I can see two paths here for Kellhus, depending on what he truly is or what his motivations are.

Path number 1: Kellhus is a Dunyain.
He wants nothing but to dominate all circumstancts. Like with the Holy War from PoN, he found that unless he controls everything, he himself is being controlled. In order to be a self-moving soul, the Dunyain's only purpose, he must control everything. Women, Men, Nonmen, Consult, and even the Gods. The Consult are just part of his plan, and he will use them to transend the cycle of before and after.

Interesting point, maybe he sees the only way he can control the No-God is by bringing him to full consciousness or eliminating it. Consult obviously don't want that to happen so he has to go to war.

Just thinking that the Mimara's child might be seriously affected by the Qiiri and possibly the Quirri mightallow a reincarnation of the Non-Ma who the ashes belong to.

Although it could be wishful thinking, I just want to see some more serious magical duelling and can't help but think that Kellhus would blow Akka or whoever out of the ground without even thinking.

Monstar, taking over the consult would just be another step towards an ultimate goal.  Are you suggesting that this goal is the same as the consult?

Raising the No-god means becoming a slave to it, according to the glossary.  Probably not something Kellhus would want, imo.

The False Sun was buried with Titirga.

Heron spear is not powered by sorcery, the Inchies were using those weapons well before they harnessed sorcery.

I've no idea I'm just throwing out my opinion and some possiblities.

Maybe the power struggle in the Consult is that Kellhus wants to ressurrect the No-God as he believes he can control it whereas the majority of the consult believe otherwise.

Just because the Heron spear wasn't powered by sorcery doesn't mean it can't be in future. Maybe there's a sacrifice neccesary and the mages are there to ensure that the army survives until the correct point.

Quote from: Cüréthañ on May 02, 2014, 11:09:21 am

Yeah, but the fact of Mog's existence wasn't a permanent solution, was it.  "The souls that encounters him passes no further".

I think the fact that the war continued after Mog rose demonstrates that there was more work to be done, otherwise they could have just waited for humans to die out naturally.
Also, there is the issue of the Scylvendi, the fact that sorcery still worked whilst Mog was about and the delivery of the Celmoman prophecy even as Mog 'tasted' the fallen king's soul.

Sticking with the idea that Mog was an improvement on the 144k thing and that critical mass was about to be achieved at Mengedda. 

INTRIGUING!  Do you think that all those that died during the First Apocalypse were lost in some irrevocable way?  In other words, pre- and post-Mog, souls went straight to the Outside, but during the 11 years of Whirlwind, the souls departed from flesh met Mog and never traveled on?

This is even more important if those hints about reincarnation end up being true--the No-God removes souls from their loops, doing something terrible to the world.

With references to "Mog" and soul cycle its starting to sound a bit like final fantasy 9! 

Quote from: Cüréthañ on May 29, 2014, 02:30:38 am

If he is still following TTT, I'm thinking Kellhus' goals should be:
1. Destroy the dunyain.
2. Eliminate the consult & destroy inverse fire.
3. Exterminate the nonmen.
4. Ensure all the sorcerers in the ordeal die.
5. Fix it so the cish replace the thousand temples when the New Empire falls.
6. Die.

With the schools, consult and nonmen gone and the Cish priests running the theological side, the chance of the no-god project ever being taken up by anyone else is pretty much eliminated.

That's awesome!  Although it makes it seem unnecessary/risky to kill so many Cish in the first trilogy--what do you think is going on with that?

Id rob and adapt some of your views to mine

Kallhus puts everything humanity has in one big effort to achieve his aims of taking over the consult with the aims of reincarnating the No-God. He will ensure in the process of reincarnating the No-God that the army along with the vast majority of mages are eliminated. Mankind is bankrupted and largely leaderless and will find it difficult to field an army. The lack of mages to use magic against the consult will also minimize any possiblities of failure.

Alternatively the matches he brings with him might be necessary for a sacrifice to brink back the No-God, maybe the False Sun was used in this way but another sacrifice is needed as his power was destroyed by the spear.

