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The Unholy Consult Post-Release SPOILER THREAD


Werthead

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RE: Hologram or Timeline, rereading found another line for Hologram

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The Most Holy Aspect-Emperor fell as a mote through immobile air, seemed to flicker or waver for some otherworldly light.

Bakker, R. Scott. The Unholy Consult: Book Four of the Aspect-Emperor series (Aspect Emperor 4) (Kindle Locations 7856-7858). Little, Brown Book Group. Kindle Edition.

He flickered >_>.

Oh, some more:

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His very image twitched for unearthly power, the lines of him scribbling for a heartbeat, then no more.

Bakker, R. Scott. The Unholy Consult: Book Four of the Aspect-Emperor series (Aspect Emperor 4) (Kindle Locations 7895-7896). Little, Brown Book Group. Kindle Edition.

He went all Obi-wan-from-R2 for a bit.

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@Hello World

Does anyone have any links handy to recent comments from Bakker about TSTSNBN? I agree that TUC without a doubt appears to be the setup to a third series, but I don't think that justifies all of the ambiguities. Many of the theories in this thread seem like reasonable explanations of what has transpired in TUC and throughout the series, but so many other seemingly reasonable reader-spawned explanations have gone unaddressed that I don't know how I feel. 

I don't think it's fair to make the comparison to ASoIaF either: the continuity between TUC and whatever might come next is different than Winds of Winter and the 7th book, because ASoIaF isnt broken up into distinct chunks like TSA. 

Maybe I am wrong, but my interpretation has always been that Bakker considered TSTSNBN a possibility, but not a certainty. If not then great. I still think it's questionable to introduce characters and prep them as potential story material for a future trilogy by handwaving them away or simply not mentioning them again. 

Someone else (I think Kalbear? Or else  Wert) mentioned the Consult being built up as a powerful force to be reckoned with, only to have that idea deconstructed. I agree with them that the intellectual intent is powerful even if the execution doesn't eliminate the sense that expectations were betrayed - but at the same time as Bakker sets up that particular reversal, he brings Cnauir back for no unambiguous purpose. 

I dunno. My kneejerk vitriol definitely calmed since finishing the book, but a forthcoming third series feels like a flimsy justification. I thought some things were done well, and a lot of others were understandable even if they werent my particular cup of tea, but my personal takeaway is that Bakker didn't bring everything together for the conclusion of this story arc, even if (and it doesnt seem to be) it wasnt the conclusion of the entire series. 

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2 hours ago, Kalbear said:

I don't think that follows; you're assuming that the Zero-God that Koringhus follows is the same as the God that was splintered into the gods. I am not. 

But yeah, we're certainly talking about ambiguities. You're no different than me in that regard.

I was actually referring to one particular conversation between Kellhus and Achamian IIRC where everyone was supposedly inhabited the same place.  

Your position seems to revolve around the differences between the One God and the Solitary God.  I'm not sure at all how the One God and Solitary God resolve themselves or if they do at all.  My point was just to show that just as you referred to the 100 gods came from a single God, we also have text implying if not saying something very similar about human souls.  And since I'm entirely not sure how any of this resolves, I cited the Psatma/Meppa exchange because these two opposing viewpoints seem to agree that Ciphrang and God's are basically the same thing.  So regardless of which over-god version we're talking about, I feel there's still evidence there I can use either way.

Plus the splintered from a single God thing doesn't make sense to me.  The Gods should have always existed right?  Do we share this assumption?  This is why I cited the conversation I did because I really have no clue.

I'm paraphrasing the Kellhus/Akka thing from memory as I type from my phone.  I can check later when I have my kindle.

2 hours ago, Kalbear said:

Again, we have explicitly in the text that both Kellhus and the DunSult think otherwise.

I'm not even contesting this.  What does this mean though?  If I reason a black hole, which I cannot observe, based on its observable effects then to me that's reasoning.  Some gods have done exactly this with the No-God.  That's stated too.  Plus we have a their lack of time perception.  I can reason that if I go to work tomorrow that I won't be at home.  But to a being outside of time they just know what happens tomorrow anyway.  There's no need for actual reasoning.

