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Bakker XLVI: Make Eärwa Great Again


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8 hours ago, Triskan said:

That was some very thought-provoking stuff in those two long posts.  But I worry that it's too clever and nothing so elaborate will turn up.  Kind of like your Moe-was-behind-it-all theory that I so wanted to be true but now fear is not.

Can't be worse then memory of light. :(

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On 2/4/2017 at 8:16 PM, Callan S. said:

Is it near Golgoterath? It'd be so bad ass if the nonmen were turned to ash by the Arc falls fiery blast and that becomes Chanv!

No, it is in Jekhia, which is the northern part of High Ainon.  There is a still yet unnamed mansion to the west of the River Sayut, as per this map I don't think the theory really holds up.  One, it is too far west and south, the glossary specifically mentions it comes from near the Great Kayarsus mountains, not the Osthwai Mountains..  My idea was that perhaps there is a charnel house there, where perhaps many Nonmen we burned, but I think the glossary's mention that Jekhians display the same racial characteristics as Xiuhianni speaks to the source really being Eänna and the actual Xiuhianni themselves.

That doesn't preclude that it isn't related in some way to Qirri, or burned Nonmen, but just that I think it's not the remains of a mansion as I thought it could have been.

On 2/5/2017 at 1:11 AM, lokisnow said:

Would like to point out that this made me think about how Koringhus' "Zero" and "The ThousandFold Thought" are nominally in rhetorical opposition to one another and this is probably very important.

I for one think the visions in both TWP and TGO of "kellhus" are not visions of kellhus, not even future kellhus recursively disrupting time, but are of Koringhus, doing what Inrau did in TDTCB ("calling out from the dark" after he died) but with far greater skill and agency. 

Which begs the question of how Inrau and Koringhus are similar.

Regarding why Moenghus never realized the objectivity of damnation, he (presumably) always believed it to be a mass delusion, much as most people on earth don't believe in burning in hell for eternity for telling a white lie when you're two years old, despite that being, you know, what most religions posit, that living is an inherently sinful existence and can only be mediated through the religion interceding on your behalf so you're not damned to burn in hell for all eternity because one time you put on your left shoe first instead of your right shoe first and that is unorthodox and a sin and therefore you're damned.  Moenghus always adhered to the dunyain beliefs of being above it all, whereas both Kellhus and Koringhus were broken by extended physical and psychological trauma.

Well, I definitely posited that perhaps the vision was Koringhus, but the line in TGO where the vision says:

"I war not with Men, it says, but with the God."

This definitely makes me disbelieve it is Koringhus.  Indeed, the only person mad enough to think they could win a war with the gods would be Kellhus really.  Even the Consult didn't ever bother to war with them directly.

On 2/5/2017 at 2:14 AM, lokisnow said:

also "the exalted?" is that a term for the nonmen? or a term for their god prisoners? Humans claim the gods came to them and gave them the tusk (would make sense if they'd recently been freed) and the nonmen would have a vested interest in believing their precious beloved "exalted" would not betray them and call them false, chiseling a meme into the hearts of mankind.

It's what Ishroi means, "Exalted Ones."  The passage there laments how the Mansions didn't listen to the call to teach men first.  Instead, Cil-Aujas wanted them as slaves and Siöl wanted them dead.  So here I think Ishroi basically means the leaders of the Mansions.

"What had they thought, the remaining Sons of Siöl, as the Mannish vermin rampaged through the glorious halls of the House Primordial? What had they thought, the remaining Sons of Cil-Aujas, when they retired from the fields of Mir’joril, and barred the Gates of their Mansion?

What had they thought of this last great insult, this final atrocity inflicted by their conquered foe?

Had they seen error … or just more injustice?"

So, it would seem to be a lament that the Ishroi were too haughty to bring themselves to the level of teaching.  Then, of course, the Siqu finally did and it was far too late.

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8 hours ago, .H. said:

No, it is in Jekhia, which is the northern part of High Ainon.  There is a still yet unnamed mansion to the west of the River Sayut, as per this map I don't think the theory really holds up.  One, it is too far west and south, the glossary specifically mentions it comes from near the Great Kayarsus mountains, not the Osthwai Mountains..  My idea was that perhaps there is a charnel house there, where perhaps many Nonmen we burned, but I think the glossary's mention that Jekhians display the same racial characteristics as Xiuhianni speaks to the source really being Eänna and the actual Xiuhianni themselves.

