[Wilshire]

Assuming that the Gods as we know them, Yatwer and the like, experience some kind of non-linear time relationship with Earwa, how would the emergence of a new god affect Earwa? Many here have postulated that either Moenghus Sr. or his son Kellhus has/will become a God. With the given Dunyain dogma it seems to make some sense that in order to achieve their Objective, i.e. become a self-moving soul, then they would need to ascend from the mortal realm of Earwa and dominate the Gods that control the Outside, or at least carve themselves a bit of the pie.

I wonder, then, what would happen to Earwa's history if a new God emerged in the outside. Would the inhabitants recognize the change? Or would only the reader (you and I) be able to see the changes to the world. Suddenly all the religious texts would change, since an ascended being would be lifted from the Earwa timeframe/timeline. They could influence any point in the timeline as they pleased... Then again, would they accidentally manipulate the timeline to a point were they weren't initially born, so the couldn't ascend, etc ect. Or, could an ascended god protect their past selves/timeline to make sure events happened to insure their future success.

Time travel and manipulations confuse me.

Anyone else mused on this subject in relation to Earwa?

[Cüréthañ]

Perhaps the Celmoman prophecy is such a thing?

But personally, I think the hundred are in fact manifestations of subconscious passions/hungers as described by several of Bakker's characters. 
The idea of a ascendant mortals in Earwa is very unlikely to me and I can't think of any hints in the text that support such a thing.  They just seem too inhuman to me.

OTOH, Moe's talk of viramsata and Yatwer's placement as the oldest and most powerful of the gods does suggest that the gods came into existence at specific times. 
Perhaps in response to the way that motivating desires and their attendant actions become defined through language/culture?

[mrganondorf]

Time travel messes with me too--if the any of the gods can manipulate any point of history at will, then Kellhus' ascension plan is fucked.  All they have to do is go back far enough and then derail the Dunyain project.  UNLESS!  Kellhus is being ushered along the path to new divinity by divinity.

Do you think Yatwer and co were humans once upon a time?  Earwa is special because it's the one place in the universe were ascension is possible?  The Inchoroi project not only severs the Outside from the World, it prevents any further ascension.  Kellhus isn't angling to help or stop the Consult, he just wants to be the last person to ascend before the door shuts!

[Wilshire]

I don't think any of the hundred that we know of were once people.

I am just bothered by their ability to "see" time non-linearly, coupled with their ability to send avatar's into earwa time-space. Something like the WLW should be wreaking havoc throughout all time, not just our 4000 year-of-the-tusk.

[Wic]

Here's the way I see the gods' relationship to time within the world:

There are times and places that have a varying susceptibility to deliberate influence from the outside.  I imagine Yatwer finding the most malleable coordinates and then...pushing influence into it like a bowling ball on a mattress - the rest of spacetime leans in the direction.  The right people are born, the right attitudes are taken, a Psatma is born, a WLW is made, and so on.

We know there are places where the God is most asleep, topos where the Outside seeps in.  Times when the boundaries loosen seem plausible.  And an apocalypse would surely be such a time.

I don't think any of the gods were once people though.  But of course, the Dunyain are something new.  For Sejenus' sake, maybe Kellhus simply is the pinnacle of their mission.


Goin' wacky:

If Kellhus has been preparing an ascendance, he may have some understanding of a flexing of the Dunyain axiom of before and after, and understands that he can go back and shape events to lead to himself, shaping events.  That 'before' and 'after' are related, but in the way 'left' and 'right' are.

[SilentRoamer]

If we are speculating an ascendance from Kellhus then can we assume Moenghus and Sejenus also ascended. Sejenus was said to ascend to the nail of heaven from the same spot Moenhgus died. Wonder if this has any relevance. Food for thought.

[Wilshire]

I'll mark Sejenus down as maybe, but not Moe. I'm 100% sure Cnaiur killed him until the books say otherwise. Either way, the point remains the same: how would a new god affect Earwa? Ascended human, or a Ciphrang getting a promotion, or spontaneously generated god #101, doesn't really matter who/what it was before.

[SilentRoamer]

Wilshire are you assuming death is not the mechanism of ascension? Just trying to understand your line of thought.

My point is if the gods are timeless agencies - in that they see all of time instantly (sort of like an information pile up on the Event Horizon of a Black Hole) there can be no new gods, not within the existing timeline. The emergence of a new god is not possible as if all gods are timeless then said god already exists.

What I am saying simply is that if Kellhus does ascend at some future time in the novels then he is already ascended because to the gods time is meaningless so Kellhus would already have seen all of creation.

It reminds me of Novikovs Self Consistency Theory, any event giving rise to a Paradox has its probability value reduced to 0% so Kellhus has either already ascended and is already a god or he does not and is not.

I suspect that Bakker has not given too much thought to the timelessness agency of the gods and it is a side distraction - I could be wrong.

[Wilshire]

Wilshire are you assuming death is not the mechanism of ascension? Just trying to understand your line of thought.

Yes and no. Sejenus did the whole disappearing into white light thing, right? Whatever he did, it was somehow unique. I think Moe simply died via chorae.

Ascension would be somehow leaving the mortal body with soul and agency intact, enabling the ascended to exercise free will once outside. Simply dying does not afford one this luxury, based on what we've been given in the text. To "ascend" then one must not simply die but be removed from Earwa's material plane in some other way. To those left behind it would probably look more or less the same as death.

I just think the Dunyain goal seems awfully close to how the Gods perceive the world.
Dunyain:
Self-Moving soul, dominating all circumstances, comes before everything, being removed from the cycle of before/after

Outside "Gods":
Subjective reality allows the powerful to carve out existance of their own allowing absolute control of their own realm, exist "outside" of Earwa's 'linear' timeline, able to interact/change Earwa in the past/present/future.