2 hours ago, Kalbear said:

We don't know if Cnaiur's swazond are more than symbolic, and when Mimara looked at him she saw the souls in the Swazond trapped and writhing around. For whatever reason, Cnaiur is bound to a lot of souls directly and we have some information about that. We have none about Kellhus, especially as how he pertains to those who worship him.

The context of that conversation was around Cnaür's atrocities though.  If not stated then it's heavily implied that killing lots and lots of people is relevant to Cnaür becoming a demon.  If we share that assumption then Kellhus' murders would somehow be less damming for whatever reason if his genocides don't damn him like Cnaür's.

2 hours ago, Kalbear said:

All sorts of things. For instance, you can have a magic pouch given by the gods which hides a chorae. We have Sorweel holding chorae, and Kellhus still cannot see the glamour put on Sorweel. We have nothing stopping Yatwer's obliteration earlier. We have Ajokli literally using godpower to pull down 100 skin-spies with chorae. There is no sign that Psatma or Sorweel or the WLW are in any way marked by sorcery. No one ever detects them. 

This isn't accurate. The 100 existed prior to the Tusk. The Tusk was simply what the Inchoroi wrote down as a transcription of the stories and tales by the men. And the only thing they inserted into the Tusk that was different was that the God believes the false men to be damned. Everything else was there before.

There are so very many, starting as far back as Cnaiur in TTT that I'm aware of.

That's not exactly what I was asking about.  I was asking about how the gods would react to a Chorae touching them.  Not seeing sorcery doesn't actually prove anything.  The Cishaurim all do sorcery and none of them leave a Mark.  They still salt.  Making the Chorae drop to the ground in the Golden Room is a good example but it's basically hell anyway and Chorae just send sorcerers where they belong, hell.

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50 minutes ago, odium said:

Maybe I am wrong, but my interpretation has always been that Bakker considered TSTSNBN a possibility, but not a certainty. If not then great. I still think it's questionable to introduce characters and prep them as potential story material for a future trilogy by handwaving them away or simply not mentioning them again. 

 

The bolded is why I wanted a definitive end and answers. 

The way things have been going there's been a lot of draining ambiguity about the series and where it'll go and I don't think it's always been optimistic. It's like with Agents of Shield; it kinda gets a bit tiresome to feel like you're following something great that's also  on the bubble, especially with the mysteries involved. 

But apparently the ambiguity is settled and he's working on the next one? 

 

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That's not exactly what I was asking about.  I was asking about how the gods would react to a Chorae touching them.  Not seeing sorcery doesn't actually prove anything.  The Cishaurim all do sorcery and none of them leave a Mark.  They still salt.  Making the Chorae drop to the ground in the Golden Room is a good example but it's basically hell anyway and Chorae just send sorcerers where they belong, hell.

If the situation with the wight at Cil-Aujas is any example then wouldn't work on Gods right? 

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5 hours ago, Damned with the Wind said:

The whole point of the series is free will doesn't exist and the universe is deterministic. 

 

Well I would have said the whole point of the series is to examine what it would be like to live in a non-deterministic universe - things that baffled Kell and Koringhus.

 

5 hours ago, kuenjato said:

But that is a fallacy IMO, and it's the fallacy that turned Kellhus into salt. Only the concept of an omniscient God of Gods could have that much "computational power." In this series, the GoG is blind and broken, at least according to what the text has presented us.

 

Isn't this the big difference between Inrithism and Fanimry, one believes that God is immanent and the other that he is transcendent. From what we have seen from the Eye so far it seems like the Fanim were right, that God is aware and constantly Judging.

 

4 hours ago, MisterGuyMan said:

Well time doesn't matter in the outside.  The whiteluck pretty much guarantees a fixed outcome and we see prophecy is a fact.  The only exception is Kelmomas who can screw it all up but he's either entangled with Ajokli or immune to God sight as the No-God.  Even with him, his actual No-God-hood seems to be preordained.  Nau Cayuti was the only one that could activate the Sarcophagus because the Anasurimbur line has always been the only line that could do so.  I interprete this to mean that the entire blood requirement has been preordained.

