The Second Apocalypse

Earwa => The Aspect-Emperor => The White-Luck Warrior => Topic started by: What Came Before on May 22, 2013, 08:23:22 pm

Title: The Ground, the Void and the Outside.
Post by: What Came Before on May 22, 2013, 08:23:22 pm
Quote from: Curethan
Just freestyling some thoughts here.

Quote from: TFS
“The ruins of Viri.”

“The very same,” Shaeönanra replied.

“A lesson,” Titirga said, “to those who would dig too deep.”

... but Viri was destroyed by the Fall?  So how does digging pertain?
We know the Non-men were burrowers. 
The Thousand Halls under Ishual.
Cil-Aujis was a mansion - a holy city, not a mine.

Quote from: TUC
He described a hate-rotted soul, forever falling into hell, forever deflected by ancient and arcane magicks, caught in the sackcloth of souls too near death to resist his clutching tumble, too devoid of animating passion.

A pit bent into a circle, the most perfect of the Conserving Forms...

Always with damnation and the demonic are terms like falling and pit.

The Inchies came from the Void.  And emptiness and void are often used in conjunction with revelations throughout, with the Ground spinning or wheeling about etc.

(***Digression***
And only the boundary, the Ground divides them, and only it can be Conditioned.

Quote from: TTT
He ran. Not once did he stumble, nor slow to determine his bearings.  This ground was his .... Conditioned.
)

My intial thoughts were sparked by the idea of Hell below the earth, a classic meme of Christian theology iirc.

The nonmen and inchies both seem obsessed with digging deep.
In TJE we get the term 'kneeling deep' from Cleric.
All the architecture is massive as I remember - like the nonmen were trying to bring emptiness - the void - down to the low places.
Could this be some analogy for creating bubbles of oblivion in the afterlife?

Then we learn that they abused human slaves to make a topoi down there...
and seriously WTF is a DRAGON skeleton doing down there?
Then I remembered that Wutteat is sustained by a hell inside him - a topoi.
Perhaps creating that topoi was something the nonmen were trying to do?

At Mengedda in TWP, Akka says the Topoi are high places, causing a sense of vertigo.  Perhaps the inversion of depth and height are important.

And the Inchies...
Endless tunnels beneath Min Uroikas.
Pits of the aborted?
Always filling holes in the Ark with murdered prisoners.
Shauritas' soul is suspended over a bottomless pit...

Okay, I'm not sure what all this could mean but I'll pool my water (my new Cish idiom for intuitive speculation ;) )
What if the Nail of Heaven (the Newborn) is a hole in the Ground that goes all the way through to the Void?
Perhaps the Nonmen of Viri damned the Inchies somehow when they "dug too deep" and let their damnation through into Inchi heaven?
Fallen Angels...
Title: Re: The Ground, the Void and the Outside.
Post by: What Came Before on May 22, 2013, 08:23:30 pm
Quote from: Wilshire
Quote from: Curethan
Always with damnation and the demonic are terms like falling and pit.

The Inchies came from the Void.  And emptiness and void are often used in conjunction with revelations throughout, with the Ground spinning or wheeling about etc.
Reminds me of: "Death came swirling down". We always get lots of that.

Quote from: Curethan
All the architecture is massive as I remember - like the nonmen were trying to bring emptiness - the void - down to the low places.
Could this be some analogy for creating bubbles of oblivion in the afterlife?
Also with the stuff you said about the Nail.... I wonder if the Great Medial Screw in Cil-Aujas lines up with the Nail of Heaven?

Quote from: Curethan
Then we learn that they abused human slaves to make a topoi down there...
and seriously WTF is a DRAGON skeleton doing down there?
Then I remembered that Wutteat is sustained by a hell inside him - a topoi.
Perhaps creating that topoi was something the nonmen were trying to do?
I asked some similar questions in the PreFAQ about topoi and have come to no conclusions since then.

Creating topoi deep underground. Trying to make "bubbles of oblivion", or making their own "space" between the Gods to which they may flee to after death.

Now that you mention it, Wutteat being his own topoi that gives him immortality may be similar to something the inchoroi are trying to do.... become truely immoratal in the sense that even when the flesh rots and dies your soul remains bound/anchored (or at least un-grasp-able by any of the Gods).
Quote from: Curethan
At Mengedda in TWP, Akka says the Topoi are high places, causing a sense of vertigo.  Perhaps the inversion of depth and height are important.
I always found "high place" an odd description, but it is more of a forced analogy than anything else. Just referencing that it makes the world closer to the outside in that place, as a mountain makes one closer to the sky.
Title: Re: The Ground, the Void and the Outside.
Post by: What Came Before on May 22, 2013, 08:23:35 pm
Quote from: Madness
Sci and I hashed out an interesting theory on Westeros more recently where Sci suggested the Nonmen learned of the Outside through Topoi and that informs their social discourse about Damnation and the nature of the Outside.

Their Mansions all start sinking into Hell due to their abuse of the Emwama...
Title: Re: The Ground, the Void and the Outside.
Post by: What Came Before on May 22, 2013, 08:23:40 pm
Quote from: Wilshire
That seems very likely. Strange things happen in the topoi whether or not you believe in the outside, so that is kind of an indication that something is going on.
Title: Re: The Ground, the Void and the Outside.
Post by: What Came Before on May 22, 2013, 08:23:46 pm
Quote from: lockesnow
Brother Siol,
Viri begs your pardon.


seems like perhaps it wasn't just an 18th century social nicety of discourse that Ninjanjin was using here.  Perhaps he did in fact have something to be really really fucking sorry for.  Something bad enough that he was conquered--something that had never happened before, eh?  because wasn't Cujara Cinmoi the first Nonman king to be king of two mansions?

Did Ninjanjin cause the Ark to fall because he dug too greedily and too deep?

Love the thoughts in the OP.  Great crackpottery that sounds sound.
Title: Re: The Ground, the Void and the Outside.
Post by: What Came Before on May 22, 2013, 08:23:52 pm
Quote from: bbaztek
Quote from: lockesnow
Brother Siol,
Viri begs your pardon.


seems like perhaps it wasn't just an 18th century social nicety of discourse that Ninjanjin was using here.  Perhaps he did in fact have something to be really really fucking sorry for.  Something bad enough that he was conquered--something that had never happened before, eh?  because wasn't Cujara Cinmoi the first Nonman king to be king of two mansions?

Did Ninjanjin cause the Ark to fall because he dug too greedily and too deep?

these fucking books
Title: Re: The Ground, the Void and the Outside.
Post by: What Came Before on May 22, 2013, 08:24:02 pm
Quote from: Madness
+1, bbaztek :D.
Title: Re: The Ground, the Void and the Outside.
Post by: What Came Before on May 22, 2013, 08:24:08 pm
Quote from: Wilshire
Quote from: bbaztek
Quote from: lockesnow
Brother Siol,
Viri begs your pardon.


seems like perhaps it wasn't just an 18th century social nicety of discourse that Ninjanjin was using here.  Perhaps he did in fact have something to be really really fucking sorry for.  Something bad enough that he was conquered--something that had never happened before, eh?  because wasn't Cujara Cinmoi the first Nonman king to be king of two mansions?

Did Ninjanjin cause the Ark to fall because he dug too greedily and too deep?

these fucking books

Lol if something like that, or even something more ridiculous, happens I'd be happy to say I didn't see it coming.
Title: Re: The Ground, the Void and the Outside.
Post by: What Came Before on May 22, 2013, 08:24:13 pm
Quote from: Triskele
I love the suggestion that something done in Earwa like Nin'janjin digging too deep could have summoned the Inchies.  Like fallen Angels.

If messing w/ the Daimos can summon a Cyphrang from the Outside, perhaps messing w/ a topos can bring things from the Void too?


As cool as all of this sounds, I don't think it too likely.  I think ALLCAPS Dragon proved that the Inchies were seeking out Earwa.

