A random thought after re-reading Khellus' meeting with Nin'sariccas:

If in Khellus' description of the Outside, "God... broken into a million warring splinters", the "warring splinters" refer to the Gods,
and the Gods are reflections of Earwan beliefs cast on the Outside,
then one could interpret the Emmisary's assertion that the Nonmen "worship the spaces between the Gods" to mean that they essentially believe in nothing. 

Given this admittedly dubious line of reasoning,  I wonder if the Intact have stayed Intact by finding a way to strip their mind of all belief. 

On a related note, is there any indication that the Nonmen had Gods of their own?

I agree on the Inverse Fire, FB, it *has* to be real to take away the abstraction of damnation.  I completely forgot about the "dug deep into the granules of existence" part as well -- that definitely supports the notion that Earwa is special in how the ensouled can affect the Outside.

The womb-plague explanation is fantastic.  There was a thread either here or on Westeros where someone brought up the fact that the womb plague seemed like a relatively benign weapon compared to what an advanced race could achieve.  But it's not really a weapon to kill, it's a weapon to enslave.

The place where the whole thing falls apart for me is with the Tusk.  If the Inchoroi gave the Tusk to men to deceive them and knew that it was the men of Earwa who had effected their damnation, why not add a line or two about how "there is no damnation"?   Why did they instead instruct them to destroy the Nonmen? 

What if it's actually the Nonmen whose beliefs shape existence?

*Very* interested to hear your thoughts on the Hundred!

@Wilshire, how does redemption through atrocity fit? I recall Shae pondering this in TFS. But I haven't made the same connection you have (and I'd like to).

@mg, my guess on Mog is (again a culmination of other folks ideas) that it's a belief machine that's powered by souls.  Trap enough souls (assuming there's a tipping point) and suddenly, things like the Gods (or God) and damnation cease to exist.

I've often pondered if TSA is a giant "what if" scenario built on the following premise:

"What if the most powerful beings around discovered that they were objectively damned? How would they react?"

There are plenty of people on Earth who believe in damnation (my Grandma, for example). Or at least, they're motivated to live their lives a certain way to avoid it.  Behind it all, however, is an abstraction, just a vision of hell that's somehow stuck.  Which is pretty freaking amazing to my godless self.

As a comparison, I've never been to jail.  But between America Undercover, Oz and OITNB, I have a pretty damn good idea of what it's like and I sure as shit don't want to go there.  As a result, I definitely think twice about certain behaviors.  It's abstract to me but real enough.

Hell, on the other hand, is an order of magnitude more abstract that my vision of jail.  It's not like I can watch a 60 Minutes segment on life in hell or read a PJ O'Roarke travelogue in Rolling Stone about travelling in hell.  Really, no one has any idea what hell is actually like.  And yet, people are terrified by it.

In TSA, however, hell isn't abstract at all.  At least, not to those who have been exposed to the IF (the Consult and presumably, the Inchoroi).  Not only to they know in excruciating detail how horrible it is, they also know that regardless of what they do, they're going there.

Just imagine what they'd do...
 

Madness, regarding your comment on "the maddening combinations", is this just to say that while the series contains plenty of hints as to where the series is going, the sheer number of possibilities make it near-impossible to predict?

If Yatwer is truly blind to the No-God, all the subsequent effects would be put down to other factors. So she can only see the effects that Kellhuss changes have wrought, and would move against him as if he was the prime mover in stealing souls. It may be that if Yatwer is not confined to linear time she may be reacting to the future changes that the reawakening No-God causes and thinking that Kellhuss is the culprit because of her blindness to it.

That is a *great* way to this, Ciogli!  I think I had fallen into the trap of evaluating Yatwer's motives from a human perspective.

The question you've asked, I think, really suggests that the God of Birth should notice that all babies are stillborn.

That's the bit that's bothering me.  The No-God is just so perfectly opposed to Yatwer that it feels like she should have been able to connect the dots.   The ignorance (or denial) of existential threats seems like the sort of trait we'd expect in a human leader, doesn't it?

Crackpot: if she's looking back from the end of time, it could be that her view is so vast that she can only pick up the broad strokes.  The ~2000 years that elapsed between the FA and SA might be compressed.  So from her perspective, the stillborn epidemic from the FA is essentially happening at the same time as Khellus' emergence just prior to the SA? 

Tangent: does the strong opposition of the goddess of Motherhood to Kellhus imply that his support for women's lib in the New Empire is somewhat self-serving and spotty?

If Kellhus knows that Yatwer's completely misreading the situation with the SA, the Shortest Path might be to marginalize her.  And I kind of think of his support for women and abolishing slavery is pure pragmatism -- oppression is bad for business in the long-term.  But oppression is great for Yatwer as it ensures her a large body of worshipers.  So much irony in the Yatwer-Kellhus conflict!

Something that struck me after a recent re-read of WLW: it doesn't make a lot of sense for Yatwer to work against the Great Ordeal through Sorweel.  If anything, it seemed like she wants to prevent No-God from returning.  These two lines from her POV seem to refer to the stillborn epidemic during the FA:

So many.  So many children born...
So many taken.

The whole point (ostensibly) for the Great Ordeal is to stop the World being shut from the Outside and the cycle of birth ending. 

It seems that either:

1. Khellus' motivation is something other than what he's stated.  Which wouldn't exactly be shocking becuase, well, he's that kind of dude.  But it's one of the only pieces of evidence I can find in the books that actually points to his having an ulterior motive.

2. Sorweel is wrong about Yatwer's motivation.  RSB clearly has a fondness for unreliable narrators (Akka in PON) and it wouldn't be a shock if Yatwer is after something less straightforward than killing the Aspect-Emperor.  It could be as simple as his being a "sleeper" as has been stated in other threads: Khellus successfully prevents the No-God from returning and then Yatwer gives Sorweel the go-ahead to salt Khellus.