 

I think you are giving too much credit to the Anasurimbor bloodline, the Coffin seems to be more concerned with souls than with blood. Like Kal said, there is a very good chance that NC was not Cel's son. For all we know maybe whats needed to wake the No God is a 150+ IQ or an unhealthy obsession with a parent. Or, more likely, maybe NC was also twin-souled like Kelmomas.

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28 minutes ago, Sheep the Evicted said:


Isn't this the big difference between Inrithism and Fanimry, one believes that God is immanent and the other that he is transcendent. From what we have seen from the Eye so far it seems like the Fanim were right, that God is aware and constantly Judging.

But doesn't some of the stuff that Koringhus and Kellhus say/do imply that the God/Absolute really is the combination of all the fragments that consider themselves separate souls like the Inrithi believe?

 

Goddamnit, what's going on???

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1 hour ago, Castel said:

If the situation with the wight at Cil-Aujas is any example then wouldn't work on Gods right? 

In all honesty I have no idea what happened in that scene.  I just Google it and Google says the Judging Eye and a Chorae exorcized the wight.

25 minutes ago, Sheep the Evicted said:

I think you are giving too much credit to the Anasurimbor bloodline, the Coffin seems to be more concerned with souls than with blood. Like Kal said, there is a very good chance that NC was not Cel's son. For all we know maybe whats needed to wake the No God is a 150+ IQ or an unhealthy obsession with a parent. Or, more likely, maybe NC was also twin-souled like Kelmomas.

Maybe... it seems highly coincidental to me though if the Consult has been feeding souls into the Sarcophagus for who knows how long and the Dunyain make a theory on who which soul will do the trick and then the first guy that fits the description happens to do the trick... but for the wrong reasons.

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14 minutes ago, MisterGuyMan said:

In all honesty I have no idea what happened in that scene.  I just Google it and Google says the Judging Eye and a Chorae exorcized the wight.

Which Akka states isn't possible normally, cause powerful things like Wights coming from the Outside/Hell bring their own frame into the world. 

Mimara did some Judging Eye magic but usually Chorae don't work.

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When he reminded her that the Captain also carried a Chorae, one that apparently made no difference, she would simply shrug as if to say, "Well, I'm not the Captain, am I?" Time and again, Achamian found himself circling back to the issue. He could not do otherwise. Even when he ignored her, he could sense her Chorae against her breast, like a whiff of oblivion, or the scratch of some otherworldly burr.


The School of Mandate had long eschewed the Daimotic Arts: Seswatha had believed Ciphrang too capricious to be yoked to human intent. Still, Achamian had some understanding of the metaphysics involved. He knew that some agencies could be summoned shorn of the Outside, plucked whole as it were, while others bore their realities with them, swamping the World with porous madness. The shade of Gin'yursis, Achamian knew, had been one of the latter.


Chorae only negated violations of the Real; they returned the world to its fundamental frame. But Gin'yursis had come as figure and frame—a symbol wedded to the very Hell that gave it meaning...
Mimara's Chorae should have been useless.

 

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9 minutes ago, Castel said:

Which Akka states isn't possible normally, cause powerful things like Wights coming from the Outside/Hell bring their own frame into the world. 

Mimara did some Judging Eye magic but usually Chorae don't work.

My understanding of Chorae is that they send Sorcerers back to hell.  Once you cast your first spell you're damned because that stuff only belongs in hell.  You touch a Chorae and you go back where you belong.  Toppos are basically places that are already in hell.

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10 minutes ago, MisterGuyMan said:

My understanding of Chorae is that they send Sorcerers back to hell.  Once you cast your first spell you're damned because that stuff only belongs in hell.  You touch a Chorae and you go back where you belong.  Toppos are basically places that are already in hell.

I quoted the relevant section. 

