Bakker XII: Spoilers for PON, TJE, and WLW

[Cantabile]

True, but the gap in technological advancement is just too incredible to explain without alien technology. Bakker would have to have the Mangaecca be a part of a culture isolated from the rest of Earwa for millenia, their technological and cultural development occuring unbeknownst to the rest of the planet's inhabitants. Think about the technologies, resources, and gradual development through history required in our own world for the field of genetics; such inredible and sustained development can't imaginably be hidden from the rest of the world.

I'm sure Bakker could make it work somehow, but aliens just are the easiest solution.

[Kalbear]

True, but the gap in technological advancement is just too incredible to explain without alien technology. Bakker would have to have the Mangaecca be a part of a culture isolated from the rest of Earwa for millenia, their technological and cultural development occuring unbeknownst to the rest of the planet's inhabitants. Think about the technologies, resources, and gradual development through history required in our own world for the field of genetics; such inredible and sustained development can't imaginably be hidden from the rest of the world.

Isn't that...basically the description of the Dunyain?

[Cantabile]

Yeah, and for that same reason the Dunyain always came off as implausible to me. Philosophical, mentally conditioned monks I can buy, but their knowledge of neuroscience (neuropuncture) is pretty impossible. Since it's fantasy though I'm more than willing to suspend by disbelief for the author's ideas. I don't really remember the Dunyian possessing any scientific/technological knowledge beyond neuropuncture and their breeding program, but someone correct me if I'm wrong.

[Finn]

Speaking of Dunyain technology, have we discussed why the Dunyain spend so much time and effort to become face-readers?

It's clearly a very useful skill among the world-born, but so far we've been led to believe that the Dunyain have no desire to move among the world-born.

What's the motivation in terms of their ultimate objective (the self-moving soul, or whatever)? It seems like you end up with a bunch of expert face readers interacting with a bunch of expert poker-faces.

There seem to be two possibilities: either the Dunyain poker-face proves impenetrable and no one knows what anyone else is thinking or the two skills cancel each other out and they read each other about as well as the world-born do. In either case, how does this help conquer the darkness that comes before?

[Spring Bass]

Moreover, the Dunyain's isolation was only possible because they're this tiny sect hiding in the mountains. It would probably be impossible for them to stay isolated if they were a larger, more advanced civilization (and they would have to be, in order to develop the economies-of-scale and specialized division of labor needed to underpin even the more primitive industrial society).

For all we know they might have been completely equal. They're ancient history, though.

The text does mention that Cu'jara Cinmoi had a very famous wife, but we don't get many specific names after that. Of course, that could just be the patriarchal human historians' selection bias.

There's also no reason that the Consult - led by sorcerers - could not have learned how to use the Tekne and then killed the remaining Inchoroi. Or moved on from their primitive knowledge of it and taught those phone service technicians and objectivists how to actually use the stuff.

The Inchoroi themselves don't know how to use most of the technology left behind, so there may not be much to teach. Besides, having the surviving Inchoroi as allies is probably useful - they have a gigantic wealth of knowledge concerning everything that's happened since their crash landing thousands of years before.

I don't like them being completely idiotic rape demons, but the notion of an alien being who is damned simply for existing (and fighting against the objective metaphysical reality) is an interesting one. I would have liked the inchoroi to be a bit less...well, tentacle porn demon, and a bit more interesting as a villain. Heck, let them control their creations via lust and base instincts - that's still an interesting conceit. But why do they have to be the ones that want to fuck everything?

I like having the Inchoroi the way they are. Sexuality is at the heart of many societal moral codes and taboos, so having the Inchoroi as being sexually perverse really hits on the theme that they're vile by Inrithi standards, and fundamentally damned almost by their nature.

It also emphasizes the fact that they're, well, aliens, with a wholly different view on the world than the people of Earwa.

At the very least, let them be less idiotic and have plans that make some vague amount of sense.