Whether or not it is possible for a human to become a God, it looks like that is what the Dunyain are trying to achieve.

It reminds me of Novikovs Self Consistency Theory, any event giving rise to a Paradox has its probability value reduced to 0% so Kellhus has either already ascended and is already a god or he does not and is not.

This doesn't say if a god did or did not once exist in the linear timeline of Earwa. Just that in the apparently "objective" universal timeframe of reference the Gods always existed. Within Earwa's timeline, since history could be manipulated at any point from Outside, the inhabitants would never know the difference if history was changed or not, since their reality would seem to be self consistent regardless of how the past changed. To them, what was has always been.

Also, our Hundred are far from omniscient/omnipotent. It is entirely possible that they aren't even aware when/where they came from, or how they themselves came to exist, or if they are trapped in some kind of timeline that an even higher agency is looking in upon.
Basically, each level of existence isn't fully aware of a higher power that exists outside their own. Humans<Ciphrang<Gods<True God< ... etc.

In this way, the Fanim, the Inrithi, and all the Cults are "correct" in some respects, but fail to fully comprehend the scope of existence. Maybe the SS sing in the voice of lesser ciphrang, the Mandati with the voice of Gods, and the Cishaurim the voice of their own God. Each a higher power from the previous, thus the power discrepancy.

Maybe some of that made sense . The thought wasn't fully formed when I started this topic or even this post.

[SilentRoamer]

Thanks Wilshire I think I am starting to understand your thinking now.

So you think the various magics are all ways that the Sorcerors sing in the voice of the "Ur-Soul/God" but some to a lesser extent. So the ultimate extension of that would be singing in the voice of everything. Removing all frames. Like when Mandati apply the logical extensions to the SS Analogies and form the Abstractions they sing with more understanding, more of the Ur-Soul. When Kellhus adds the 2nd Innuteral he speaks with more of the Ur-Soul and can achieve greater feats, like the pounding of the Sranc.

I have a sticking point, where do you place the Cish in this? I just see the Psukhe as a different metaphysics and thats where my opinions blur.

[Wilshire]

Probably a better place for this discussion, but I'll digress with you.

The sorcery topic kind of came up by mistake. The Psuke is always a sticking point when talking about sorcery and power, and big reason for that is we know so little.

I'll simplify what I said above for you:
Ciphrang < Hundred Gods < Solitary God
Anagogic < Gnostic < Psuke

SS sing the song of the Ciphrang, the Mandate use the sermons of Gods, and the Cish with the voice of the Solitary God.
I suggested that the Solitary God exists outside of the realm of the Hundred in much the same way that the Hundred exist outside of Earwa. The analogy trips on itself because Ciphrang and The Hundred seem to exist together.
Also, I'm not sure how to explain meta-gnosis using this idea, nor can I explain why the Cish bare no mark.

The idea has a lot of holes... I was trying to use it as a way to explain how a new god might come to be in the Earwa timeline, and simultaneously not "always exist" in the God realm. The Paradox you describe doesn't come to be because to Earwa a "new god" would simply be one of their Hundred. At the same time, the current Gods would notice another entity suddenly expressing agency within their realms. All of this could be presided over by the Solitary God, somehow sleeping outside the frame of reference (and/or timeline) of both "Outside" (The Hundred's realm) and Earwa.



Back to sorcery then, we are told that the Anagogis and Gnostic are basically the same thing with the difference being certain "intellectual leaps". To me, this describes the difference between Algebra and Calculus.
We are also told that those two schools use intellect while the Psuke uses emotions.

Given that, I submit that (using the way I've proposed the "Outside" exists above) all the schools, other than the Psuke, ply their craft by manipulating or somehow tapping into the power of The Hundred. The Psuke, OTOH, uses the power of the Solitary God, who in this set-up  is superior to The Hundred.

I imagine that, given the same amount of time and ingenuity to mature, the Psuke would have wound up being far superior to the Gnosis. However, it was wiped out in its vulnerable, fledgling state, to the far more developed Gnosis.

The Meta-Gnosis represents something close to maximum strength for the Gnosis, while the Psuke could have made the Gnostic schools look like children given a few thousand more years to develop.

[SilentRoamer]

Ok I get what you mean now Wilshire thanks.

If Meta-Gnostic is something close to the maximum strength for the Gnosis is Meppa the Psukhe equivalent?

Woule love a Fane Revelation Tale.

If these novels ever went mainstream Bakker could just milk the short stories there are so many things that could be told. The breaking of the gates is something else i would like to read.

[Wilshire]

Yeah there is more than one lifetime worth of material that could be written in the world Bakker created.

Other hopes and dreams for the series:
http://www.second-apocalypse.com/index.php?topic=1149.0

[mrganondorf]

Wilshire, I have to agree with you that the gods are in some sense outside of time, but NOT omniscient/omnipotent.  If they had all the knowledge/power, Kellhus would simply never be allowed to exist in the first place.  Why suffer a rival at all? 

I also agree with you that there maybe even higher entities that see round the gods and that everything that Kellhus and everyone else is doing is just manifesting that higher will. 

I think we'll get big surprises when someone assumes they have it all figured out, only to have their master plan as part of someone else's umbrella plan who might even be usurped by an even higher plan and so on.    I'm hoping!

[SilentRoamer]

MG - we know they are not omniscient. The text tells us they have blind spots.

Makes me wonder at the "space between the gods" that the Nonmen used to worship!