The Chorae seem to destroy any distortion in the world caused by magic, a Dragonhead is negated just like a Ciphrang (even though the Cant  isn't headed to Hell, it's just an expression of magic). Sorcerer's apparently have some of that distortion rub off on them and so they go away too when they get touched. Aporetic sorcery mainly seems to be about negating magic/distortions caused by magic, not sending things back to hell. Sorcerers and Ciphrang go to Hell mainly as a natural side-effect of being damned/being from there. 

Something like Wight is not destroyed  because it doesn't register as a distortion. 

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50 minutes ago, MisterGuyMan said:

My understanding of Chorae is that they send Sorcerers back to hell.  Once you cast your first spell you're damned because that stuff only belongs in hell.  You touch a Chorae and you go back where you belong.  Toppos are basically places that are already in hell.

Chorae are objects of aporetic sorcery.  They're basically contradiction detectors that revert things into the proper frame i.e. they force the Created to cease to exist when in the frame of the Uncreated.

1 hour ago, Sheep the Evicted said:

Well I would have said the whole point of the series is to examine what it would be like to live in a non-deterministic universe - things that baffled Kell and Koringhus.

Well, I think the Bakker-stated goal is to examine a world where an Old Testament-style sin and damnation are literal truth.  Earwa is only non-deterministic when it's fatalistic.  But fatalism is just backwards determinism.   Were Earwa not determinisitc/fatalistic, then becoming The Absolute, a Self-Moving Soul, would cease to be a goal for the Dunyain.  But it remains the goal for both Kellhus and the DunSult.

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1 hour ago, Castel said:

I quoted the relevant section. 

The Chorae seem to destroy any distortion in the world caused by magic, a Dragonhead is negated just like a Ciphrang (even though the Cant  isn't headed to Hell, it's just an expression of magic). Sorcerer's apparently have some of that distortion rub off on them and so they go away too when they get touched. Aporetic sorcery mainly seems to be about negating magic/distortions caused by magic, not sending things back to hell. Sorcerers and Ciphrang go to Hell mainly as a natural side-effect of being damned/being from there. 

Something like Wight is not destroyed  because it doesn't register as a distortion. 

 

24 minutes ago, Damned with the Wind said:

Chorae are objects of aporetic sorcery.  They're basically contradiction detectors that revert things into the proper frame i.e. they force the Created to cease to exist when in the frame of the Uncreated.

We're not disagreeing.  The contradiction exists in the mundane world.  I'm fairly certain that we can agree that if you Chorae the wight in the outside, nothing will happen.  That's where demons go after they're salted.  Toppoi are no quite of the mundane world.  The narrative says he brought his own he'll with him.

Sorry for the weird quotation thingie.  I'm on my phone.

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3 hours ago, MisterGuyMan said:

I was actually referring to one particular conversation between Kellhus and Achamian IIRC where everyone was supposedly inhabited the same place.  

Yes - this was also the conclusion that Koringhus reached (for instance, he felt his son's hand get tickled through his own palm), an observation that Esmi reached, etc. It seems clear that this is one of the ways that souls are linked.

What is decidedly unclear is whether or not souls and gods are the same thing, or the zero-god that Koringhus refers to is the same thing as the God that was split into the 100 gods.

3 hours ago, MisterGuyMan said:

Plus the splintered from a single God thing doesn't make sense to me.  The Gods should have always existed right?  Do we share this assumption?  This is why I cited the conversation I did because I really have no clue.

We don't honestly know, but Bakker has said repeatedly that the God split the God into the gods. 

3 hours ago, MisterGuyMan said:

I'm not even contesting this.  What does this mean though?  If I reason a black hole, which I cannot observe, based on its observable effects then to me that's reasoning.  Some gods have done exactly this with the No-God.  That's stated too.  Plus we have a their lack of time perception.  I can reason that if I go to work tomorrow that I won't be at home.  But to a being outside of time they just know what happens tomorrow anyway.  There's no need for actual reasoning.