Although I guess we don't really know why though.
Title: Re: The Ground, the Void and the Outside.
Post by: What Came Before on May 22, 2013, 08:24:21 pm
Quote from: lockesnow
but if something, say an entire race, is trapped in hell, wouldn't it be seeking a way out?
Title: Re: The Ground, the Void and the Outside.
Post by: What Came Before on May 22, 2013, 08:24:27 pm
Quote from: Triskele
Quote from: lockesnow
but if something, say an entire race, is trapped in hell, wouldn't it be seeking a way out?

Sure.  And that could be why the Inchies sought out Earwa.  I'm just saying that we don't really have any clue if what Nin'janjin and Viri did would have anything to do w/ this at all.  It seems in intriguing possibility however unlikely.
Title: Re: The Ground, the Void and the Outside.
Post by: What Came Before on May 22, 2013, 08:24:32 pm
Quote from: Duskweaver
Or perhaps the Inchoroi just worked out that the sort of special 'salvation-is-possible-in-this-life' world they needed would be one especially 'close' to the Outside - i.e. a world where topoi existed. So they built a machine to detect topoi and programmed the Ark to land near the biggest, deepest one they could find.

If whatever the Nonmen of Viri were doing prior to the coming of the Ark created a really impressive topos, well that would have sealed their fate.
Title: Re: The Ground, the Void and the Outside.
Post by: What Came Before on May 22, 2013, 08:24:38 pm
Quote from: Madness
Lol, you will all certainly mine the very world with your Nerdaneling and then our fate will be sealed ;).
Title: Re: The Ground, the Void and the Outside.
Post by: What Came Before on May 22, 2013, 08:24:44 pm
Quote from: Wilshire
Quote from: Madness
Lol, you will all certainly mine the very world with your Nerdaneling and then our fate will be sealed ;).

a lesson for those who would mine too deep
Title: Re: The Ground, the Void and the Outside.
Post by: What Came Before on May 22, 2013, 08:24:50 pm
Quote from: Duskweaver
Quote from: Madness
Lol, you will all certainly mine the very world with your Nerdaneling and then our fate will be sealed ;).
Just salting the Ground. :)

However, I don't think it's much of a stretch to suggest a race capable of building the Inverse Fire could also build a topos detector. It seems like a pretty obvious extension of the same basic technology.

To put it another way, I don't think the theory is anywhere near wacky enough to qualify as a Nerdanel. ;)
Title: Re: The Ground, the Void and the Outside.
Post by: What Came Before on May 22, 2013, 08:24:56 pm
Quote from: Madness
As a whole... nah, not even close ;).

Based on the Void not being the Outside.

I'd give credence to Topoi detector but I doubt it.

If it existed, it either didn't work because there is only Topoi on Earwa and they went to a bunch of other planets first or its range sucks and there are Topoi on all planets and so they keep detecting lesser ones.

How do the Inchoroi find out about 144,000 or that Salvation is promised somewhere? Who dropped those nuggets of knowledge on them?
Title: Re: The Ground, the Void and the Outside.
Post by: What Came Before on May 22, 2013, 08:25:11 pm
Quote from: Duskweaver
Quote from: Madness
If it existed, it either didn't work because there is only Topoi on Earwa and they went to a bunch of other planets first or its range sucks and there are Topoi on all planets and so they keep detecting lesser ones.
My thinking was that they built the topos detector after wasting time on whichever world they visited right before Earwa - i.e. that they were basically guessing prior to that and that the new detector was what finally brought them to Earwa. The Inchies give the impression that they have a legitimate reason to think their plan will actually work this time.
Title: Re: The Ground, the Void and the Outside.
Post by: What Came Before on May 22, 2013, 08:25:18 pm
Quote from: Madness
Good call on temporal notation... I believe my last questions still stand.
Title: Re: The Ground, the Void and the Outside.
Post by: What Came Before on May 22, 2013, 08:25:22 pm
Quote from: Duskweaver
Quote from: Madness
I believe my last questions still stand.
Maybe the No-God talks to them when they look into the IF?

(In other words, I have absolutely no idea.)
Title: Re: The Ground, the Void and the Outside.
Post by: What Came Before on May 22, 2013, 08:25:29 pm
Quote from: Madness
You bent your mind the task - all I can ask :D.

How about a gradient?

It always puzzles me that the consequences of the Outside are unlimited in the Void but the manifestations of the Outside are limited to Earwa.

So I posit a gradient from Earwa, which has the most contact with the Outside (perhaps, a direct consequence of Topoi) and once the bubble broke, the Outside started leaking into Earwa... In this way, Inchoroi being encountering worlds where prophecy or the thaumaturgical takes place in more and more profound measures - leading up to Sorcery on Earwa?

Just thoughts.
Title: Re: The Ground, the Void and the Outside.
Post by: What Came Before on May 22, 2013, 08:25:37 pm
Quote from: Curethan
There are a few ideas I like to return to here when I have the time.  Some of my speculation was unclear, I think, for example about how the Nonmen may have created the Nail of Heaven and caused the Inchie's retribution despite the apparent temporal inconsistency.

But for now I'll just add this quote from Cleric refering to the fall of the nonmen.
Quote from: WLW
"Persecuted as false.  Hunted by the very depths we warred to uncover, the very darkness we sought to illuminate"
Title: Re: The Ground, the Void and the Outside.
Post by: What Came Before on May 22, 2013, 08:25:42 pm
Quote from: Madness
I've had this line tagged since reading WLW and marking important passages. I wonder at your thoughts.

It's what chiefly prompted my thoughts that the act of abstracting more complex abstraction creates the entities of the Outside, even though based on being created, they've always had agency through time and space. Nonmen distinguish the holistic Outside into Gods and Not-Gods, Men abstract stable forms, then a Transcendent God, then an Immanent God... then whatever abstraction of entity Kellhus thinks up...
Title: Re: The Ground, the Void and the Outside.
Post by: What Came Before on May 22, 2013, 08:25:48 pm
Quote from: Wilshire
Just some questions I thought up.

Probably belongs in a 'topos' topic but with the forum all messy I figured it would be fine here for now. I also might have already written all these questions down so sorry if these are old questions.

What is the oldest topos?
When does an area become a topoi? (Accumulated time of the suffering, magnitude of suffering, a combination?)
Was there topoi before the Inchoroi?
Is the center of a topoi more .... topoi-y .... than the edges?
What determines the size of a topoi and where does it technically stop?
Are all topoi the same? For example, are they like electron orbitals that must reach a certain threshold of energy before jumping levels ( except instead of energy we have suffering and instead of levels we've got yes-topos or no-topos).
As a consequence, does the amount of suffering (or whatever factors contribute to making the topos) cause the outside to leak more or leak less?


And for the conspiracy theorists: Topoi, Inchoroi. Coincidence?
Title: Re: The Ground, the Void and the Outside.
Post by: What Came Before on May 22, 2013, 08:25:53 pm
Quote from: Duskweaver
Quote from: Wilshire
And for the conspiracy theorists: Topoi, Inchoroi. Coincidence?
I think Bakker just likes Greek-derived terms. ;)

(Though 'in-' is actually Latin rather than Greek.)

ETA: 'Choros' and 'topos' sort of tread a funny line between being synonyms and antonyms. They both define a location, but the former connotes an emptiness (such as a room or an open space), while the second implies a point where something definite exists.

'Inchoroi' is very ambiguous. It could mean 'Void-Dwellers', 'Those-With-No-Country', 'Outsiders/Foreigners/Aliens' or about a hundred other possibilities.
Title: Re: The Ground, the Void and the Outside.
Post by: What Came Before on May 22, 2013, 08:25:59 pm
Quote from: Madness
+1 for Etymology.

He must also enjoy these games ;). Those are all pretty relevant ambiguities based on combining some tasty morphemes from an ancient tongue.

