I might ask the same, what do you mean? What are you attributing/designating to be a conscious action that Ajokli/Yatwer/Gilgaol took?  For example, I don't think "Yatwer selects White Luck Warriors" - a WLW simply emerges and "Yatwer" "intuits it" like a rock intuits that it is in open air, under water, or covered in mud. If nothing else I believe their lack of agency is textually supported by both Kellhus and the Mutilated. My take is, without actual living people to attribute actions/events as "Yatwer is acting through these actions/events" (like whoever-WLW1 was, Pstama, Sorweel) there is no presence of Yatwer to speak of whatsoever.

Intuition is agency, but it's even more complicated than that. WLW's emergence is an act attributed and later supported by the entity Yatwer, its emergence required juice (as every act of the Gods does, I can get you RSB's quote on the matter), its emergence was later alluded to when Sorweel started slipping into his own possession (which is essentially Yatwer "speaking" to him), etc. On the level of the characters, who are intelligent and possess agency by default since they are the starting point of this discussion, this is an intelligent act of an entity that possesses agency.

The Gods act of their own volition, pursuing their own goals. For all intents and purposes that's agency. Saying that it's just the appearance of agency is a philosophical zombie argument, which is embodied by the No-God in TSA, not the Gods.

I get that a Synthese requires a body, I meant that whatever Shae does to circumvent his own damnation, it makes very little sense for the remaining Inchoroi and/or Consult sorcerers not to do the same. "Double edged sword" as it may be, who cares? I thought that the Consult would do ANYTHING to prevent eternal damnation because nothing could possibly be worse.  Why should Aurang and Aurax, as sorcerers, not take the same "way out"?  If Inchoroi have souls, they have the exact same stakes in the game as Shae, and if that is the case, if HE is willing to be partially already suffering eternally in hell, what logical reason do the rest of the Consult have to say "that is not worth it to me"?

You misunderstood me. Shae does not escape damnation by using his circle of wretches. He is, in part, already damned and suffering. That's why he's the only one who undertook this transformation. Others didn't want to condemn parts of themselves to hell, they were looking for a better solution. Shae was a Man, he had no choice when his body started to expire, but Erratics and Aurang are immortal.

Well, I mean in the context of what influences what though, not in the sense of Ajokli fully manifesting or the like.

Ah, you meant in a more general sense. That's much more likely, yes.

Though some things can still be viewed as much more consistent with just Kellhus, since his modus operandi as seen in all the books combined corroborates them.

Most, if not all, of those journeys are Ajokli-mediated, though, right? Even in Kellhus' (!!) ignorance.

Might go either way here, the books don't go into enough detail to be in any way certain.

Plus he's mentioned to me since "revealing" The No-God title that he didn't want readers going through the preceding novels expecting Kellhus' to become the No-God (given that the third series title breaks the convention of series titles).

As the saying goes, two is just a coincidence!

I don’t recall it coming up until TAE, I think the WHCB sections refer to the ‘First Apocalypse’, which heavily implies an as yet unmentioned Second. Akka also declares it to the Ordeal as they retreat, ‘the Second Apocalypse is upon us’ or some such. Its late on, but Bakker does mention it in text.

We were talking about the title of the series as a whole, though, not about the words "The Second Apocalypse" being present in the prose.

It still looks very fuzzy to me. Bakker's new site (it's like a year or two old now?) just uses the already extremely well-established name, while the interviews are edited in such a way as to be clear to the reader and do not necessarily reflect Bakker's own words as they were said. My biggest problem is the books themselves never featuring the name. Granted, it might be Overlook doing its magic again, but, nonetheless, it is done.

It's important to note that "The Second Apocalypse" isn't the official name of the series, it's a fan name. It just caught on so well that everyone is using it.

As for the eucalyptus theory, it certainly is an interesting etymological observation.

but eucalyptus, I'm pretty sure, is only native to Australia (maybe also New Zealand and some islands around)

Most of the species, yes, but not all of them:

There are more than 700 species of eucalyptus and most are native to Australia; a very small number are found in adjacent areas of New Guinea and Indonesia. One species, Eucalyptus deglupta, ranges as far north as the Philippines. Of the 15 species found outside Australia, just nine are exclusively non-Australian.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eucalyptus#Distribution

It was always unclear to me what to make of the Progenitors. They might have devolved into what we now know as the Inchoroi, becoming slaves to their own technology. They might have created an advanced weapon in the form of the Ark and sent it on its Crusade, while they themselves remained on their home world, awaiting the results. Or the Progenitors have died off long ago, while their creations waged war against all life. Or any number of other possibilities, including the Progenitors uploading themselves into the Ark.