That doesn't preclude that it isn't related in some way to Qirri, or burned Nonmen, but just that I think it's not the remains of a mansion as I thought it could have been.

 

Oh well.

Off topic, I've seen the maps before with the rings included. Just had a thought about the Survivor saying 'This has all happened before'.

What if each ring is actually the site of a prior Golgoterath? The impact of the arc threw up a ring of mountains around it, after all. What if this story has happened before, like there had been multiple Zion's in the Matrix? At some point it all gets reset, then eventually an arc fall is made/manipulated to happen...?

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On 02/05/2017 at 4:13 PM, akh said:

How realistic do we estimate the current release dates for the new book are?

Bakker commented on a response on his latest blog post that he's working through the copy-edit, which means - assumptively - that his Overlook editor has given Bakker notes on their TUC due diligence.

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15 hours ago, Callan S. said:

Oh well.

Off topic, I've seen the maps before with the rings included. Just had a thought about the Survivor saying 'This has all happened before'.

What if each ring is actually the site of a prior Golgoterath? The impact of the arc threw up a ring of mountains around it, after all. What if this story has happened before, like there had been multiple Zion's in the Matrix? At some point it all gets reset, then eventually an arc fall is made/manipulated to happen...?

Well, I don't think the are sites of other Arks, per se, but maybe the "other Scaldings" that Bakker alluded to in that TGO feedback thread.

The question then is, what the hell were they nuking in those places?  What would be out there in the Great Ocean?  What would be worth nuking in the Great Southern Kayarsus?  And are we to include Cironj in there too?  It doesn't make sense, so perhaps I need to circle back around.

So, if they were previous "landings," who came?  And why?  The Nonmen?  And humans?  Perhaps then all species are actually alien to Earwa/Eanna.  Hmmm...

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Well, nukes don't throw up mountain ranges, so it'd have to be arks or weapon ships.

If destroying, perhaps they weren't trying to destroy the human cities - the cities don't actually matter to this. It was something about the planet itself they were trying to crack? Perhaps trying to reveal something beneath?

Random side thought: Also wouldn't it be funny if Aurang was just some janitor that survived the Ark crash, when the real leaders knew what the goal was but died so we're not seeing the proper perspective with Aurang. Then Aurang would actually be the prince of nothing, since Kellhus technically is royalty.

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37 minutes ago, Callan S. said:

Random side thought: Also wouldn't it be funny if Aurang was just some janitor that survived the Ark crash, when the real leaders knew what the goal was but died so we're not seeing the proper perspective with Aurang. Then Aurang would actually be the prince of nothing, since Kellhus technically is royalty.

As funny as it would be Bakker already said flatly that Aurang and Aurax aren't just random Joes.  They were important before and still are.  Aurang's soliloquy already gives us that hint anyway, but doesn't necessarily point to a prominent position pre-Arkfall, however Bakker says more into will come in TUC.

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1 hour ago, unJon said:

Huge slow clap for @lokisnow  

Amazing crackpot, buddy. 

He's the best at them. When Bakker said that some of the theories were so good, he had to quit looking at them, to stay true to his original story. In my head, I was thinking he had read some of Locke's stuff.

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OK, popping in this thread to ask one or two questions, and hopefully not be spoiled about TGOI have not read The Great Ordeal, and have recently started a re-read of the entire series ahead of reading that book. I've just finished my re-read of The Darkness That Comes Before. I know that quite a bunch of stuff escaped me when I first read them, so here's hoping less stuff escapes me now. I also have not pondered these books as much as you guys, but here is me pondering.

One question I have right now regarding geography and the logistical aspect of the Holy War: why not attack Shimeh by sea? The way the map is drawn suggests that a faster route would be to assemble all the armies on Nron (sure they might require permission from the Mandate, but House Nersei already has some kind of contract with the Mandate) and invade from there. I think with the exception of the Galeothi, the rest used ships anyway to reach Momemn. And yes, the sea tends to be stormy, but surely they can pick a season with the least number of storms and invade. And yes, I understand what Bakker was trying to do, the grueling march, the parallels with the First Crusade to the middle-east, Kellhus's journey and possession of the Holy War, but at the very least I would have wanted an argument inserted in the story as to why a sea invasion would be a bad idea. Or the map be drawn differently to brook no argument as to why the attack on Shimeh has to be this way,

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Well, I would imagine that you can draw the same reasons why it wouldn't work in real life to why it wouldn't work in the books though.

