Haloed hands around Sarcellus? Do you have the relevant passage at hand? I can't believe I missed or disregarded that!

Aren't Sranc based on Nonmen DNA? So I'd wager they are not weak, it's just that their mindless ferocity makes them susceptible to organized humans. I sure as hell wouldn't want to face one in an arena.

I thought immortality was what the Nonman king asked for, for the obvious reasons, my reasoning was the Inchoroi did it to stall them for time and used it to set a weapon as well, no more birthed souls from the Nonmen bringing the world closer to that magic number. Makes you wonder why they didn't sterilise the Men as well, aside from technological incapacity at the time.

“Love is the Way … And yet these little demons you call Gods decree otherwise? Dole out their rewards in proportion to our suffering? No.” She paused before him, her slight form magnificent in the play of gloom and light. “I would save my soul.” She reached out to trace his lips with a shining fingertip. Esmenet, burning for congress. For all his breeding, all his conditioning, Kellhus could feel the ancient instinct rise … What kind of game? He caught her wrist. “She doesn’t love you,” she said, tugging her wrist free. “Not truly.” The words jarred—but why? What was this darkness? Pain? “She worships,” Kellhus found himself replying, “and has yet to understand the difference.” How many secrets could it see? How much did it know? “Such a marvel,” she said, “what you’ve accomplished … So much stolen.” It spoke as though knowing much warranted knowing all. It tries to lure me, draw me into open discourse. “My father has been here thirty years.” “Long enough to require a Holy War to overcome him?” “Long enough.” She smiled, drew two fingers across her sweaty breastbone. Though her body remained young, her eyes possessed an age not her own. “Again,” she simpered, “I don’t believe you … You are your father’s heir, not his assassin.” And the air reeked of sorcery.

I think it's simply the matter of flavoring the meat or the bread as big K says. A life of misery and wretchedness which is then introduced to a sort of almost like Heaven? The emotional contrast, between anguish and ecstasy would be quite severe. It's their demonic heroin. The punishment for sin I suspect serves a similar purpose, from the feeling of power and control and joy to one of powerlessness, helplessness and suffering. You need something to compare the base feeling to or otherwise it's like crack, good stuff, but not as good as heroin.

Oh jeez talk about blindness, kinda embarrassing well you know how there is some point in certain friendships when you develop inside jokes and internal language that sometimes goes too far in its use? It's supposed to stand for God, but the kind of derpy God, much like Doge meme. (like the quote from Steiner in the Cross of Iron "I believe that God is a sadist, but probably doesn't even know it.") Might be a reaction to an overly religious environment I reside in.

So would that mean the No-God then represents some kind of twisted ideal of the Nonmen? Representing so much darkness and all? The curious thing for me is that old Mog appeared in later conflicts of Scott Aurang vs the World and from what little we can gather, its creation requires the sacrifice of souled peoples. If No-God has such a powerful effect of completely closing the Outside, it would seem to me that Inchoroi would have just kept one on their ship and continued their merry galactic murder orgy without fear. The knowledge of the No-God came from Earwa somehow and/or it's incarnation is only possible on Earwa.

The No-God being wrapped in so much darkness that it can't even see itself reminds of a computer. It does things, processes inputs and spits out outputs, it can seem alive, but it's just doing the thing it was made to do. I'm sure the way skin spies are built has something to do with it. Then again only souled creatures can perform sorcery. And again the Chorae on the sarcophagus. It's making my brain itch, but I can't puzzle it out. I was hoping someone had a clearer view of the whole picture, but I should probably wait until I read TGO when it comes out and make my silly questions then.

So in all my reads of the series, I always figured Nail of Heaven was the poetic term for the World's moon. Reading the 1st part of history on Wertzone it was pointed out to me that it was a star and there are some theories regarding it. My own guess based on this info, that it was an extremely luminous stargate and the flare-up was it's activation that signaled the arrival of the Ark bearing everyone favourite party animals and probably not an insignificant amount of direct descendants of Keith Richards, Charlies Sheen and Gary Busey.

That said, how did the Inchoroi know Earwas was the world where it all comes together? Spin-off thought from that is that their ship didn't break down, but they attempted to use it an extinction level event orbital strike, but somehow miscalculated or there was a last minute intervention of the Solitary Gode that thwarted that plan and promptly put him/it to sleep and created all the demons Gods.

Greetings fine wise men of the SA. I've been covertly mining this forum for years for thoughts on Bakker's works and have finally decided to join the strip mining of smarter posters than me for insight.