EDIT: Btw, +1 Duskweaver. I wonder if Bakker knew the kind of fans he might rouse...
Title: Re: The Ground, the Void and the Outside.
Post by: What Came Before on May 22, 2013, 08:26:04 pm
Quote from: lockesnow
Quote from: Madness
+1 for Etymology.

He must also enjoy these games ;). Those are all pretty relevant ambiguities based on combining some tasty morphemes from an ancient tongue.

EDIT: Btw, +1 Duskweaver. I wonder if Bakker knew the kind of fans he might rouse...
Id say yes because these kinds of posts were what i would call bakkerbait on old three seas forums.
Title: Re: The Ground, the Void and the Outside.
Post by: What Came Before on May 22, 2013, 08:26:10 pm
Quote from: Madness
It'd be real cool to see Cu'jara Cinmoi as a new user one day ;).

EDIT: To be quite honest, you've stumped me, Wilshire. A cursory glance to jog my memory has done nothing... where do we have a thread more relevant to Topoi?

So in lieu of finding no such thread, I shall take some responsive stabs (guesses) here:

Quote from: Wilshire
What is the oldest topos?
When does an area become a topoi? (Accumulated time of the suffering, magnitude of suffering, a combination?)
Was there topoi before the Inchoroi?
Is the center of a topoi more .... topoi-y .... than the edges?
What determines the size of a topoi and where does it technically stop?
Are all topoi the same? For example, are they like electron orbitals that must reach a certain threshold of energy before jumping levels ( except instead of energy we have suffering and instead of levels we've got yes-topos or no-topos).
As a consequence, does the amount of suffering (or whatever factors contribute to making the topos) cause the outside to leak more or leak less?

1) Oldest Topoi is either the Anarcane Ground under Atrithau (or Anti-Topoi?) or wherever the Nonmen first answered your second question. Lol, Duskweaver, what's a good etymolic creation for this, especially in light of Topoi and Locus having similar meanings and specific literary associations?

2)I think magnitude of suffering is more encompassing distinction and that time contributes directly to magnitude? So a combination? I wonder if X = 144,000 accumulated sufferers for the breach to occur (or soft spot to borrow Fringe analogies).

3)Yes but not where the Ark landed.

4)Yes. I like the invocation of gradient.

5)There is an exact circumference ;) - I honestly imagine those renditions of Einstein's pooling gravity of space-time. The center location of a maximum number/weight of emotion in a locus?

6)As per the Cu'jara Cinmoi quote, then all Topoi/Anarcane locus are places where the God dreams more or less lucidly, focuses more or less of its attention?

7)It causes the Hellish Outside to leak more... However, this offers no commentary on how the World and the realm of Absolution might breach. Is true Heaven on the other side of the subjective-objective realm of the Desirous Outside?
Title: Re: The Ground, the Void and the Outside.
Post by: What Came Before on May 22, 2013, 08:26:24 pm
Quote from: lockesnow
Topoi are paradoxes, they're like a pit to the outside, but Achamian describes them first as a Mountain  of suffering that allows one to see as though from a great height.  So a Topoi is a pit that is a mountain.

For some reason this reminds me of how a lecturer once described 'gravity/space time' as a blanket, and the earth sits in the blanket and the perceived displacement is gravity, so if you were to put another object on the blanket it would fall to the earth due to the displacement.

So if the universe is objective, that means suffering is objective.  That means suffering has weight.  That means suffering has mass.  That means that mass could accumulate until it exerts it's own force.  I think I made created a loop in there and didn't actually say anything.

Quote
“I’m sure you do … Do you know what topoi are?”

Saubon grimaced. “No.”

The attractive woman at his side yawned, rubbed her eyes. Without warning, a wave of fatigue crashed over the Galeoth Prince. He swayed in his saddle.

“You know the way you can see far from heights,” the sorcerer was saying, “like towers or mountain summits?”

“I’m not a fool. Don’t deal with me as one.” Pained smile.

“Topoi are like heights, places where one can see far … But where heights are built with mounds of stone and earth, topoi are built with mounds of trauma and suffering. They are heights that let us see farther than this world … some say into the Outside. That’s why this ground troubles you— you stand perilously high … This is the Battleplain. What you feel isn’t so different from vertigo.”

Bakker, R. Scott (2008-09-02). The Warrior Prophet: The Prince of Nothing, Book Two (Kindle Locations 3048-3057). Penguin Group. Kindle Edition.

note how the 'gods' also moves Saubon when Esmenet or Serwe yawns, I presume, based on Saubon's reaction that Achamian is walking next to Serwe. :-p
Title: Re: The Ground, the Void and the Outside.
Post by: locke on June 04, 2013, 11:24:14 pm
our quick assumption, or at least mine, has been that The Battleplain was such an epic battle that it created a topos.

Well that doesn't scan, otherwise most major battles or other tragedies would have a topos potential, and they seem to have not created one, 200,000 people died in the desert on the way to the Circumfix, but no topos in the desert (presumably).

What is unique to Mengedda, most likely, is that the death of the No-God released all the suffering that was contained/fueling him.  Perhaps the no-god was an attempt to contain or weaponize a topos.   Because if you can ensnare Hell itself in a ghostbuster Ecto-Containment Unit/Ghost Trap you may just have solved the problem of Hell.

Unfortunately, this may have caused all the supposed suffering because it also proved that everybody is already always damned/going to hell anyway.  And cutting off people's connection to hell meant their soul had no where to go when it died or it meant that souls trying to leave hell had no where to go when they're born--or if you're predestined, if a soul is already damned before it is conceived/born/created, but there is no longer a mechanism for the damnation to take effect then one can't be conceived/born and if the automatic damnation of a soul is a crucial precondition to a soul's existence then a new soul cannot come into existence.

In other words, perhaps damnation is so crucial to the human experience that to be severed from damnation is to have no existence.  To be human is to be damned.  (and perhaps humans were only created so that they could be damned by the gods, much like we raise cattle to harvest them and feast on their milk and flesh).
Title: Re: The Ground, the Void and the Outside.
Post by: Wilshire on June 05, 2013, 01:54:01 am
That is certainly a good point. Was Mengedda a particularly big battle? I thought that was a kind of 'last stand' for humans, but that doesn't mean it was particularly big, considering how many were already dead.

The only other topos we know about id Cil' right? And that was hundreds/thousands of years of torture.

Though, it is possible that being eaten by a good could be intensely pleasurable experience. The gods could certainly change how the human soul experiences the sensation, maybe 'hell' is simply a perception  change. Some gods make their food happy, other like the misery. To the human observation it would all look like souls being consumed.

Which leads to the same conclusion, that being cut off from the gods ceases any reason for living, though it changes the destination from "hell" to simply "outside"
Title: Re: The Ground, the Void and the Outside.
Post by: Madness on June 05, 2013, 12:53:34 pm
Perhaps Mengedda's Topoi was determined by intensity of the experience (Last Human Struggle, No-God's Passing) or by the frequency (Battle in TWP is the Fifth Battle of Mengedda, No-God's Passing being the Third, before Vulgar - I don't have my books on me? Nevermind, that's right, checked PON wiki. How handy is that, right in the top corner lol).

EDIT: Also, do Contest of Faiths make the Ground more or less susceptible to Topoi?
Title: Re: The Ground, the Void and the Outside.
Post by: Wilshire on June 05, 2013, 03:06:15 pm
Lol handy indeed. I had forgotten how many battles were fought on those planes. Though it was some kind of topoi before the Vulgar Holy War so that couldn't have affected it, unless there is a question of magnitude (how deep the stain).

Though it would be difficult to determine, since you got the whole No-God death thing blocking any kind of causality.

