One theory I'm kinda toying with is that they used the Tekne to remove the atomic structure that overlays whatever comprises the basic matter of the Earwaverse and ended up with a hole that lets you see out of the universe. 

Perhaps they were trying to find a power source or something.
That's how many major practical scientific discoveries happen in our world. 

[Francis Buck]

I very much doubt the Inverse Fire is some kind of illusion or mind control device, since some Inchoroi must have invented it at some point, and they wouldn't want to use such a thing on themself. I imagine the Inchoroi culture, prior to the discovery of the Inverse Fire and damnation, was extremely nihilistic and hedonistic. I greatly doubt they believed in any Gods at all, or any morality that we would understand. Why would a member of a culture like that build a machine that forced the idea of damnation upon them?

I personally suspect they came across the invention of the inverse fire, the discovery of an afterlife, and the knowledge that there was objective morality and damnation, entirely by accident, in the course of other scientific inquiry. Naturally, the discovery and its irrefutability shocked and transformed their entire culture. Enough that they took their entire species to the stars to seek out the source of their damnation, and destroy it.

This is precisely what I think, although I will add that I think the IF later did kinda/sorta become a propaganda device of sorts. For example, I think the Inchoroi really did decide that it made more sense to turn the peoples of Earwa to their side, rather than try to destroy them, especially when they realized that the Nonmen were also damned. Knowing that the IF would show the truth of one's damnation to anyone that was, well, actually damned, they had no issue showing it to the Nonmen. Men were a different story however. It's not a coincidence that the only Men ever shown the IF were sorcerers -- it was a very deliberate plan. After all, if they were to show the IF to any old human, there's a chance they might actually see their own Redemption within it, which could cause some major PR issues for the Consult's recruitment plans. Thus, the Inchoroi (and later the Consult in general) really did use the IF has a method of spreading propaganda, in a weird way, but nonetheless the IF was still legitimate.

One theory I'm kinda toying with is that they used the Tekne to remove the atomic structure that overlays whatever comprises the basic matter of the Earwaverse and ended up with a hole that lets you see out of the universe. 

Perhaps they were trying to find a power source or something.
That's how many major practical scientific discoveries happen in our world. 

I agree with this as well. I think the Inchoroi were just going on with their daily lives (I don't even want to know what that was like), and some scientists just kept digging into the sub-atomic particles of reality with the Tekne until eventually they broke through. We actually see Shaeonanra kind of explaining this.

[The Sharmat]

Yeah that makes sense. As we see from Shaeonanra's point of view, the sight of your own damnation is about as powerful a motivator as can be summoned.

[Cüréthañ]

If it is a power source, it could also be the engine of the arc, now rerouted to their synthese labs, Shae's life-support pit and the golden room etc.

[mrganondorf]

If it is a power source, it could also be the engine of the arc, now rerouted to their synthese labs, Shae's life-support pit and the golden room etc.

christmas lights

[Simas Polchias]

Or perhaps the false sun is more direcly connected to the inverse fire. Maybe a better name for the IF would be the FALSE fire? The Inverse Fire is a lie! (the Inchoroi's version of cake)

A false fire. Sounds like a falschfeuer in german whis is a flare in english. 

A flare, also sometimes called a fusee, is a type of pyrotechnic that produces a brilliant light or intense heat without an explosion.

Literally, that is a safe device to fight a darkness. Is this the same darkness that came before? Also, consider another option.

A special variety of flare is used in military aircraft as a defensive countermeasure against heat-seeking missiles.

As long as there are Marks and ciphrangs hunting you in the Outside, IF could be an unsuccessfull or semi-successfull distraction device. How can one conseal his damned soul, especially marked one? But, by clouding it with thousands of false copies.

After a while, these two options seem to me like two faces of the same coin. Cloaking your soul in your multiplied damnation? Feels like a close and ruthless acquaintance with all desicions and deeds you have ever made without any possibility to forget or to misrepresent. So, that's a way to fight the darkness that came before, even if the indirect one.

[H]

I posted this on the ASoIaF board, but then thought it'd probably be good here too:

I decided to reread The False Sun this morning. It's been a while and I was bored at work, plus I forgot my eBooks of the rest of the series.

We've discussed what the Inverse Fire is numerous times and with such scant information, we have naturally not figured out much about it's nature. My personal feelings are that it is called such because we often presume hell (or Hell) to be a fiery place, yet the reality the damned face in the Outside is actually it's opposite. Fire would be hot, burning, consuming. Damnation in the outside is the opposite, cold, freezing, preserving. Where fire would devour and extinguish, the coldness of damnation is is endless.

That crack-pottery isn't what struck me in the story though, it was the exchange between Shae and Titirga. Is it just me, but I actually believe that everything Shae (and Aurang) is actually true. What they see really is their damnation. I don't fee like the Inverse Fire is a device made to control, it is simply something of a window that reveals what I would term "dread knowledge."

The idea of such a thing is knowledge that does not enwisen, but rather fosters something of a guttural fear response. Indeed, what Shae and the Consult choose to do is actually rather logical, however, it is motivated by the basest and most primitive of thoughts and feelings, pleasure and self-preservation. Nothing is inherently wrong with either, but when they are exacted as pleasure for it's own sake and self-preservation at any cost that is an issue.

Titirga offers them the alternative: oblivion. The Consult rejects this though, because that base need of self-preservation, so closely linked to fear, drives them to try to achieve "salvation" at any cost.

I don't know if that makes any real sense to anyone but me, but I figured I'd just lob it out there...

[Wilshire]

Welcome to the board  H. I'm glad you made it through our rudimentary spam filter with your nondescript name (hand screening all the 100's of daily registrations for actual users among the bots).

