[Wilshire]

How many degrees of separation, as far as relation goes, are required to safely make offspring.

Half siblings?
Quarter?
8th?

Knowing that you could figure out, roughly, how many families it would take to create a pool of genetic diversity that wouldnt collapse into inbred, disease ridden, and unstable offspring that would destroy the population.

[Madness]

Considering the evidence of defectives, I'd hazard that the Dunyain didn't achieve that balance, whatever it may be. Cool question though...

[Wilshire]

With a closed genetic pool it would actually be impossible not to encounter some problems, and as time went on problems would increase. But there must have been some kind of strict regulation to prevent a total collapse.

I would guess that any in depth analysis of the Dunyain vagabonds that ended up at Ishual would probably show that there would be no way of keeping a population like that genetically viable for 2000 years . I don't care though, its still an interesting question.

[Somnambulist]

My money is on Kellhus himself.  He pretty much ripped apart portions of Sakarpus without breaking a sweat, so Ishual probably wouldn't have been able to withstand the meta-gnostic H-bomb he could unleash.  The deeper question for me is why?  The most obvious reasons have already been stated, but what about this?

The level of in-breeding that must have taken place in Ishual (a closed system) for 2,000 years would pretty much ensure that everyone's blood was mixed together.  I highly doubt there would be any 'pure' bloodlines there.  How could there be?  And why would the dunyain care to maintain separate ones?  So my postulation is that all dunyain in Ishual were, more or less, Anasurimbors.  Why else would the dunyain send Moenghus out on an errand, find that he's been corrupted, then exile him.  He obviously wasn't that important to the society.  Then, years later, he demands his son be sent to him.  Again, the dunyain send another Anasurimbor away.  Anasurimbors must have been ten-a-penny in Ishual.    So, Kellhus, not needing the headache that would come from a village of Anasurimbors 'returning at the end of the world' prompted him to wipe them all out.

Anyway, that's my crackpot theory.

Here's a crackpot theory, Anasurimbor souls are more useful than mundane souls, so Kellhus has enslaved all the souls of the Dunyain into new dread machinery (ala the gate to the library).

Also, they needn't necessarily be all Anasurimbors, though your series makes sense, Charles Stross outlines a 'braiding' system of six-ish bloodlines in his Merchant series than manages to prevent too much inbreeding by deliberately controlling who is mated with who, and maintains familial identity.

hell for the Dunyain project of breeding, family line is probably more important than any other identity, because a genetic shorthand (family name) is useful to the breeding project.

Great points.  Your arguments for control and retention of family names to keep their eugenics project viable make more sense than my over-simplification.  To scale my assumption back, then, should be to state that there were more Anasurimbors in Ishual than just Moe and Kel.  Possibly even children of Kellhus.  I think Moe was in his 20's when he sired Kel.  Kel was in his 30's when he left Ishual, so it stands to reason he would have sired at least one child.

[Wilshire]

Oh Kellhus almost certainly had children, probably many. After all, they didn't send out their prodigal son and their own crowning achievement without first leaving behind some progeny to carry on his line. That could have been a motivator for Kell to kill them all: He could have feared that a true son of his own might someday surpass him like he surpassed his father. There can only be one.

btw locke, that creepy, a big moving machine with souls hooked in to it, powering some terrible slaughter machine. Sweet. Maybe the new Heron Spear won't be as compact, like a lasgun, but rather more like an artillery gun shelling out large swaths of light that decimate whole areas. We've already seen the inadequacies of even the Mandati's attempt to destroy the sranc masses with magic. They need something bigger.

[Somnambulist]

Wilshire:  Exactly 

Locke:  Agreed, awesome idea!  Might need a topic of it's own:  What Kind of Meta-Gnostic Nastiness Will Kellhus Call Down on the Consult?

[Madness]

+1 Full-Dunyain Progeny of Kellhus.

[EkyannusIII]

+1 Full-Dunyain Progeny of Kellhus.

An interesting idea.

How old is Saccarees? Is it ever mentioned? He was unheard of in trilogy one and then twenty years later is Grandmaster of the Mandate. I find it unlikely that a grown man could just join a School, it would raise questions about where he came from and how he was missed by the same people who found Akka et al.  Could he be young then? I wonder if his hair is blonde?

[Wilshire]

This idea has been discussed here: Saccarees & the Dunyain

I think the conclusion was that he probably wasnt related to Kellhus, but I don't really remember. You should read it and tell us what you think.

It would seem most discussion is on pages 1 and 3, we get off track on page 2. Some of those posts could be their own topic, something regarding a Strange Mark (from The Unholy Consult excerpt I heard)

[Madness]

I'll voice my opinion again that Metagnostic Sorcerers abound among the Swayal and Mandate in TUC.

[The Sharmat]

One thing about the broken map case.  If it were broken for 2000 years  the map probably woulf have dissolved to the elements.  If it were broken for 20 years it ought to be okay.

This is a good observation that I've never connected before.

Yeah, now I'm fairlly convinced that Aurax found Ishual and nuked it.

[mrganondorf]

Whoever blew it up, they could have a shitload of goodies.  Think what the Consult could do with a hoard of compulsion-slave dunyain.  The information and the bodies.  Hope Kellhus thought of that one.

[The Sharmat]

If the thought occurred to him, then I'd say it was probably Kellhus who blew it up, to prevent such an eventuality.

[Wilshire]

It was probably a matter of who got there first. Wutteat, Consult, The Dunyain, and Kellhus all had reason to blow it up. Lots of plausible theories, but who got the prize? I'd say Wutteat got there too late, so I rule him out simply because of the timeline. As for the other three, I can't decide. The Consult had a long time to look, The Dunyain may have realized something was wrong, and Kellhus could have done it before he liberated Shimeh or at any point after.

Last few posts should probably be moved to Who Destroyed the Dunyain Monastery.

[mrganondorf]

If the thought occurred to him, then I'd say it was probably Kellhus who blew it up, to prevent such an eventuality.

What a waste!  It's hard to stomach the thought of no one using the dunyain!!!