Contests of faith? I guess that would depend on the faith and how 'valid' it was. 2 false faiths aren't going to change anything. But wars between the cults? Maybe that could affect something. I'd say... More susceptible. The clash of different beliefs rubbing against each other, if intense enough, could weaken or tear the barrier between the world and the outside.
Title: Re: The Ground, the Void and the Outside.
Post by: Wilshire on August 03, 2013, 01:27:22 am
Was watching a TED talk today, learned that the "topos", in greek, means "place". Not a particularly enlightening experience, but I thought it was interesting :P
Title: Re: The Ground, the Void and the Outside.
Post by: Duskweaver on August 03, 2013, 12:50:10 pm
Was watching a TED talk today, learned that the "topos", in greek, means "place". Not a particularly enlightening experience, but I thought it was interesting :P
Umm... yeah. See Reply #23 in this very thread. ;)
Title: Re: The Ground, the Void and the Outside.
Post by: Wilshire on August 03, 2013, 05:03:00 pm
Damnit, I was too lazy to actually look through the comments so i just searched for the word "greek" in the search bar. Maybe it only shows 1 page worth or results, sigh. I guess thats the reason why it sounded familiar   :-[
Title: Re: The Ground, the Void and the Outside.
Post by: Madness on August 04, 2013, 02:45:56 pm
You know, there are a couple threads featuring etymology with Duskweaver...

Maybe I will consolidate them in the future.
Title: Re: The Ground, the Void and the Outside.
Post by: Callan S. on August 07, 2013, 02:21:03 am
Maybe the misery (helped by the no god) creates a place that is other than the outside, yet not Earwa either (perhaps this is why bones will show up - there's only so much space in this place and sometimes it disgorges itself onto Earwa.

The mountains the skin eaters go under are apparently a topoi because of the suffering of all the human slaves over milenia (under) there.
Title: Re: The Ground, the Void and the Outside.
Post by: Wilshire on August 07, 2013, 07:32:36 pm
But the whole mountain isn't a topoi, just the the depth, the pits where the suffering took place... and the gates, where the main part of the battles where.

I wonder, are dieing and suffering the same? Could the suffereing by the dead, at the hands of the hundred, somehow be "grounded" in the geographical place where they died, such that, when a lot of people die in one place, there is inherently a lot of suffering?
Title: Re: The Ground, the Void and the Outside.
Post by: Madness on August 13, 2013, 01:29:55 pm
But the whole mountain isn't a topoi, just the the depth, the pits where the suffering took place... and the gates, where the main part of the battles where.

Hmm... we've had versions of this discussion before - even this thread, likely. I sort of figured that it's a radiating gradient from the pits. It seemed analogous to the way grasslands give way to deserts, that shallows become depths, that they are the Topoi grows more intense towards its point of origin.

I've always wondered at the strangeness of the Gate scenes as well. Cleric wears his Erraticism, especially, at the various physical, yet seemingly metaphorical, Gates all through Cil-Aujas.

But I don't think we're talking about the same thing... Unless Sci and I are onto something with thinking that a portion of Nonman society was oriented around dealing with the manifestation of Topoi and they knew enough to guard the perimeters of Topoi. Gates of Hell or to the Outside metaphors and all that.

I wonder, are dieing and suffering the same? Could the suffereing by the dead, at the hands of the hundred, somehow be "grounded" in the geographical place where they died, such that, when a lot of people die in one place, there is inherently a lot of suffering?

I don't think so, Wilshire... though deaths seem essential to at least some of the metaphysical power plays in the series (Consult).
Title: Re: The Ground, the Void and the Outside.
Post by: Wilshire on August 13, 2013, 03:25:16 pm
I don't know... I kind of like the idea for now, I'm going to think about it some more. I also need to figure out how to consistently  type were/where in their proper sentences.
Title: Re: The Ground, the Void and the Outside.
Post by: locke on August 13, 2013, 06:11:50 pm
interesting that Moenghus suspends the skin spies over pits, pits the nonmen had carved hands into to hold something over the pits.  Gates?

Quote
Kellhus spoke a sorcerous word and a point of light appeared, sheeting low-vaulted walls in illumination. Though ornate by Inrithi standards, the chamber was more austere than any he’d encountered since plumbing the darkness beneath Kyudea. The friezes that panelled the walls did not screen deeper carvings. They seemed more reserved in theme and content as well, as if the product of an older, more stolid age—though Kellhus decided it had more to do with the room’s function. It had been some kind of access chamber for the mansion’s ancient sewers.

Workbenches and strange iron and wood mechanisms littered the walls with shadow. At the far end of the chamber, where the ceiling sloped so low a man would have to stoop, a cistern opened beneath converging chutes, as dust-dry as everything else in the room. Nearer, two wells or pits had been dropped into the floor, each possessing graven lips that, perversely, had been carved into the semblance of hands reaching out of the darkness to tear at four spread-eagled figures, one for each point of the compass. With heads bent back in soundless howls, each clutched at the ground with stationary desperation.

The two skin-spies hung suspended above these pits, their arms and legs shackled in chains of pitted iron.

also here's what Cnaiur feels inside the mansion:

Quote
Suddenly Cnaiür could feel it: the miles of earth heaped above them, the clawing inversion of ground. He had come too far. He had crawled too deep.

Bakker, R. Scott (2008-09-02). The Thousandfold Thought: The Prince of Nothing, Book Three (Kindle Locations 7563-7564). Overlook TP. Kindle Edition.

In terms of Kellhus' conclusion, I'm not so sure that it's a sewer.  Also, more ancient nonman works can be found at the Wolf Gate in the judging Eye which is an area of Cil Aujus that is frought with excess meaning, perhaps this description ties into that one (the latter being explicitly a gate...)

And it's worth remembering this is the place where ajencis ascended to the Nail of heaven...
Title: Re: The Ground, the Void and the Outside.
Post by: Madness on August 14, 2013, 04:50:13 pm
Face palmage, sir.

Inri Sejenus allegedly ascended there.

I do wonder at the Nonmen [People's before the Womb Plague] believing Water/Bathing to be Holy.

And the whole Gates thing continually bothers me.

Lol, I've been imagining like an Alternate Universe Fringe team of Nonmen since yesterday...
Title: Re: The Ground, the Void and the Outside.
Post by: Wilshire on August 15, 2013, 03:30:48 pm
You know, there are a couple threads featuring etymology with Duskweaver...

Maybe I will consolidate them in the future.

anyone mention that definition of a cant is Hypocritical and sanctimonious talk, typically of a moral, religious, or political nature.
and the Few's spells are known as Cants
bakker you sly bastard

maybe this was obvious to everyone but me though :P
Title: Re: The Ground, the Void and the Outside.
Post by: Madness on August 15, 2013, 03:41:21 pm
I'm not sure that example was brought up specifically but the rabbit-hole continues, Wilshire. Start googling terms and you'll find no end to narrative corroboration :o!

Which is why it always becomes a question of just how much Bakker knows... how much of this he has intended o.O!?
Title: Re: The Ground, the Void and the Outside.
Post by: sciborg2 on August 23, 2013, 06:04:43 am
@Madness:

I'm trying to remember what we talked about regarding the Topos. Did we try to tie in the Aporetic (and possibly Daimotic) Quya?

I think the Nonmen at first were keeping slaves in terrible conditions and then slowly realized what a Topos was and what it meant.

Yet why were they so determined to worship between the gods, when bowing to the Hundred would have save many more of their [souls] trials.
Title: Re: The Ground, the Void and the Outside.
Post by: Madness on August 23, 2013, 12:59:29 pm
Basically, sci, I think we wrote about how Nonmen found out about the Outside and Damnation solely from the emergence of Topoi - we discussed this on Westeros, which is why I can't remember enough to point you in a specific direction. We then went on to hazard that post-emergence, a great deal of Nonmen societal and cultural organization became oriented around the twin poles of Damnation and the existence of Topoi.
Title: Re: The Ground, the Void and the Outside.
Post by: locke on August 23, 2013, 06:10:31 pm
I'm sort of fascinated of how Cnaiur describes the Mansion as a "Great Inversion of Ground" and particularly how that might relate to the Scylvendi's cultural take on Ground...