I think their plans make sense. Their plan has always (since the first war, when Sil the Inchoroi King was struck down) been to close off the Outside, and the only way to do that is by constricting the population of en-souled beings. Their means to do so - creating the Weapons Races, recruiting Nonmen and human allies - make sense, too. If you can't rely on your technological weapons to stay intact forever (and they didn't - the information at the back of TTT says that the tide of their war against the Nonmen began to turn when their space-age weaponry finally broke down), then you do the next best thing: create a supply of self-perpetuating "weapons".

[Bastard of Godsgrace]

Speaking of Dunyain technology, have we discussed why the Dunyain spend so much time and effort to become face-readers?

It's clearly a very useful skill among the world-born, but so far we've been led to believe that the Dunyain have no desire to move among the world-born.

What's the motivation in terms of their ultimate objective (the self-moving soul, or whatever)? It seems like you end up with a bunch of expert face readers interacting with a bunch of expert poker-faces.

There seem to be two possibilities: either the Dunyain poker-face proves impenetrable and no one knows what anyone else is thinking or the two skills cancel each other out and they read each other about as well as the world-born do. In either case, how does this help conquer the darkness that comes before?

I have always thought they read each other very well and the purpose of face reading is to flush out any possible dissidents. If you don't believe in Dunyanism, you will inevitably betray yourself and then you go to the Room of Faces. It is all pure sopeculation, though. We really know close to nothing about Dunyain society.

EDIT: As for the technology some have theorised that Dunyain had some contact with the Inchoroi (or at least Mangaecca) before Apocalypse, and therefore have some knowledge of Tekne.

[Cantabile]

Ah! That's a wonderful question, I can't believe I hadn't thought of that before.

Recently I've been reading up on a lot of evvolutionary psychology and neuroscience research, and from what I know facial expression, and interpretation of facial expressions in others, is one of the foundations of human socialization. Recognition of human facial expression is the single most developed visual skill in our species, exemplifying its evolutionary necessity. Suppression of facial expression and outward display of emotion is adverse, as the physiological components of that emotion will occur regardless; repraisal of the emotion is what allows the physiological aspects to be modified.

What really is the point of masking their facial expressions, when those neural pathways developed for specific evolutionary purposes of the organism? And another question is: to what extent is it even possible? Some emotional expressions are created by facial muscles that we have no voluntary control over; one of the reasons you can often tell when a smile is fake or not, since only when a smile is sincere will the involuntary muscle move. I have trouble believing that the Dunyain are capable of mentally modifying cranial nerves.

[jurble]

I dunno, Ishual doesn't seem to advanced to me. They put needles into people's brains, to get results. That's just plain experimentation. If they were using electrodes to stimulate the brain, or magnets, then I'd be suspicious. But needles+brain? Archaic and functional.

[Cantabile]

Archaic yes, but how functional? Neurons transmite signals through action potentials and the transmission of neurochemicals at the synapse. Sticking sharp objects into a cerebral cortex is just going to cause lesions and brain damage, nothing is being manipulated.

[jurble]

They aren't stimulating neurons, they're destroying them with neuropuncture. Loss of function in some certain area to get a result. Alas, I can't seem to find anything on intentional neurodestructive operations to induce paralysis. So who knows.

[Kalbear]

I think their plans make sense. Their plan has always (since the first war, when Sil the Inchoroi King was struck down) been to close off the Outside, and the only way to do that is by constricting the population of en-souled beings. Their means to do so - creating the Weapons Races, recruiting Nonmen and human allies - make sense, too. If you can't rely on your technological weapons to stay intact forever (and they didn't - the information at the back of TTT says that the tide of their war against the Nonmen began to turn when their space-age weaponry finally broke down), then you do the next best thing: create a supply of self-perpetuating "weapons".

I've done this before, but here were their plans:

1. They wanted to shut the Outside out and destroy the Nonmen who had forced them to live as slaves or in fear. In order to destroy their enemies they release a plague that makes all of their men immortal and kills all of their women.