In fact, there is an even better reason presented in WP than any of the mundane logistical reasons, simply there just wouldn't be anywhere near enough Chorae to protect a fleet of that size from the Cishaurim.  Even if they had all the Great Names on there and all the bowmen, what's to stop them just slapping waves onto the boats until they sink?  Not much, I'd think.

In a world of sorcery, it seems best to stay standing on solid ground.

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38 minutes ago, Callan S. said:

How many boats would that take?

I'll need to follow this up with more research, but it is implied that the "naval technology" is akin to the 15th to 17th century.  So, ships would seem to be mostly galleys, some galleons probably mixed in here or there and maybe they might have had a few galleass sort of ships as well.  It's unclear if they would have things like we would call carracks though.

For reference, even after the Vulgur Holy war is destroyed, battles faught, the sickness and starvation of crossing the Carathay, there are still 40,000 men in the Holy War.

For comparison, the Spanish Armada was "composed of 130 ships, 8,000 sailors and 18,000 soldiers" so you'd figure they'd need about twice that many ships, at the very least for just 40,000.

But recall that it was "Some three hundred thousand souls, perhaps three-fifths of them combatants, had marched under the Tusk into Khemema."  So, that means they'd need about 15 times more ships, so 1,950 or so.

I really don't think they'd have anywhere near that many.  Maybe 200 or so at most.

EDIT: There are mentions of carracks, so they would have had those.

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39 minutes ago, .H. said:

I'll need to follow this up with more research, but it is implied that the "naval technology" is akin to the 15th to 17th century.  So, ships would seem to be mostly galleys, some galleons probably mixed in here or there and maybe they might have had a few galleass sort of ships as well.  It's unclear if they would have things like we would call carracks though.

For reference, even after the Vulgur Holy war is destroyed, battles faught, the sickness and starvation of crossing the Carathay, there are still 40,000 men in the Holy War.

For comparison, the Spanish Armada was "composed of 130 ships, 8,000 sailors and 18,000 soldiers" so you'd figure they'd need about twice that many ships, at the very least for just 40,000.

But recall that it was "Some three hundred thousand souls, perhaps three-fifths of them combatants, had marched under the Tusk into Khemema."  So, that means they'd need about 15 times more ships, so 1,950 or so.

I really don't think they'd have anywhere near that many.  Maybe 200 or so at most.

EDIT: There are mentions of carracks, so they would have had those.

Yes, but they could build them. And yes carracks from that other island in the Three Seas were made available. Plus, if the war had been prosecuted in the form of a naval expedition, the Vulgar Holy War might not have existed at all. 

Also regarding the Cishaurim, the Men of the Tusk have the Scarlet Spires. So if the Fanim sent out a fleet against the Inritithi, the two sorcerer schools would be busy fighting each other. 

But my main point is not that it can't or shouldn't be done, I understand all the reasons why; my point is that this issue is not addressed in the books, especially considering the geography of the land. At least not in the first one. When Proyas travels with his forces to Momemn, his fleet is scattered on the sea, and at one point he gets close to Shimeh, so I would think that a naval invasion isn't all that preposterous to contemplate. I am starting my re-read of the Warrior-Prophet so maybe a better answer will be provided. I remember that the Nansur send their fleet along the coast to keep the armies supplied, but I don't remember if they're challenged by any Fanim fleet.

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2 minutes ago, Corvinus said:

Yes, but they could build them. And yes carracks from that other island in the Three Seas were made available. Plus, if the war had been prosecuted in the form of a naval expedition, the Vulgar Holy War might not have existed at all. 

Also regarding the Cishaurim, the Men of the Tusk have the Scarlet Spires. So if the Fanim sent out a fleet against the Inritithi, the two sorcerer schools would be busy fighting each other. 

