[MSJ]

Oh, I know. I was just saying that the only reference is to shutting the Outside. I see everyone referencing as a means to raise the No-God, presumably because of Akka's dreams of the soulless wretch. But, I think that's just what the Consult does. Torture, rape, etc., etc.

[Purrball]

I think part of the problem is that, like many, MANY things in this series, the situation with the 144,000 souls is being presented to us in a "backwards" (or otherwise obfuscated) way.

For example, perhaps it's less that the No-God requires there only to be 144,000 souls on Earwa in order to achieve the Apocalypse -- rather, that is simply how many people will be left once the Apocalypse occurs. The Consult may not even know how many must die, but only that the end-result will be that number. Which would make (some) sense of their "burn it all" methodology. I'm sure there's a mathematical term for this sort of thing but I am a mathematical moron to the highest (lowest?) degree, so...

On the other hand, the number of 144,000 may not be important at all to actually achieving the Apocalypse, so much as it is the number of souls required to repopulate the New World -- once the No-God, or New God, has achieved dominion over the existing one. So, for the Consult it's equally an important number to be reached as it is a signal to stop being genocidal lunatics.

Yes, like a tipping point, just kill until there are only 144k souls left, then it kind of unfolds as it should. In that scenario it would pay to be as far from Golgotterath as possible. I wonder what the rest of Eänna is thinking about the Great Ordeal, the must have heard of it.

The only thing ever said about 144,000 souls in the books is by the Wracu Akka faces off with. That is the number the population has to be reduced to to shut Eärwa off from the Outside. The No-God's is the Consults tool to do this quicker. Once the No-God rises there are no more births. So, many have speculated as to why the No-God even went to war in the first place. They could have waited until people died off and with no more babies being born it wouldn't have taking very long.

not being able to give birth will unite humanity like nothing else. In 5-10 years a new ordeal could be raised with anyone with the mark being trained in sorcery, with humanity's blessing. The consult has to fight anyways.


Or maybe the no god has to war, maybe its part of its code. The no god doesn't seem to have a soul; perhaps it has no choice, no free will either.

[Bagletown]

After searching for 44 and "forty-four" in my ebooks, the 144,000 people seems to come from mannish myths and legends (the revelations of Ganus the Blind and a reference to the 144,000 last men of legend). I don't think the "what" of the 144,000 number is ever specified in either of the two references to it made/confirmed by Consultants:

Chapter 15 of WLW, from Wutteat:

"TWISTING IN THE VOID FOR SAILING AGES! WATCHING MY MAKERS DESCEND AS LOCUSTS UPON WORLD AFTER WORLD, REDUCING EACH TO ONE HUNDRED AND FORTY-FOUR THOUSAND--AND WAILING TO FIND THEMSELVES STILL DAMNED!"

Chapter 18 of TUC just after the "art of human extinction":

"'Yes...' the Aspect-Emperor said, 'the one hundred and forty-four thousand...'
'The Object is a prosthesis of Ark' the teeth bearing Dunyain continued [apparently ignoring Kellhus' interjection]"

So we don't really know for sure what the Consult wants to reduce to 144,000. Lives/souls seems like the most logical inference, but who knows.

Also assuming its souls, we don't know that its human/nonman souls. Elsewhere I've seen speculation that the Progenitors were post-singularity trans[human]ists who exist in digital form in Ark (after all, why is it called ark if not to carry them?). Combine this with the capacity to create Tekne artifacts capable of housing souls, like the Synthese, and one has to wonder if Ark has the Progenitor's souls in it. So how many of the 144,000 would be taken up by Consult/Progenitor souls?

(as a side speculation, since weapon races tend not have souls yet the Inchoroi do even though they themselves are referred to as being a weapon race of the Progenitors, is it possible that the Inchoroi are simply warrior-caste bodies for Progenitor souls? Or the ensouled Simas skin-spy?)

[Sausuna]

(as a side speculation, since weapon races tend not have souls yet the Inchoroi do even though they themselves are referred to as being a weapon race of the Progenitors, is it possible that the Inchoroi are simply warrior-caste bodies for Progenitor souls? Or the ensouled Simas skin-spy?)

I think this seems unlikely, if only given the discussed purpose of the Inverse Fire. Which was to press the Inchoroi with their damnation into continuing their crusade for salvation. I think they were likely given souls or made with souls for that reason. At least that's how it came off to me. That's why it was 'the Goad'. The purpose was to give them extra incentive to pursue their goal.

[Wilshire]

(as a side speculation, since weapon races tend not have souls yet the Inchoroi do even though they themselves are referred to as being a weapon race of the Progenitors, is it possible that the Inchoroi are simply warrior-caste bodies for Progenitor souls? Or the ensouled Simas skin-spy?)

I think this seems unlikely, if only given the discussed purpose of the Inverse Fire. Which was to press the Inchoroi with their damnation into continuing their crusade for salvation. I think they were likely given souls or made with souls for that reason. At least that's how it came off to me. That's why it was 'the Goad'. The purpose was to give them extra incentive to pursue their goal.

Welcome Bagletown and Sausuna new folks coming faster than I can greet them all, its a great problem to have.