Read that again. Their first plan was to make their enemies immortal. And this was done so that they could seal the Outside off thanks to...uh...killing everyone. Tell me - how does making your enemies immortal and completely pissed off at you help with the whole idea of sealing off the Outside via lots of death?

Their next plan was a bit more refined; instead of killing everyone that was currently alive, they decided to create something that would seal the Outside off and sever the soul connection, destroying the ability for sentient creatures to reproduce. The presence of the No-God removed the damnation, but even if it hadn't the wiping out of the sentient races would do the trick. For some reason they decided to provoke a fight with people before they had summoned this ultimate device of destruction, but hey - let's just forget about that and chalk it up to bad luck.

However, they then decided that instead of simply waiting for the humans to completely die in a couple of generations (or at least wait for their warriors to become totally useless and their women to not be able to bear children anyway), they would rather send the No-God to take the field. Note that this was at Mengedda - thousands of miles away from the ark, and the last place of human resistance. There was nothing close to them that could remotely take the field, and no humans could form a reasonable counterattack that could forge over that distance. All they had to do was wait. And instead of waiting, they did the one thing that could cost them their ultimate victory - they put the No-God in the field.

[Spring Bass]

I've done this before, but here were their plans:

1. They wanted to shut the Outside out and destroy the Nonmen who had forced them to live as slaves or in fear. In order to destroy their enemies they release a plague that makes all of their men immortal and kills all of their women.

Read that again. Their first plan was to make their enemies immortal. And this was done so that they could seal the Outside off thanks to...uh...killing everyone. Tell me - how does making your enemies immortal and completely pissed off at you help with the whole idea of sealing off the Outside via lots of death?

The immortality was the bait they dangled in front of the Nonmen, so that they could infect them with the Womb-Plague. They needed something that would allow them access to effectively the entire race, and immortality just happened to be it.

Moreover, they knew the Non-men would show up at their doorstep, and were prepared for it with the Weapons Races plus Space-Age Weaponry (the TTT Glossary describes flying machines equipped with Heron Spear-like weapons). The only reason they lost was because they under-estimated the difficulty of killing the Non-men, but the plan itself wasn't bad.

Their next plan was a bit more refined; instead of killing everyone that was currently alive, they decided to create something that would seal the Outside off and sever the soul connection, destroying the ability for sentient creatures to reproduce. The presence of the No-God removed the damnation, but even if it hadn't the wiping out of the sentient races would do the trick. For some reason they decided to provoke a fight with people before they had summoned this ultimate device of destruction, but hey - let's just forget about that and chalk it up to bad luck.

I'll check it again, but if I recall correctly, the Anasurimbor kingdom actually got warning of what the Consult was trying to do, well before it happened.

However, they then decided that instead of simply waiting for the humans to completely die in a couple of generations (or at least wait for their warriors to become totally useless and their women to not be able to bear children anyway), they would rather send the No-God to take the field. Note that this was at Mengedda - thousands of miles away from the ark, and the last place of human resistance. There was nothing close to them that could remotely take the field, and no humans could form a reasonable counterattack that could forge over that distance. All they had to do was wait. And instead of waiting, they did the one thing that could cost them their ultimate victory - they put the No-God in the field.

This was following wave after wave of military success, and the fact that the No-God was nigh invulnerable to anything other than the Heron Spear. They probably just got arrogant, and didn't realize that the Kyranaean King actually had a working weapon that could be used on them. That's not really surprising - the thinking would presumably be that if the humans had a weapon that could be used against the No-God, they would have used it earlier.

I'll qualify that by saying that we don't know enough about the No-God, either. Perhaps it chose to take the field.

[Kalbear]

The immortality was the bait they dangled in front of the Nonmen, so that they could infect them with the Womb-Plague. They needed something that would allow them access to effectively the entire race, and immortality just happened to be it.