First off, you can absolutely observe a black hole, and we do it quite often now in a variety of ways. Just FYI :)

The only god we have that has any evidence of it doing anything about the No-God and the Consult is Ajokli, and it is also the only god that appears to have worked with anyone like Kellhus. 

The trick with the gods is that they know everything that exists which was created by God. Everything that exists via the God they can perceive, and they can perceive it throughout the entire timeline at any point (and in fact this is how they do see it). However, the No-God exists beyond them, as it is either the limit of their life or (my theory) exists beyond their life.

The gods start from an assumption that there exists nothing outside of their viewpoint. Why would they think otherwise? When people pleaded with them to save them from the No-God the first time, the gods confusedly answered in bizarre talk that basically said 'what?' As far as they could tell the humans were delusional. Only Ajokli was said to see further; only Ajokli was said to be able to take the reasoning leap that just because it could not see something did not mean it wasn't in existence. 

3 hours ago, MisterGuyMan said:

The context of that conversation was around Cnaür's atrocities though.  If not stated then it's heavily implied that killing lots and lots of people is relevant to Cnaür becoming a demon.  If we share that assumption then Kellhus' murders would somehow be less damming for whatever reason if his genocides don't damn him like Cnaür's.

Yet Cnaiur burns differently than anyone else Mimara has looked at. Even Kosoter - who has likely been far, far worse - didn't look like Cnaiur did. 

3 hours ago, MisterGuyMan said:

That's not exactly what I was asking about.  I was asking about how the gods would react to a Chorae touching them.  Not seeing sorcery doesn't actually prove anything.  The Cishaurim all do sorcery and none of them leave a Mark.  They still salt.  Making the Chorae drop to the ground in the Golden Room is a good example but it's basically hell anyway and Chorae just send sorcerers where they belong, hell.

Chorae do not send sorcerers where they belong; if that's what it did, Kosoter could not carry a chorae. There's a whole lot of talk about chorae and what they do and why, but 'send to hell' is not part of their direct function. 

In any case, there's no evidence that a god being touched by a chorae would salt or go to hell, and plenty of evidence against it. In particular here's the biggest deal: chorae simply do not work against things that fit within Earwa's maximally objective framework. They work on contradiction and meaning. Gods walking the earth is so common in Earwa that it's written about as not even that special. Cnaiur even wore a chorae while being ridden by Gilgaol in TTT. 

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2 hours ago, Sheep the Evicted said:

 

Well I would have said the whole point of the series is to examine what it would be like to live in a non-deterministic universe - things that baffled Kell and Koringhus.

What baffled Kellhus and Koringhus isn't that it's a non-deterministic universe; it's that it's a universe which already has happened and a universe that has actual meaning and intent. Kellhus and Koringhus are both (at least at the start) believers that any higher-level things about the world are not actually there, and are just people projecting their viewed meaning. This is what turns them around - they find that the world does, actually, have rules and judgment and morals that they cannot just change by saying things aren't cool. This is also what ultimately hosed the Inchoroi-Progenitors - they thought there was nothing but their desire, and they found out how wrong they were. 

2 hours ago, Sheep the Evicted said:

Isn't this the big difference between Inrithism and Fanimry, one believes that God is immanent and the other that he is transcendent. From what we have seen from the Eye so far it seems like the Fanim were right, that God is aware and constantly Judging.

From what I can tell it's neither; God is a place.

2 hours ago, Sheep the Evicted said:

I think you are giving too much credit to the Anasurimbor bloodline, the Coffin seems to be more concerned with souls than with blood. Like Kal said, there is a very good chance that NC was not Cel's son. For all we know maybe whats needed to wake the No God is a 150+ IQ or an unhealthy obsession with a parent. Or, more likely, maybe NC was also twin-souled like Kelmomas.

I honestly have no idea, and it's very confusing. The only thing that makes sense to me is that whatever is causing Akka's dreams to happen wants Akka to think that NC is Seswatha's son...for reasons. And...uh? Okay.