Title: Re: The Ground, the Void and the Outside.
Post by: sciborg2 on August 24, 2013, 04:04:19 pm
I'm sort of fascinated of how Cnaiur describes the Mansion as a "Great Inversion of Ground" and particularly how that might relate to the Scylvendi's cultural take on Ground...

Perhaps tunnels forcing one toward certain destinations inverting the trackless Steppe?

Would fit Cnaiur's whole arc, which is him always trying to forge new tracks for himself but always being trapped in the machinations of the Dunyain.
Title: Musing about the Outside
Post by: sciborg2 on August 28, 2013, 02:55:45 am
A thread to discuss what the properties of the Outside is. Just shooting the shit, so just throw out any speculation you please.

For example, I was thinking about the fact that Angelic Ciphrang can't be summoned. The way Bakker says it, this could either mean no such Ciphrang exist, or it could mean that they do exist but no one has caught one via the Daimos...possibly because some property of being Angelic prevents their conjuration into Earwa.

Perhaps the reason is a matter of subjective distance - That the Hells are closer to the world than the Heavens. Think back to the Ajencis's thoughts on Substance and Desire, how the Outside becomes more malleable - and thus conforms to whims of powerful agencies - the farther one goes from Earwa.

But what if the suffering experienced by mortal souls is what makes the surrounding Outside hellish? Planets alter the nearby Outside so the Ciphrang who were born near Earwa reflect the harshness of material existence, while beyond this rind are the Heavens?

That would tie into Mimara seeing the Abyss as a false foil, and beyond it is the infinite white light of the God...which is where the angels dwell.
Title: Re: Musing about the Outside
Post by: Baztek on August 28, 2013, 03:05:09 am
It could just as easily be that demonic Ciphrang congregate closest to objective reality due to ease of access to souls, like predators at a river bank.
Title: Re: Musing about the Outside
Post by: Francis Buck on August 28, 2013, 03:36:21 am
Just out of curiosity, does anyone know Bakker's exact quote on Angelic Ciphrang? Do they definitely exist? Or did he just leave open a vague absence for the possibility of their existence?

Regardless, at this point I'd be reluctant to attribute Angelic Ciphrang as agents of the True God, if only because I don't believe the True God would require such agents. I would assume they were simply Ciphrang bound to the will of one of the Hundred (whom I personally believe are, in-and-of-themselves, basically just big mean demons). "Angelic" has a very amorphous meaning within the Bakkerverse as we currently understand it.

As always, more data is required.
Title: Re: Musing about the Outside
Post by: Wilshire on August 28, 2013, 03:45:03 am
I don't know the direct quote, but like Sci said, it was something akin to "angelic ciphrang cannot be summoned by the Diamos".

Might have been in one of the Q/A sessions (Read the topics with Cu'jara Cinmoi)
Title: Re: Musing about the Outside
Post by: sciborg2 on August 28, 2013, 04:30:59 am
It could just as easily be that demonic Ciphrang congregate closest to objective reality due to ease of access to souls, like predators at a river bank.

True, but I was thinking about Mimara looking into the chorae and seeing a false foil - and beyond that rind lies Heaven.

@Francis - Quote and link:

Quote
The caprice of the Outside (where the distinction between subject and object is never clear) is such that those rare souls who walk its ways and return never seem to agree on the nature of what they have seen. Since only demonic (as opposed to angelic) Ciphrang can be summoned and trapped in the World, practitioners of the Daimos can never trust the reports they receive: the so-called Damnation Archives in the Scarlet Spires are rumoured to be filled with wild contradictions. The Damned themselves only know that they are damned, and never why.
-http://www.fantasyhotlist.blogspot.com/2011/07/r-scott-bakker-interview-part-2.html
Title: Re: Musing about the Outside
Post by: Srancy on August 28, 2013, 04:48:09 am
Unless, ol' Scotty proves me wrong, I'm going with the Matrix!
Title: Re: Musing about the Outside
Post by: Wilshire on August 28, 2013, 01:15:04 pm
Yeah if you read the quote quickly, the first conclusion is that angelic ciphrang exist and cannot be summoned. If you think about it though, he simply says that demonic ciphrang cannot be summoned, which doesn't prove that angelic ones exist. Though to be fair, why put in "demonic" at all if there was only one kind?j Such   words are just used for control  8)
Title: Re: Musing about the Outside
Post by: Madness on August 28, 2013, 03:28:00 pm
Such   words are just used for control  8)

Lol'd.

sci, isn't this pretty close to The Ground, the Void and the Outside (http://second-apocalypse.com/index.php?topic=801.0)?
Title: Re: Musing about the Outside
Post by: sciborg2 on August 28, 2013, 07:11:19 pm
Ah, yeah. Feel free to merge this into that one!
Title: Re: Musing about the Outside
Post by: EkyannusIII on October 16, 2013, 06:07:05 pm
For example, I was thinking about the fact that Angelic Ciphrang can't be summoned. The way Bakker says it, this could either mean no such Ciphrang exist, or it could mean that they do exist but no one has caught one via the Daimos...possibly because some property of being Angelic prevents their conjuration into Earwa.

I was thinking about this issue recently.  My theory: the reason angelic Ciphrang cannot be summoned is not merely that they don't exist - Bakker has said that they do and it would be an odd ommission from the religious tropes he is working with if they were not real.  Rather, the issue is the Daimos itself.  If angelic Ciphrang are up to moral standards per Bakkerverse's baked-in morality, then they would be unwilling to sin - and if summoning higher entities as servants is sin, then the nature of the Daimotic pact would simply be incompatible with what and who angelic Ciphrang are.  The bindings involved in the socerous pact would not hold them, and in any case they would not and could not do what the summoner requested.  Trying to get an angelic Ciphrang to serve you in sin is just a category mistake.
Title: Re: The Ground, the Void and the Outside.
Post by: Madness on October 16, 2013, 07:18:21 pm
Trying to get an angelic Ciphrang to serve you in sin is just a category mistake.

Sounds bingo!
Title: Re: The Ground, the Void and the Outside.
Post by: Wilshire on October 16, 2013, 09:58:58 pm
Sound reasoning, but that doesn't make them impossible to summon, but not by the Diamos. The cish, or i guess at this point Meppa, could then still theoretically summon one. "Can't" and "very unlikely" are not the same.

btw can you link/quote where Bakker confirmed their existence?
Title: Re: The Ground, the Void and the Outside.
Post by: Madness on October 17, 2013, 02:15:23 am
Wilshire, buddy :o...

Reply #52 by one sciborg2.
Title: Re: The Ground, the Void and the Outside.
Post by: Cüréthañ on October 17, 2013, 02:26:41 am
If Aurang's line about damnation being determined by boundaries of flesh is to believed; summoning an angelic ciphrang is impossible because of logic. 
Summoning = sin, Angelic Ciphrang = !sin.  Straight cancellation; if you summon it, it ceases to exist. 
Title: Re: The Ground, the Void and the Outside.
Post by: Wilshire on October 17, 2013, 02:47:17 am
Quote
Since only demonic (as opposed to angelic) Ciphrang can be summoned and trapped in the World, practitioners of the Daimos can never trust the reports they receive: the so-called Damnation Archives in the Scarlet Spires are rumoured to be filled with wild contradictions. The Damned themselves only know that they are damned, and never why.

Alright well I'm out then. I will think this is just purposely tricky wording. There is no positive proof that angelic ciphrang exist. Its the parenthesis that do it in for me. Because of that, it reads more like an ironic thought (how the hell can you have an angelic rape demon?), rather than an admission of something new we haven't heard of. One cannot speculate as a nay-sayer, so I'll just watch.
Title: Re: The Ground, the Void and the Outside.
Post by: Cüréthañ on October 17, 2013, 04:50:51 am
Angelic Ciphrang were also referenced in an interview in a manner that confirms their existence.  I'm sorry I don't have the link for you Wilshire.
Title: Re: The Ground, the Void and the Outside.
Post by: Madness on October 17, 2013, 05:04:49 am
LMAO!

EAMD ;).