Okay, so why make the plague to only kill the women? And why actually make them immortal instead of (say) killing them off after 200 years? I understand the bait notion, but what I don't get is why they'd want to make the guys immortal but not have some way of reversing it or killing them outright; if they're immortal, their souls are still connected in some way to the Outside and that belief still damns them.

Though it might be that the inchies didn't understand that damnation at that time anyway or were just confused, but I think that it's incompetence one way or another.

I'll check it again, but if I recall correctly, the Anasurimbor kingdom actually got warning of what the Consult was trying to do, well before it happened.

They did, and Seswatha was sent to stop it - but how did they know? Why did anyone have any idea? I mean, it's not like the Consult had a lot of trade with people, and it's not like people were visiting Golgotterath on pilgrimages. Just hole up, develop your nuke and fuck everyone over.

This was following wave after wave of military success, and the fact that the No-God was nigh invulnerable to anything other than the Heron Spear. They probably just got arrogant, and didn't realize that the Kyranaean King actually had a working weapon that could be used on them. That's not really surprising - the thinking would presumably be that if the humans had a weapon that could be used against the No-God, they would have used it earlier.

I agree, it's pure ego and thinking that they can't be stopped. At the same time, they could simply wait and know that they can't be stopped. Why not wait? As Kellhus says, why risk death to stave off discomfort?

Though that's another bit of oddness I don't get. The Inchoroi and what I would imagine is left of the sorcerers of the Mangaeccea and the nonmen erratics are all immortal. Why do they care if they're damned?

[Spring Bass]

Okay, so why make the plague to only kill the women? And why actually make them immortal instead of (say) killing them off after 200 years? I understand the bait notion, but what I don't get is why they'd want to make the guys immortal but not have some way of reversing it or killing them outright; if they're immortal, their souls are still connected in some way to the Outside and that belief still damns them.

Though it might be that the inchies didn't understand that damnation at that time anyway or were just confused, but I think that it's incompetence one way or another.

Bakker has said that the Womb Plague was a crude weapon they came up with due to trial-and-error, meaning that they were already losing much of their technological knowledge by then. I agree that it's weird that they didn't simply try to target ALL Non-men with it. Maybe it was their way of rubbing the salt in the wound.

They did, and Seswatha was sent to stop it - but how did they know? Why did anyone have any idea? I mean, it's not like the Consult had a lot of trade with people, and it's not like people were visiting Golgotterath on pilgrimages. Just hole up, develop your nuke and fuck everyone over.

You sure about that? The Mangaecca were one of the Gnostic Schools of the North, and they may not have burned all their connections when they relocated to Golgotterah in secret.

I agree, it's pure ego and thinking that they can't be stopped. At the same time, they could simply wait and know that they can't be stopped. Why not wait? As Kellhus says, why risk death to stave off discomfort?

That's why I attributed it to arrogance and over-confidence, although there's some weirdness with the No-God. Considering that it is controlling the Sranc, Wracu, etc, it may have chosen to have gone to the battlefield to do the whole "WHAT DO YOU SEE?" thing.

Though that's another bit of oddness I don't get. The Inchoroi and what I would imagine is left of the sorcerers of the Mangaeccea and the nonmen erratics are all immortal. Why do they care if they're damned?

They're immortal, yes - provided something doesn't kill them. Provided that an accident doesn't occur, or one of their fellows doesn't back-stab them, and so forth. The Inchoroi aboard the Ark probably thought they were immortal as well, right up to the point where the crash killed most of them.

[Cantabile]

They aren't stimulating neurons, they're destroying them with neuropuncture. Loss of function in some certain area to get a result. Alas, I can't seem to find anything on intentional neurodestructive operations to induce paralysis. So who knows.

I looked up the passage. For some reason I thought there was a torture scene with Neuropuncture, but the only mention is:

A single gold pin had been driven into its skull, which, according to the arcane principles of Neuropuncture, had forced the thing to unclench its face.