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27 minutes ago, MisterGuyMan said:

We're not disagreeing.  The contradiction exists in the mundane world.  I'm fairly certain that we can agree that if you Chorae the wight in the outside, nothing will happen.  That's where demons go after they're salted.  Toppoi are no quite of the mundane world.  The narrative says he brought his own he'll with him.

Sorry for the weird quotation thingie.  I'm on my phone.

We are disagreeing about one important thing, however - why sorcerers get salted.

They don't get salted because sorcery belongs in hell and something which uses sorcery but exists in Earwa is a contradiction. We have ample counterexamples for this: Cishaurim (the Psukhe existing doesn't mark them, doesn't cause any issues and belongs on Earwa), god-magic, most arcane objects other than Emilidis' creations, the stopping of actual sorcerous behavior (it doesn't send a Meppa Cataract to hell). 

Chorae don't send things to hell. They assert that what is happening in the maximally objective world of Earwa is what should be expected, and assert the contradiction of the meaning of sorcery. Sorcery says 'I want to shoot this dragonhead here', and the chorae say 'hey now, reality says there aren't dragonheads here, what's up', and that feedback causes the sorcery to stop working. Sorcerers carry around a Mark of all the sorcery they've done, so the chorae unravels them quite quickly as they shouldn't have a record of what they did (as it is impossible), but they did it. Oops.

Because this works on meaning, this protects from Cishaurim as well; while they do something that recalls the precise word of God in creation, it isn't what God actually did. 

With Topoi and the wight, this doesn't work because the frame is 'correct'. The chorae checks the checksum of the place and time, notices that 'yep, hell is here, this is fine' and checks out. What Mimara does (I think) is allow the power of the Judging Eye to assert the actual Earwan frame regardless of Topoi and other. So yeah, you're right - because the Wight brings hell with it, it cannot be a contradiction. Now, use that implication for all the stuff we've ever seen of gods. 

Gods come to Earwa of their own volition. They do so naturally; they are not summoned. Things that have been touched by gods bear no mark or stain of sorcery. They can use chorae happily afterwards. And they do so far from topoi or anything else. This implies one of two things: that gods either always can bring hell with them into the world at any point, or (my theory) gods are a natural part of the world process and are doing nothing that a chorae would consider out of place.

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Right, something that I didn't get. When Kellhus asks the Dunyain why they would create a no-god instead of killing everyone with other means, their answer was that they can't reduce the population to 144k without the No-God, or that the No-God was necessary even if they could reduce the population to 144k?

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As far as the No-God situation goes, I tend to think it's related to Samarmas, not his bloodline.  The Gods have always seen Kellhus and his family.  They send WLW to kill him.  He can't be No-God.  Kelmomas was invisible to them because he would one day become the No-God.

I think it is something similar to how Mimara gets the JE.  Pregnant women don't all have it, I think it is women who give birth to twins, one live, one dead.  She is nearly blinded when she looks at her womb, the living twin is gonna have both souls, and that's somehow important.  Kelmomas having 2 souls is probably a similar thing.

'Souls' are just shards of the one oversoul, right?  They are POV for the God.  2 of them from one place might somehow clarify its gaze?  Like 2 eyes focus vision, or like 2 sentences at once make sorcery happen?

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On 7/6/2017 at 1:24 PM, Gaston de Foix said:

But why does the most powerful metagnostic sorcerer in the world need aid from Hell? Kellhus could have used the Schools to destroy/fight the Skinspies/Dunyain, and then strolled in.  I guess I just don't understand what the power-up here is. 

Why would he be more powerful than them?  There are 5 of them, and presumably they've had the Nonmen teach them sorcery.  They probably have a Meta version of the ancient Ishroi sorceries, plus Tekne nonsense.  

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Just now, Hello World said:

Right, something that I didn't get. When Kellhus asks the Dunyain why they would create a no-god instead of killing everyone with other means, their answer was that they can't reduce the population to 144k without the No-God, or that the No-God was necessary even if they could reduce the population to 144k?

You're talking about this?