Curethan, Wilshire quoted sci's quote from the previous page, which is itself linked from the interview.

That is the only time angelic Ciphrang have been mentioned and, as Wilshire suggests, we might have taken the quote too literally...

Hrm :o.
Title: Re: The Ground, the Void and the Outside.
Post by: Cüréthañ on October 17, 2013, 07:27:13 am
Lol.  Really should take the time to check rather than relying on my memory after 3 hours sleep.  Sorry!
Title: Re: The Ground, the Void and the Outside.
Post by: Madness on October 17, 2013, 01:38:29 pm
Pish... save your apologies for the funeral pyre. You've done no wrong here - after all, as the Inchoroi who would later become known as Aurang says, “You are already damned. All of you are already damned.
Title: Re: The Ground, the Void and the Outside.
Post by: The Great Scald on October 19, 2013, 11:18:52 am
"Esmi, no!" he cried, but it was too late. She had already leapt the foundations, had already started sprinting toward him across the browned and blackened turf.
He saw it twinkle first—a flash in his periphery. Then the Mark, gouged nauseatingly deep.
He looked up ...
"Nooo!" he howled. Flower petals began falling from above.
Glowing golden, shooting rainbows out of its anus, white angel wings, a beautiful gentle smile...
A Ciphrang, called from the heavenly dimensions of the Outside. A perfumed godling.
Title: Re: The Ground, the Void and the Outside.
Post by: Madness on October 19, 2013, 01:28:07 pm
Lol'd.
Title: Re: The Ground, the Void and the Outside.
Post by: Wilshire on December 05, 2013, 09:46:17 pm
Does killing mountains of sranc not create a Topos since they don't have souls?
Does the tortured soul draw out the greatest tortures through the fabric of the world?
Title: Re: The Ground, the Void and the Outside.
Post by: Francis Buck on December 06, 2013, 12:38:43 am
Assuming they exist, I'd think that angelic ciphrang can't be bound because they're already being bound by one of the Hundred (thus making them angelic).
Title: Re: The Ground, the Void and the Outside.
Post by: Wilshire on February 07, 2014, 03:33:11 pm
Random thought:

I was thinking of Topoi and then though, again, that if a Topos resembles Hell and is created through the accumulation of suffering, then maybe the accumulation of happiness/joy could create something similar but more like Heaven.
Then I was trying to think if there was any one place in Earwa that has been around long enough and has been surrounded by happiness for most of that time, that could possibly be this kind of inverse-topoi.
The only place I could think of would be The Tusk room in Sumna. I'm pretty sure that Tusk has been there in that spot for a enormous number of years, and since its basically a religious artifact its been pretty much surrounded by people who feel happy.

If ever there was an anti-topos, it would have to be there.
Title: Re: The Ground, the Void and the Outside.
Post by: mrganondorf on February 14, 2014, 05:14:06 am
@ curethan - really like this idea of digging too deep.  The end of TTT took us to what Cnaiur considered "too deep" so maybe TUC will take us deeper still.  Thank you for pointing out the dragon, I didn't notice it being out of place.  This is not Gringots!  Does this add a third category to the bakkerverse?  Outside, inside, *underneath*

@ wiltshire - the "death came swirling down" made me think of Homer, "dark came swirling down":
http://home.ubalt.edu/NTYGFIT/ai_01_pursuing_fame/ai_01_tell/iliad06.htm
gods as avatars has a homery ring to it

WHAT YOU SAID ABOUT THE TUSK ROOM BEING AN ANTI-TOPOI.  That sounds strange and wonderful and oddly fiiting since that tusk thingy is an inchoroi artifact!  Is it just a thing or is it still fulfilling a purpose for the Consult, like listening to conversations or messing with reality or i don't know what

where the hell do you get a tusk that big?  another abomination will see crawl out of the ark at the last battle?

@ lockesnow - the facts surrounding the fall of the ark really fascinate me.  Why did it crash on *this* world when it was so successful elsewhere?  Did a god strike it from the sky?  I can't think of any other entity powerful enough to harm the ark to the point that it becomes a dead womb and only 1/100 survive.

about the entire race trapped in hell--this is what I'm wondering the ultimate motivation for Aurang and Aurax is--they have some kind of absolute loyalty to their species and the advent of the NG will eventually let them reclaim Inchoroi souls form hell?  Resonates with what the synthese says at the end of TTT about not even the dead escape the benjuka plate.  Possible motivation for dunyain?  Reclaim dunyain of old?

topoi like pit--esmi's harlot womb like a topoi--NG special effect on wombs--WHAT DOES IT MEAN???

@ madness - i gotta agree with you that the inchoroi want earwa because it is the most connected to the outside--brilliant!

I like the idea of Atrithau being the oldest topois--I don't suppose it's soil is exported to help form chorae?  And btw, whatever chorae the great ordeal bring with them, they could be dwarfed by the number the consult have, right?  Unless the consult lost the art…

that bit about the place where sejenus ascended, was this guy beaten to death with a guilded thigh bone AND THEN ascended?  that sejenus life-narrative is hidden from us, mostly, makes me wonder if we're going to get revelations about him in TUC

@ locke - woo!  that's a neat idear about a weaponized topoi!  sure am glad i started hanging out here, i didn't know how many speculations i didn't know

about cnaiur feeling the "great inversion of ground" -- what if the mansion Old Moe was using was also topoi?  what end what that serve and what effect would it have on the captive skinspies and kellhus?

@ sciborg2 -- you got me thinking--is there an angelic counterpart to the daimos?  would mimara be connected to that?

@ auriga -- your quote reminded me--i'm really bothered that we don't know what happened between the event of akka being carried away by demon and akka waking up in a hut?  HIDING SOMETHING BIG IN THERE
Title: Re: The Ground, the Void and the Outside.
Post by: Madness on February 14, 2014, 10:34:26 am
@ wiltshire - the "death came swirling down" made me think of Homer, "dark came swirling down":
http://home.ubalt.edu/NTYGFIT/ai_01_pursuing_fame/ai_01_tell/iliad06.htm
gods as avatars has a homery ring to it

It's definitely an overt Homer reference.

WHAT YOU SAID ABOUT THE TUSK ROOM BEING AN ANTI-TOPOI.  That sounds strange and wonderful and oddly fiiting since that tusk thingy is an inchoroi artifact!  Is it just a thing or is it still fulfilling a purpose for the Consult, like listening to conversations or messing with reality or i don't know what

Genius. Words have power but so does Tekne ;).

where the hell do you get a tusk that big?  another abomination will see crawl out of the ark at the last battle?

Apparently, there were once Megafauna on Planet Earwa? Someone tossed out the nerdanel that Eanna is an elephant graveyard... like Pitch Black.

@ lockesnow - the facts surrounding the fall of the ark really fascinate me.  Why did it crash on *this* world when it was so successful elsewhere?  Did a god strike it from the sky?  I can't think of any other entity powerful enough to harm the ark to the point that it becomes a dead womb and only 1/100 survive.

I can totally see a Dune-esque ending where the Ordeal wins but then the Epilogue/Interlude of TUC is the "Crash Narrative."

@ madness - i gotta agree with you that the inchoroi want earwa because it is the most connected to the outside--brilliant!

I like the idea of Atrithau being the oldest topois--I don't suppose it's soil is exported to help form chorae?

Quote from: Cu'jara Cinmoi
One of the ideas behind anarcane ground simply follows the notion that the boundaries between the World and the Outside are variable. Some, taking the distinction between wakefulness and dreams as their analogy, believe anarcane ground to be Holy ground - places where the God has, for whatever reason, focussed his attention - dreams lucidly - thus rendering the co-option of his Song by sorcery difficult if not impossible.

That is from Zombie Three Seas, Cu'jara Cinmoi was Bakker's handle there ;).

And btw, whatever chorae the great ordeal bring with them, they could be dwarfed by the number the consult have, right?  Unless the consult lost the art…

I can't seem to find the quote right now - though I suspect Curethan has it in the consolidated quotes thread.