Whatever the pin is piercing is obviously not in human beings, so I suppose there's not much point trying to figure it out. That they possessed technology to engineer brain areas for the control of the faces, however, is pretty interesting. I had always thought of the skin-spies' faces are more of a mechanical design; being capable of designing biological life like that rather makes the rape aliens God-like figures.

[jurble]

There's a neuropuncture scene in WP, I believe in the Thousand Thousand Halls.

[Happy Ent]

I also don't know why the Inchies made the Nonmen immortal.

Here's my best attempt at an explanation:

Immortality and the womb-plauge in Bakker's metaphysics are closely linked phenomena. To us, they look different to the point of being opposite, but that is because we're coming at it from the wrong angle.

The important thing is not to kill nonwomen, or to make nonmen immortal. The important thing is to stop the circle of souls.

This rests on the following assumption of mine, half-cobbled together from bits and pieces. Let me sketch it. The Outside is malleable, in particular it is malleable to the denizens who inhabit it. The Outside (or parts of it) is also where souls go and come from. Let me call it the staging area. Close to it is Hell. That's the part of the Outside where the damned souls go. Achamian, Aurang, children who don't keep their hands above the blanket.

Remember that I assume that the rules for damnations are subject to the opinions of humans. If enough people believe that, say, arborists are damned, the It Is So. How should this work? Through the circle of souls. When the human soul travels "back", it syncs its moral compass with the assembled meta-consiousness of the Outside ("the God"). Lucky souls go to the staging area and are made flesh again the week after. Unlucky souls go to Hell.

This idea solves various problems. For once, it explains why humans are more important than Nonmen. This is a problem only lightly touched on by Tolkien, but this circle-of-souls idea explains it: Humans update the Outside more often than Nonmen (Elves), so the longevity of the superiour race is a handicap with respect to rewriting the rules for damnation. That's why the suffering of the Enwamma (sp?) managed to doom the Nonmen. That's why a short life cycle wins the battle for hearts and minds, and why the mortal race is morally superiour to the Eldar.

These are my priors.

So, from that it makes sense for the Inchies to stop the Noman circle of souls. If only the Nonmen stopped updating the Outside all the time, life would be sweet. So the Inchoroi stop the circle of souls. This means Nonmen don't die anymore (hey! that sounded good on paper even to them). It also means they aren't born anymore. This happens to kill all the Nonwomen, for example when they try to give birth to an unsouled something. (The anatomical/magical reasons for this are unknown to me but easily rationalised. Females must have some ethernet cable to the Outside that ends in their womb, which is active whenever a baby is conceived. This cable is broken, crashing the female operating system.)

What I like about this idea is that it makes the womb plague and the immortality the same thing. It's not a complicated differential procedure. It's the same procedure, which just happens to kill all the women.

(Why didn't they just kill all the Nonmen? I don't know. Maybe they fought back, while the above procedure seemed to be implementable by ostensibly friendly means.)

[Jussi]

If we believe the new Orbit catalogue, The White-Luck Warrior will be 592 pages.

http://www.exacteditions.com/exact/browse/474/1204/7716/2/309

Publishing date is May 2011.

[Spring Bass]

I'm more inclined to think that it was the Inchoroi sticking the knife in and twisting it. They clearly seemed to think that they could handle the angry Non-men response via a combination of the Weapons Race and their remaining advanced weaponry, so maybe they figured they could get revenge for King Sil and the Inchoroi killed in the first conflict while wiping out the population of en-souled beings.

Alternatively, the Inchoroi may not have all been on the same page at the time. The TTT glossary does describe the Inchoroi physicians making a heroic effort to save the life of Cu'jara Cinmoi's wife for a while, before fleeing.

[Old Nan]

I have a vague recollection that Bakker likes to stay somewhat in-character for those sorts of things. Is TTT glossary written by someone who would have any idea what a heroic effort would actually look like?