Quote

“But why anything so elaborate?” the Anasûrimbor asked. “If the extermination of Men is your goal, then why not use the weapon you employed in Dagliash?”
And Malowebi could only think, No-God ...
The No-God lay before him.
“We could restore only one,” the unscathed Dûnyain said, mirrored in gold. “Even if more existed, they’re too indiscriminate, especially when used in numbers.”
“Our Salvation lies in the art of human extinction, not the fact,” his burnt brother explained
“Only the Object can Shut the World against the Outside,” the one-eyed Dûnyain explained.

“Yes ...” the Aspect-Emperor said, “the one hundred and forty-four thousand ...”

To me, this implies that it isn't just reducing the population - it's reducing the population to that while the No-God is active. This also implies something I just realized, which is that the No-God as Ark Prosthesis has always been around in their conquest, world after world. It isn't something special that was created, it was something that was rediscovered or repurposed. 

And the code line implies something about needing to reduce the world population to that small amount in order to determine if its the right one or not. 

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Just now, WalterX said:

As far as the No-God situation goes, I tend to think it's related to Samarmas, not his bloodline.  The Gods have always seen Kellhus and his family.  They send WLW to kill him.  He can't be No-God.  Kelmomas was invisible to them because he would one day become the No-God.

That makes sense, but at the same time we know that because it happened, and until it happens we don't know that that's the case. As far as I can tell the DunSult absolutely don't know that this is the case either; they have the idea that an Anasurimbor is needed (though perhaps not why) and have to protect all of them, even the super fakey ones like Mimara. (this is one of the only explanations I have for why there was a skin spy ready and waiting to nab Kelmomas; they've had skin-spies watching every single Anasurimbor and hopefully protecting them as best they could.)

Really, the only one that could know potentially that Kelmomas is the real deal is Mimara, at least through any test or observation. Before that, the only knowledge the DunSult had was that an Anasurimbor was necessary for the No-God. But they don't necessarily know why. 

This is the only thought I have as well on this - the whole idea that it's important which bloodline is there is completely immaterial and a red herring. Kelmomas works because of some innate trait about him, as does Nau-Cayuti, and the prophecy is true but not because of relation. 

Just now, WalterX said:

I think it is something similar to how Mimara gets the JE.  Pregnant women don't all have it, I think it is women who give birth to twins, one live, one dead.  She is nearly blinded when she looks at her womb, the living twin is gonna have both souls, and that's somehow important.  Kelmomas having 2 souls is probably a similar thing.

That's my interpretation as well; Kelmomas is invisible to the gods because he always will be the No-God, just like Mimara has TJE before she's pregnant and then afterwards. I don't think it's twins, however; Akka seems to believe that it is some women, and he thinks that they all end up with stillborn kids. Mimara's child is very, very special, and as far as I can tell she is the only one who has TJE and has actually a live birth. 

Taking qirri during pregnancy also probably did something. 

Just now, WalterX said:

'Souls' are just shards of the one oversoul, right?  They are POV for the God.  2 of them from one place might somehow clarify its gaze?  Like 2 eyes focus vision, or like 2 sentences at once make sorcery happen?

Well, kind of. The way I described it earlier was that souls are multidimensional projections of the Zero-God into the world. They aren't separate from the Zero-God, they are facets of the Zero-God. The world does not need clarity from souled in order to exist; the God does that just fine. 

6 minutes ago, WalterX said:

Why would he be more powerful than them?  There are 5 of them, and presumably they've had the Nonmen teach them sorcery.  They probably have a Meta version of the ancient Ishroi sorceries, plus Tekne nonsense.  

The DunSult definitely know sorcery. This begs the question, however, of why Kellhus would allow them to exist if he thought for an instant that they would pose a threat to him in the future. The only answer that makes sense to me is that he specifically wanted the Dunyain to subsume the Consult and this was the path he allowed. Otherwise, he could have very easily gone and obliterated the Thousand Thousand Halls, and done so with significant less risk than the Consult itself did (as he knows the layout, the traps, and the enemy). Why leave them alive?

The secondary answer is that Kellhus believes that he is so powerful (or will get there) that he simply doesn't care. 

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