But my main point is not that it can't or shouldn't be done, I understand all the reasons why; my point is that this issue is not addressed in the books, especially considering the geography of the land. At least not in the first one. When Proyas travels with his forces to Momemn, his fleet is scattered on the sea, and at one point he gets close to Shimeh, so I would think that a naval invasion isn't all that preposterous to contemplate. I am starting my re-read of the Warrior-Prophet so maybe a better answer will be provided. I remember that the Nansur send their fleet along the coast to keep the armies supplied, but I don't remember if they're challenged by any Fanim fleet.

Well, yes, they could build them.  The problem is the same that the Ottomans had post-Lepanto, which was that they could pretty easily rebuild the fleet, but they couldn't easily re-crew the fleet with real, experienced, worthwhile sailors.  Look at those numbers again, what I failed to highlight is that 130 ships required 8,000 sailors.  So, 1,950 ships would need 120,000 sailors to crew it.  Those could be trained, indeed, but not in a year and change, not by a long shot.

In the end though, you are right, the book doesn't give you a direct answer.  I guess it is just left for you to figure on.  I mean, you have to suspend some disbelief at points, so to me, figuring that they were at least smart enough to consider it and rejected it is enough, YRMV.

Indeed, about Chapter 21 of TWP, you find out why the Fanim haven't been really doing much at sea previously.

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1 hour ago, Corvinus said:

Yes, but they could build them. And yes carracks from that other island in the Three Seas were made available. Plus, if the war had been prosecuted in the form of a naval expedition, the Vulgar Holy War might not have existed at all. 

Also regarding the Cishaurim, the Men of the Tusk have the Scarlet Spires. So if the Fanim sent out a fleet against the Inritithi, the two sorcerer schools would be busy fighting each other. 

But my main point is not that it can't or shouldn't be done, I understand all the reasons why; my point is that this issue is not addressed in the books, especially considering the geography of the land.

Maybe it's meant to be a begged question then - perhaps Moe had Mathanet arrange it to be by land, as part of Kellhus's conditioning process? Otherwise he'd have become a jolly pirate, arr!

But I think like H said, it's possibly that the army would be very vulnerable to cishurim destruction while on water. But yeah, you're right, not much talk about going by sea and why not. One might even say a conspicuous absence (and possibly a deliberate one by the author)

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1 hour ago, Corvinus said:

Yes, but they could build them. And yes carracks from that other island in the Three Seas were made available. Plus, if the war had been prosecuted in the form of a naval expedition, the Vulgar Holy War might not have existed at all. 

Also regarding the Cishaurim, the Men of the Tusk have the Scarlet Spires. So if the Fanim sent out a fleet against the Inritithi, the two sorcerer schools would be busy fighting each other. 

But my main point is not that it can't or shouldn't be done, I understand all the reasons why; my point is that this issue is not addressed in the books, especially considering the geography of the land. At least not in the first one. When Proyas travels with his forces to Momemn, his fleet is scattered on the sea, and at one point he gets close to Shimeh, so I would think that a naval invasion isn't all that preposterous to contemplate. I am starting my re-read of the Warrior-Prophet so maybe a better answer will be provided. I remember that the Nansur send their fleet along the coast to keep the armies supplied, but I don't remember if they're challenged by any Fanim fleet.

Absent the industrial revolution one cannot manufacture ships, crew them and use them for troop transport for the brand spanking new idea of a "naval invasion".

all wood construction required a lot of lumber, trees have to be processed, dried, cured and treated before the pieces of wood you would expect arrive at your local earwa Home Depot ready for boat construction. So figure you need a lumber supply of x well you have to invest a lot of time in waiting for the processed wood to be of an acceptable quality for construction to commence.

also cutting trees down by hand is an expensive labor intensive process, and unless your forests are near a swift navigable river, are extremely difficult to export from the source en masse. Of course if you do float the logs down the river add more time for waiting for the lumber to dry out.

and on the first order level, tree harvest is of course skilled labor, it can be learned ina season, but you can't just throw 10,000 men at it and 20,000 beasts of burden and expect the problem to be solved in a time frame proportional to the labor increase.

