The Unholy Consult Post-Release SPOILER THREAD II

[Kalbear]

3 hours ago, redeagl said:

Baby Kellhus is a funny theory IMO. I don't buy into that. Though, I am still wondering what the baby's importance will be ( if he has any importance from the first place, he could just be some motivation for Akka ) .

The baby is blinding in the gaze of the Judging Eye. I'm not sure how much more important one being can be. 

As far as I can tell, one way or another, the baby is both god and the son of god, or as close to it in the Earwan world as can be. 

[Kalbear]

21 minutes ago, Ajûrbkli said:

I'm curious how much the DunSult even understand about the Tekne.  They restored a nuke and apparently figured out how to attach an external battery to the Sun Lance.  Since they aren't dead, they didn't irradiate themselves while restoring the nuke (unless there were more than five initially).  Attaching a battery to a laser gun isn't very impressive, and I wonder why the Consult couldn't manage it before, unless the Sun Lance was damaged or inoperable due to more complex problems.  

Attaching a battery to the laser weapon requires that you understand 'attach' and 'battery', and when you're a rape demon that thinks mostly in terms of terrible damnation and fucking things that's probably not a concept you get very well. Nor are they designed to be particularly keen on the scientific method, or even asking questions. 

They're a race of fanatic rape demons. 

21 minutes ago, Ajûrbkli said:

The fact that the Inversi weren't armed with firearms makes me think they haven't learned much in the way of chemistry.  And if they understood biology on the molecular level, they could probably work backwards into chemistry, their knowledge of biology is limited as well.  But with all the fancy electronics in the Ark, I imagine they've got a solid grasp of electrical engineering, but likely don't know anything about the underlying physics.

Perhaps; my suspicion is that they do have a pretty decent idea of physics because they know how to do things like research and use archives and the likes. Once they were able to learn how to read the progenitor language (something that it is likely that the Inchoroi could not actually do; they didn't even have mouths to speak a language), they likely were able to access a lot more. 

As to gunpowder and the like, the problem is that they don't have anything like a manufacturing base, nor do they have workers that can do anything close to building stuff. Plus that really isn't the story that Bakker wants to tell, as much sense as it would make. Put it another way: Kellhus given 20 years and the knowledge that things like Scaldings and laser weapons existed should have been able to massively improve the scientific system and industrial output of the world, and he didn't. Because that's just not what Bakker wants to tell. 

But there's nothing insane about the scientific process the Dunyain can do, and these Dunyain have had 5 years to study the Tekne. In that time they were able to get a laser weapon to actually function properly and get at least one nuclear device to work. That's not so bad.

21 minutes ago, Ajûrbkli said:

So what exactly can they do with that?  Without understanding physical chemistry, they can't make semiconductors.  But it shouldn't be too hard for them to figure out generators and vacuum tubes.   Does sorcery work via radio? Heck, they can make gramophones!  They don't even need to know how to make vinyl - any scratch-able medium works, you know.  Can they record themselves speaking utteral strings onto a record, and play a hundred gramophones at once - and have multiple utteral strings?

The better question is whether or not they'd care to do any of these things. 

[PapushiSun]

6 hours ago, Kalbear said:

They're a race of fanatic rape demons. 

They're not entirely without skill though; they managed to turn the entire Nonmen race immortal, created the weapon races, and modified at some of themselves to perform sorcery.

[Kalbear]

22 minutes ago, PapushiSun said:

They're not entirely without skill though; they managed to turn the entire Nonmen race immortal, created the weapon races, and modified at some of themselves to perform sorcery.

All of those things involved changing biologically, though. They're a weapon race which routinely changes itself to suit the task at hand, so this makes sense because, well, it's what they are literally made to do. They aren't stupid exactly, mind you (though Aurax being the worst lapdog ever is a bit odd) but they aren't equipped to even consider thinking about something like transistors or electrical wiring or computation or even things like testing basic stuff. 

Remember, they spent a thousand years or more feeding corpses into the No-God. Without a single bit of experimental behavior or intuition. Their weapons all fell into ruin, and the only reason is because they didn't know how to charge their iPads. 

[Castel]

On 7/16/2017 at 2:13 PM, Hello World said:

I don't know, Bakker has called the series a metaphysical whodunit. I've read hundreds of whodunits and the one thing they all had in common is that some definitive answers are given at the end and the red herrings are separated from the actual clues. All Bakker did in this climax is reveal more aspects of the mystery that we weren't aware of. He gave us more clues and it made the whodunit even harder to solve than it was previously.

 

Yup. And I think it goes beyond deliberate complications. There are things that should be clear by now and I'm not willing to attribute them not being clear to a deliberate mystery.