Another possibility, maybe the mages are neccesary as a sacrifice to power the Heron spear. Kallus is manipulating the Consult as he does everyone and needs to get the army close enough to the No-God to destroy it completely.

IMO I get the feeling that the army is going to be necessary in the end and have an image of Achamian turning up at the right time to save it with the rebels we've been seeing together the new leaders.

One we know Kallus needs that army and the mages for something and is trying to get them to survive to a certain point.

Hey Monstar!  Good stuff!  I particularly like the idea the the Consult are infighting over who will ascend.  A bit of me thinks the first No-God was Nin'janjin, and if they can't bring him back then it would have to be someone else.  A fight between Mekeritrig vs Shaeonanra vs Aurang vs Aurax would be amazing.  If there's a way to make the Consults fight each other, I bet Kellhus has found it. 

It is telling that Bakker has hidden Shae from the reader so much for so long.  When I read The Unholy Consult excerpt, I was floored that Achamian referred to Shae as "Lord of the Consult." 

http://www.second-apocalypse.com/index.php?topic=797.0

I had thought that Shae would be nothing more than Aurang/Aurax's pawn--but that doesn't seem to be the case in Akka's mind.

The angle I'm going for is that the infighting is continuous and has been the reason so little progress has been made on the consults behalf in so long.

The quote there is actually what got me thinking about Kallus being someone else and not realising it

“But souls are exceedingly complicated,” he continued. “Far more so than the crude sorceries used to trap them. The intricacies of identity are always sheared away. Memory. Faculty. Character. These are cast into the pit... Only the most base urges survive in proxies.”

Maybe he went outside not just to get some demon heads for his belt but to regain his memories.

well if Kellhus promised to take a fortress back, why not just move it with sorcery (take it) to wherever the nonmen want it. shake out the sranc once it's in the air.

That's why I'm thinking there's more than Sranc there. Kellhus might need the army and sorcerers to handle the Sranc and whatever else comes at them while he takes on the bigger threat. The argument might be made if it is just Sranc why aren't the Non-Men waltzing in themselves and blitzing the place from the air.

Sorry if I'm spouting garbage here but its been a while since I've read the books and while I was checking for an update on the next installment said I'd check out what the ideas were for wtf is going on.

As far as I'm concerned what Kellhus is doing seems political but for uncertain ends possibly with the control of the consult in the balance. IIRC Kellhus had a negotiation with the Nonmen. Now where did these non-men come from and what are their goals? Didn;t Kellhus have a conversation with "the last Nonman king" (can't even remember his name now)? who said that the last fortress of non-men had decided to turn to the dark.

Assuming the non-men are now part of the dark side or allied to the consult this means Kallhus has promised to take a fortress back for them which has possibly been overun by the Sranc and more interestingly there may be factions within the Consult that have infighting and by returning the fortress to the non-men Kallhus gains their alliegance and gains more influence in the Consult.

Assuming this is true then it would be fair to say that Kellhus wants control of the Consult, why though? IMO to resurrect the No-God of which he would then possibly have control or even become. This could be the reason for infighting between the consult as none of them can agree who is to ascend. At the very least he may have a belief that resurrecting the No-God would stop him from being damned.

There are a few possiblities as well that cropped up in my mind first among them is that Kallhus is Shaeonanra either resurrected or suffered temporarily from amnesia. It would explain why he had a Father if he was reborn. It may be that Kallhus up to a point had no idea who he was. As of yet Shaeonanra has seemingly had no direct involvement in the events in the books. From what is mentioned of his ability and power it seems like he single handedly could destroy the entire "crusade" other than Kallhus of course.

Maybe the Dunyain are related to the Consult as the whole logic and end goal thing really seams eerily similar to both.

Also if Kallhus is Shaeonanra and has been reborn several times it may be due due to this that he has memories of a Dunyain upbringing.

Of course there is the possibility Kallhus is the No-God's avatar and again did not know it up to a certain point. This would make some sense given the deficiencies of his children. Also his apparent lack of emotion also is similar to the No-God. Heck Kallhus could have taken over the first crusade to look for the Heron Spear and remove it as an obstacle.