Note, this is also before the concurrent development of mass education that accompanied the industrial revolution, do you have no in world concept of educating a large group of conscripts to harvest trees, the only way this knowledge is transferred is by one on one or small group transfer.

additionally, you have the logistics of supplying the tree harvesters with food and fodder and all the problems of that which are exacerbated by the fact that you probably took a lot of farmers out of the fields when you conscripted them and their livestock.

so that is harvest. Same problems for processing by hand all the logs into suitable ship construction lumber. Extremely skilled labor, probably also requires massive unprecedented investment in massive kilns to dry the lumber, so large capital start up costs and commensurate time frame problems.

next the really complicated part, assembling the ship which is probably two orders of magnitude more skilled labor and thus a smaller labor supply and requiring more time to learn the massively more complicated task.

there are no economies of scale in construction either because everything is assembled by hand, every tool is handmade and unique, every method of fastening two pieces of wood together is a unique method imposed by the uniqueness of the tools of the employee holding said tools. So building a ship takes a long time.

Etc etc.  you can't just say build a thousand ships because the spaniards tried and only got less than two hundred over decades of build up and that number was insufficient to transport an invading force.

one hundred years after the industrial revolution however, a naval invasion was successful at Normandy, so if earwa gets an industrial revolution, a hundred years later they should be ready to invade by sea.

 

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17 hours ago, Michael Seswatha Jordan said:

He's the best at them. When Bakker said that some of the theories were so good, he had to quit looking at them, to stay true to his original story. In my head, I was thinking he had read some of Locke's stuff.

All the embarrassed emojis. He was probably referring to white lord from the archaic forum.

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23 minutes ago, lokisnow said:

Absent the industrial revolution one cannot manufacture ships, crew them and use them for troop transport for the brand spanking new idea of a "naval invasion".

all wood construction required a lot of lumber, trees have to be processed, dried, cured and treated before the pieces of wood you would expect arrive at your local earwa Home Depot ready for boat construction. So figure you need a lumber supply of x well you have to invest a lot of time in waiting for the processed wood to be of an acceptable quality for construction to commence.

also cutting trees down by hand is an expensive labor intensive process, and unless your forests are near a swift navigable river, are extremely difficult to export from the source en masse. Of course if you do float the logs down the river add more time for waiting for the lumber to dry out.

and on the first order level, tree harvest is of course skilled labor, it can be learned ina season, but you can't just throw 10,000 men at it and 20,000 beasts of burden and expect the problem to be solved in a time frame proportional to the labor increase.

Note, this is also before the concurrent development of mass education that accompanied the industrial revolution, do you have no in world concept of educating a large group of conscripts to harvest trees, the only way this knowledge is transferred is by one on one or small group transfer.

additionally, you have the logistics of supplying the tree harvesters with food and fodder and all the problems of that which are exacerbated by the fact that you probably took a lot of farmers out of the fields when you conscripted them and their livestock.

so that is harvest. Same problems for processing by hand all the logs into suitable ship construction lumber. Extremely skilled labor, probably also requires massive unprecedented investment in massive kilns to dry the lumber, so large capital start up costs and commensurate time frame problems.

next the really complicated part, assembling the ship which is probably two orders of magnitude more skilled labor and thus a smaller labor supply and requiring more time to learn the massively more complicated task.

there are no economies of scale in construction either because everything is assembled by hand, every tool is handmade and unique, every method of fastening two pieces of wood together is a unique method imposed by the uniqueness of the tools of the employee holding said tools. So building a ship takes a long time.

Etc etc.  you can't just say build a thousand ships because the spaniards tried and only got less than two hundred over decades of build up and that number was insufficient to transport an invading force.

one hundred years after the industrial revolution however, a naval invasion was successful at Normandy, so if earwa gets an industrial revolution, a hundred years later they should be ready to invade by sea.

 

All of this is valid only if the nations of the Three Seas are non-maritime nations, which considering how much opening each of the nations has at the Meneanor, I find hard to believe. So in reality, the majority of the ships for transport should already be available to them. And this is partially shown in that entire contingents of thousands of people arrive at Momemn by sea.

The ancient Greeks were able to build huge fleets of hundreds ships. The Romans, the Persians, the Egyptians, and the Carthaginians also were able to field huge fleets. And in the case of the Carthaginians, I'm not sure how much wood area they had in Africa. Most of it probably came from Spain, so it's entirely doable to build large fleets. And the Three Seas is a land where slavery is prevalent, where the slave population probably heavily outnumbers the population of free people, so the labor exists, and can be put to this kind of work, as well as the capacity to have oarsmen for ships. 

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