My personal feelings are that it is called such because we often presume hell (or Hell) to be a fiery place, yet the reality the damned face in the Outside is actually it's opposite. Fire would be hot, burning, consuming. Damnation in the outside is the opposite, cold, freezing, preserving. Where fire would devour and extinguish, the coldness of damnation is is endless.

The play of Fire is probably close to the mark, regardless of what actually occurs in that hell. An anchor for the reader.
The analogy for cold works, though cold if often associated with numbness, and peace/quiet, while for me fire is more easily associated with suffering and screaming agony. I can't imagine a more horrific way to spend eternity, endlessly burning in a fire...

I also think you might be combining 'The Void' and "The Outside'. The Void is presumably a reference to space, while The Outside is the spiritual realm. There are many different kinds of 'Outsides', as many or more than the number of Gods, and I associate the oblivion/nothingness that the Nonmen/Titirga seek is someplace untouched by those entities, a place of nothing.

That crack-pottery isn't what struck me in the story though, it was the exchange between Shae and Titirga. Is it just me, but I actually believe that everything Shae (and Aurang) is actually true. What they see really is their damnation. I don't fee like the Inverse Fire is a device made to control, it is simply something of a window that reveals what I would term "dread knowledge.";

I think that Shae, and potentially Aurang, believe that what they say is true, and I'm not entirely sure that the difference is too important.

I believe that long ago the Inchoroi found some window into the Outside that showed them what they think was their inevitable afterlife if nothing was done to stop it. Dread knowledge is a great phrase for it, and it drove them to do what they have been doing ever since, looking for salvation. True or not, it can still easily be used as an easy way to gain supporters, regardless of whether or not it applies to the person/thing looking into it. After all, it could show many things, maybe just the nature of one of the "Outsides" created and maintained by one of the Gods. Or it could in fact show each user's actual fate, we just have no way of knowing.

The idea of such a thing is knowledge that does not enwisen, but rather fosters something of a guttural fear response.

Reminds me of Adam/Eve and the tree of knowledge.

Indeed, what Shae and the Consult choose to do is actually rather logical, however, it is motivated by the basest and most primitive of thoughts and feelings, pleasure and self-preservation. Nothing is inherently wrong with either, but when they are exacted as pleasure for it's own sake and self-preservation at any cost that is an issue.

I agree that its logical. If you knew that you would burn for eternity if you did nothing, it would likely be difficult to see the point of any sort of morality. For even just the chance to forestall and absolve an eternity of suffering, all things would be possible.

Titirga offers them the alternative: oblivion. The Consult rejects this though, because that base need of self-preservation, so closely linked to fear, drives them to try to achieve "salvation" at any cost.

The choice between nothing, and an eternity of peace, seems like a pretty easy one as well, especially if the 'oblivion' gambit if not a sure bet and you end up burning forever anyway.

I don't know if that makes any real sense to anyone but me, but I figured I'd just lob it out there...

Made perfect sense. I hope you lob some more this way if ever you forget your ebooks again .

[H]

Well, I've actually "been around" since the days of the Three-Seas board, just never post much.

The play of Fire is probably close to the mark, regardless of what actually occurs in that hell. An anchor for the reader.
The analogy for cold works, though cold if often associated with numbness, and peace/quiet, while for me fire is more easily associated with suffering and screaming agony. I can't imagine a more horrific way to spend eternity, endlessly burning in a fire...

I also think you might be combining 'The Void' and "The Outside'. The Void is presumably a reference to space, while The Outside is the spiritual realm. There are many different kinds of 'Outsides', as many or more than the number of Gods, and I associate the oblivion/nothingness that the Nonmen/Titirga seek is someplace untouched by those entities, a place of nothing.

I agree that the idea of the Void (space, as we call it) and the Outside (eh, I guess something like Heaven, Hell and Purgatory) are actually kind of mirrors (maybe?) of each other.  In the sense that the Void is the nothing outside the physical realm (ok, not actually nothing, but something very much like it, conceptually) and the Outside is the nothing outside the spiritual realm.  Planets (well, matter, so stars, etc.) are the breaks in the Void, the Gods seem to be the breaks in the Outside.  I guess that what leads me to conflagration the two together to put meaning to what Inverse Fire could mean.

Reminds me of Adam/Eve and the tree of knowledge.

Exactly, knowledge that really was not supposed to be known, as in, knowledge you can't handle knowning.

The choice between nothing, and an eternity of peace, seems like a pretty easy one as well, especially if the 'oblivion' gambit if not a sure bet and you end up burning forever anyway.

Well, there are seemingly three options when your soul passes to the Outside:
Salvation - you soul is coddled and accepted by a god.  Seems decent.
Oblivion - your soul just slips through a crack in the gods and is gone.  I don't know how that seems, kind of like a loss though.
Damnation - your soul sits between the gods, forever in purgatory and probably pain.  Seems pretty bad.
I think the Consult, in light of the Inverse Fire, know they can't gain salvation.  They are unsure if they can achieve oblivion (seems to take a worship system).  What seems provable to them is either accept damnation or go about sealing the world.  Not hard to see why they take that course really, considering.

[SilentRoamer]

Welcome H,

Think I seen you around as .H. on westeros?

I always thought the Consult seemed to mock the idea of "finding oblivion" as if they thought this was just a Nonman myth. Shae and Aurang definitely seemed to be mocking Titirgas understanding of damnation.

[Wilshire]

Well not all of you made it to here, so I stand by my previous welcoming . Great profile picture btw, where did you get that from?

Actually, I didn't connect the mirror between Void and Outside, but I like that quite a bit.

I meant Salvation by closing the world from the gods and therefore forever escaping damnation, rather than some kind of redemptive steps to cleanse their souls. I was unclear.