But yes, the Chorae Hoard from Sakarpus is/was second only to the great accumulation Golgotterath has. Also, interesting to note that there may or may not be original Nonmen Erratics who made the Chorae.

that bit about the place where sejenus ascended, was this guy beaten to death with a guilded thigh bone AND THEN ascended?  that sejenus life-narrative is hidden from us, mostly, makes me wonder if we're going to get revelations about him in TUC

There is something strange about Sejenus' life.

about cnaiur feeling the "great inversion of ground" -- what if the mansion Old Moe was using was also topoi?  what end what that serve and what effect would it have on the captive skinspies and kellhus?

Wow... What if the Kyudean Mansion was Topoi... fuck.
Title: Re: The Ground, the Void and the Outside.
Post by: Wilshire on February 14, 2014, 01:47:12 pm
Good thought about Atrithau dirt making chorae. I thought the art of making them was lost, but I'm probably wrong. Anyway, maybe all the chroae come from metals/rocks mined from that ground long ago. The anarcane properties of the soil was somehow combined with sorcery to create some bizarre contradition that renders transfers the anarcane properties of the sphere to whatever it touches.
Title: Re: The Ground, the Void and the Outside.
Post by: Madness on February 14, 2014, 03:23:59 pm
This is what gets me so messed up about the Aporos. Assumptively it is just the aporetic inscription that affects the mundane (Kellhus' Seeling-Flame, Agonic Circle/Collar, etc - I am finding or starting the sorcerous objects thread sometime today because I can probably think of over ten).

And now that I think about it, the book suggested that the Carapace has aporetic script all over it...?
Title: Re: The Ground, the Void and the Outside.
Post by: Wilshire on February 14, 2014, 04:07:30 pm
Yeah the mechanisms of sorcery writing kind of blows my mind. How do you make an utteral and an innutteral? A written and an unwritten ... What distinguishes it from mundane writing?
Title: Re: The Ground, the Void and the Outside.
Post by: Wilshire on February 21, 2014, 09:27:52 pm
I think the Tusk came from a Ciphrang. It would be just ironic enough for the Consult to give humans a present that will be revered as holy, carved out of the most unholy creature imaginable. I do believe they are described with elephantine features...

Also, I think the Tusk is pretty huge. I never got the impression that it was anything less than immense, though I can't recall its actually size being named. Mostly it just hangs in a room by itself. In my head its a big room and the Tusk fills it.
Title: Re: The Ground, the Void and the Outside.
Post by: Madness on February 22, 2014, 06:45:41 pm
Yeah the mechanisms of sorcery writing kind of blows my mind. How do you make an utteral and an innutteral? A written and an unwritten ... What distinguishes it from mundane writing?

+1 questions.

I think the Tusk came from a Ciphrang. It would be just ironic enough for the Consult to give humans a present that will be revered as holy, carved out of the most unholy creature imaginable. I do believe they are described with elephantine features...

Also, I think the Tusk is pretty huge. I never got the impression that it was anything less than immense, though I can't recall its actually size being named. Mostly it just hangs in a room by itself. In my head its a big room and the Tusk fills it.

Lol, Happy Ent over at Westeros did some great work determining that all of the Torah could fit on an elephant tusk or some such (I had linked some article about an inscriber who used modern day tools to inscribe bible verses coins or something)...

Though bone of a Ciphrang is genius.
Title: Re: The Ground, the Void and the Outside.
Post by: Wilshire on February 24, 2014, 03:49:05 pm
I'm sure it could fit on the tusk of a mundane animal, but that's not nearly as awesome.
Title: Re: The Ground, the Void and the Outside.
Post by: mrganondorf on February 25, 2014, 05:21:37 pm
I hope we meet the Tusk-creature, could be some kind of 'one edition' derived.  I gotta believe Bakker's going to unveil some more kinds of monstrosities when Golgetterath empties.  It's going to fuck with the ordeal's soldiers heads if they see the Tusk's twin emerge from the Ark on the face of an incomprehensibly large and obscene thing.  What if there's more scripture on the other one?
Title: Re: The Ground, the Void and the Outside.
Post by: mrganondorf on February 25, 2014, 05:45:32 pm
@ Madness - Now I really want what you said--a crash narrative to wrap up TUC.  It's got to be revealed because in some ways, it's the single greatest hinge of the whole story.  If the Inchoroi land with all their might and top-level tekne and fully rechargeable lasers on the promised world: nonmen and men extinguished before they even start on the No-God project, which takes like 5 minutes since they *finally* found the right spot.

It's been awhile since I've read Dune, what makes a crash narrative dunesque?

While we're at it, the Inchoroi land on Arrakis, who wins, them or the Shai Hulud?
Title: Re: The Ground, the Void and the Outside.
Post by: Wilshire on February 25, 2014, 08:58:50 pm
I think the Inchoroi would devour any planet if at full force, but if they landed on Arrakis all bent up and broken, I imagine most of them would be swallowed on their first venture out to the desert, and the remaining would hide out on the ship and starve to death :P
Title: Re: The Ground, the Void and the Outside.
Post by: mrganondorf on February 25, 2014, 09:02:58 pm
I think the Inchoroi would devour any planet if at full force, but if they landed on Arrakis all bent up and broken, I imagine most of them would be swallowed on their first venture out to the desert, and the remaining would hide out on the ship and starve to death :P

The whole planet suffering from the earthquake-causing GONGS of a sandworm banging into the ark.
Title: Re: The Ground, the Void and the Outside.
Post by: mrganondorf on February 26, 2014, 01:17:29 am
Random baseless speculation: if the Outside connects to all physical worlds, could Kellhus use it to visit worlds the Inchoroi have destroyed?
Title: Re: The Ground, the Void and the Outside.
Post by: Wilshire on February 26, 2014, 02:20:12 am
There you go again. Go read the Hyperion series by Dan Simmons. :P

But, in Earwa, I'd have to say I doubt it. Kellhus can only to to places he has seen, and allegedly only as far as the horizon. I doubt he could safely travel to other celestial bodies..... Unless he saw a sweet computer generated universe that allowed him to 'see' other worlds before he went there.
Title: Re: The Ground, the Void and the Outside.
Post by: mrganondorf on February 26, 2014, 11:57:29 am
I liked the first Hyperion and then most of the second, but my appreciation completely unraveled by the end of the second.  I've been meaning to go back--I found it so compelling at the time that I think the problem maybe more reader than work.
Title: Re: The Ground, the Void and the Outside.
Post by: Wilshire on February 26, 2014, 02:07:29 pm
Well the first book was far and away the best of the series. The general quality decreases from sequel to sequel, and the last 2 are something else entirely. However some of the concepts brought up in the latter two novels made me think of Earwa's meta-physics (even though there are no Gods in the series). Honestly probably not worth reading if book 2 was a chore.
Title: Re: The Ground, the Void and the Outside.
Post by: Madness on March 26, 2014, 12:13:31 pm
@ Madness - Now I really want what you said--a crash narrative to wrap up TUC.  It's got to be revealed because in some ways, it's the single greatest hinge of the whole story.  If the Inchoroi land with all their might and top-level tekne and fully rechargeable lasers on the promised world: nonmen and men extinguished before they even start on the No-God project, which takes like 5 minutes since they *finally* found the right spot.

It's been awhile since I've read Dune, what makes a crash narrative dunesque?

(click to show/hide)
Title: Re: The Ground, the Void and the Outside.
Post by: Wilshire on March 27, 2014, 04:22:44 pm
@ Madness - Now I really want what you said--a crash narrative to wrap up TUC.  It's got to be revealed because in some ways, it's the single greatest hinge of the whole story.  If the Inchoroi land with all their might and top-level tekne and fully rechargeable lasers on the promised world: nonmen and men extinguished before they even start on the No-God project, which takes like 5 minutes since they *finally* found the right spot.

It's been awhile since I've read Dune, what makes a crash narrative dunesque?

(click to show/hide)

Don't even talk about that ending big... now I'm upset.
Title: Re: The Ground, the Void and the Outside.
Post by: mrganondorf on March 27, 2014, 06:12:49 pm
@ Madness--I get it.  I'm torn about the last 2 dune books.  On the one hand the writing is bad and very not Herbert.  On the other hand, I wanted to find out how he imagined it would end.  I couldn't really resist reading them and I'm not sure if it was worth it.
Title: Re: The Ground, the Void and the Outside.
Post by: Madness on March 27, 2014, 09:49:41 pm
@ Madness - Now I really want what you said--a crash narrative to wrap up TUC.  It's got to be revealed because in some ways, it's the single greatest hinge of the whole story.  If the Inchoroi land with all their might and top-level tekne and fully rechargeable lasers on the promised world: nonmen and men extinguished before they even start on the No-God project, which takes like 5 minutes since they *finally* found the right spot.

It's been awhile since I've read Dune, what makes a crash narrative dunesque?

(click to show/hide)

Don't even talk about that ending big... now I'm upset.

Lol - which Herbert the Son or the unfinished plot... or the possibility that there is something worse than Inchoroi besides Damnation?
Title: Re: The Ground, the Void and the Outside.
Post by: Wilshire on March 28, 2014, 05:17:52 pm
Stop it. Unfinished plot.

IDC what Herbert Jr.'s did because I'll not read it.
Title: Re: The Ground, the Void and the Outside.
Post by: Madness on March 29, 2014, 12:38:01 pm
Well, I haven't mentioned anything about Herbert the Son's stuff :). All the content in the spoilers is from majority/endish of Chapterhouse: Dune.
Title: Re: The Ground, the Void and the Outside.
Post by: Wilshire on April 02, 2014, 07:10:22 pm
Well, I haven't mentioned anything about Herbert the Son's stuff :). All the content in the spoilers is from majority/endish of Chapterhouse: Dune.
I was just agreeing with you, but the "end" of Chapterhouse is so frustrating because the prologue wasn't there and that escape scene was slightly different, it could have come to a nice end. Instead its left unfinished forever.  :(  >:(
Title: Re: The Ground, the Void and the Outside.
Post by: Madness on April 05, 2014, 01:31:44 pm
Haha... such is life.
Title: Re: The Ground, the Void and the Outside.
Post by: mrganondorf on April 05, 2014, 04:18:11 pm
If Kellhus can "walk the Outside" why not just conjure up his own WLW?  Or better yet, compel Yatwer to make a WLW that works Kellhus will.
Title: Re: The Ground, the Void and the Outside.
Post by: mrganondorf on April 22, 2014, 08:18:51 pm
---------------------------------
Thinking about topoi--

Wilshire said:

Quote
If a single man could grow an Eye in his own heart, a whole nation bent to the same thought could certainly cause it to happen. Yes?

The Ark is going to be WWWEEEIIIIRRRDDDD.  Topoi seems to be similar to Chernobyl or something.  Will this affect the Consult and Derived too?  Maybe Shae has an eye in every heart and an ear in every liver and a penis in tummy.

Aurang's penis is full of little vaginas.
Title: Re: The Ground, the Void and the Outside.
Post by: Cüréthañ on July 10, 2014, 01:30:08 am
Gross, mg.  :(

The eye in the heart is similar to Yatwer's manifestations in AE and Mengedda vomiting up skulls and weapons. 
Note that none of this stuff occurs unless people are present, in the case of Yatwer, she requires a priest and/or ritual.

Normally, the outside leaks passively into the world via the watcher/watched connection.
In the above cases the connection is going the other way. 
An eye in the heart is the kind of metaphorical trespass Akka expected to find. 

I imagine a soul as old and stained as Aurang's would be impervious to that sort of psycho-magic backwash.
Title: Re: The Ground, the Void and the Outside.
Post by: mrganondorf on July 10, 2014, 04:45:08 pm
Gross, mg.  :(

The eye in the heart is similar to Yatwer's manifestations in AE and Mengedda vomiting up skulls and weapons. 
Note that none of this stuff occurs unless people are present, in the case of Yatwer, she requires a priest and/or ritual.

Normally, the outside leaks passively into the world via the watcher/watched connection.
In the above cases the connection is going the other way. 
An eye in the heart is the kind of metaphorical trespass Akka expected to find. 

I imagine a soul as old and stained as Aurang's would be impervious to that sort of psycho-magic backwash.

Lol, I blame Bakker's imagination!

I hadn't thought of the practice of sorcery as providing immunity for this kind of weirdness.  That seems perfectly consistent with everything we've seen so far.  It didn't take long for that one guy to develop an eye in the heart, if the Great Ordeal makes it to/into Golgotterath, I hope nothing bad happens to Proyas' heart :(
Title: Re: The Ground, the Void and the Outside.
Post by: Aural on July 17, 2014, 01:37:19 pm
Do we really know that the Mansion of Viri was destroyed when the Incu fell? The glossary that the Ark fell in land ruled by Nin'janjin in the western regions of Viri. But even after that Cujara conquered Viri and it became a tributary. I think the digging too deep refers to Nin'janjin's alliance with the Inchoroi.
Title: Re: The Ground, the Void and the Outside.
Post by: mrganondorf on July 17, 2014, 05:12:10 pm
Do we really know that the Mansion of Viri was destroyed when the Incu fell? The glossary that the Ark fell in land ruled by Nin'janjin in the western regions of Viri. But even after that Cujara conquered Viri and it became a tributary. I think the digging too deep refers to Nin'janjin's alliance with the Inchoroi.

I think some of Viri must have survived, isn't it in the False Sun?

I like where you are going with that--Nin literally dug too deep and came across an Inchoroi tunnel?  Or am I reading it wrong?
Title: Re: The Ground, the Void and the Outside.
Post by: The Sharmat on September 03, 2014, 03:51:09 am
If Kellhus can "walk the Outside" why not just conjure up his own WLW?  Or better yet, compel Yatwer to make a WLW that works Kellhus will.
I imagine Kellhus' trip to the Outside was a very limited, calculated affair, and one in which he was very careful not to be spotted by the really big fish. I imagine any confrontation between Kellhus and a God in the Outside would end with Kellhus being trapped in eternal damnation.
Title: Re: The Ground, the Void and the Outside.
Post by: mrganondorf on September 05, 2014, 05:43:58 pm
If Kellhus can "walk the Outside" why not just conjure up his own WLW?  Or better yet, compel Yatwer to make a WLW that works Kellhus will.
I imagine Kellhus' trip to the Outside was a very limited, calculated affair, and one in which he was very careful not to be spotted by the really big fish. I imagine any confrontation between Kellhus and a God in the Outside would end with Kellhus being trapped in eternal damnation.

I bet you're right--reconnaissance only.  I really hope this bit is narrated if narratible
Title: Re: The Ground, the Void and the Outside.
Post by: mrganondorf on September 05, 2014, 07:52:54 pm
Notice this bit in TJE US paperback 112, Psatma speaking Yatwerian high priestesses

"[about regaining the catacombs] where the long line of our sisters dwell, awaiting their Second Birth in the Outside."

So Psatma seems to say that at least some of the dead are not immediately reborn in the Outside?  Does Earwa have a Purgatory?
Title: Re: The Ground, the Void and the Outside.
Post by: mrganondorf on September 06, 2014, 12:20:17 am
So eerie, Akka echoing Psatma

Quote
"The Gods..." Nannaferi began, struggling to render what was impossible in words.  "They are not as we are.  They do not happen...all at once..." TJE p117 US paperback

[akka speaking to mimara]"But things are always tricky where the Outside is concerned.  Things do not...happen...as they happen here..." WLW p58 US hardback
Title: Re: The Ground, the Void and the Outside.
Post by: Wilshire on September 11, 2014, 02:16:22 pm
Nice catch there MG. I love things like this in the books.