I may be wrong but...I don't believe that Bakker intended for there to be much ambiguity about whether it's Gilgaol and his four-horned crown that manifests in Cnaiur at the end, or Ajokli's head. And yet, because of ignoring a very simple rule of writing, here we are. And now, as you can see, it being one or the other raises all sorts of concerns.

I'm unreasonably annoyed by this tbh. 

[Darth Richard II]

That's one of the things i really wonder about. How ambiguous is it SUPPOSED to be versus how it turned out.

[PapushiSun]

1 hour ago, Kalbear said:

Remember, they spent a thousand years or more feeding corpses into the No-God. Without a single bit of experimental behavior or intuition.

Yeah, that struck me odd as well.

[Castel]

27 minutes ago, Triskan said:

Are you sure about it being unreasonable?  I love Bakker per my postcount on this board, but as someone said upthread the ambiguity went up rather than down after the first trilogy, and it's very frustrating.  There's so much that's good, but it's so freaking ambiguous.  

I guess you're right. I think PoN was far tighter and had a better ending. I think the ambiguity of TAE is worse in hindsight, with the series being done. As of WLW I was honestly enjoying some of it, but he didn't stick the landing and it got worse. 

I meant "unreasonable" because this particular case annoys me far more than all the other mysteries about the metaphysics that Bakker has let be ambiguous. Probably because I feel like it's going to be a needlessly fruitless field of discussion and it's the fault of the author (unlike say...Big Moe crackpots).

In comparison to how I feel it's really small potatoes, but it seems more negligent than deliberate.

[Happy Ent]

Speaking of imagery (and deliberately frustrated expectations): 

I was sure Bakker was setting up another Tolkien reference in the Seducer-of-Thieves POV, to the Bridge of Khazad-dûm. I fully expected Mekeretrig to appear, shining in his majestic wards, and hold the bridge into the Ark in an epic battle with Kakaliol, trash-talking him to go back into the shadows.

(The inversion would be that this demon actually has wings.)

[Happy Ent]

1 hour ago, PapushiSun said:

Yeah, that struck me odd as well.

The only explanation I can see is that the Carapace has a completion bar, much as when you install software. 

But a new soul into it, and you can see the bar become just a tiny bit larger.

—

“See? It moved!” Aurang pulled the charred corpse out of the Carapace and gave it to the Sranc.

“BS. Didn’t move at all.” Mekeritrig stared into the sorcerous lens that he used to magnify the status bar, pulsing green. “Your brother moved his finger.”

“Didn’t” whined Aurax.

“Can you do nothing right?” Shauriatas hit the cowering Inchoroi with one of his stumps. “All you have to do is keep your finger in place, so we can see if the bloody bar moves, or if we might as well reboot the whole thing. If I had fingers, I’d do it myself.”

“OK, put another one in!” Aurang stepped back while the Sranc unchained the next wretch  and placed him, screaming, in the Carapace. The dread Inchoroi ejaculated quickly. “Let’s do this carefully. Switch off your dildos, stop the rutting. Maybe if we could switch the bloody Inverse Fire off for just two seconds we could get a proper reading.”

Mek shrugged apologetically. The Norsirai man screamed, blue ripples of lightning shook his body. After a moment, only the black, smoking hull of his corpse remained, filling the room with the smell of roasted pork. Aurang ejaculated quickly.

“There! Saw that?” The others agreed. Clearly the status bar had grown, if only by a hair’s breadth in the magnified image of the Lens.

Shauri smiled. “See, guys? This works. We just have to keep doing this, and the System will Initiate.”

“How looong?” whined Aurax.

Shauri quickly did the math, using his twelve body stumps as an abacus, whizzing about the golden Shield of Sil with alarming speed. “Thousand years, give or take. Depends on the quality souls we feed it.”

 “All right, let’s do it. I guess we need a longer chain.”

[Castel]

They totally experimented on what the Carapace took. Blondes, brunettes, girth vs. length, people with nipple piercings vs not,people with buttplugs vs not...I'm sure they tried all permutations

 

Probably what passes for science with weapon races.

[Happy Ent]

Oh, absolutely. I just wanted to point out that they may easily have ascertained progress. We don’t need to assume that they blindly repeated the same failed experiment for a thousand years. They are tenacious, not stupid.

[unJon]

9 hours ago, Triskan said:

 

Question:  Any thoughts on what "The living shall not haunt the dead" from the past book is supposed to mean?  Just that the denizens of Hell don't want Kellhus visiting?  Any new information in this book that sheds any light?  

Not a lot of new info but a few tie ins. Kellhus says he is the "Inverse Prophet" taking news of Earwa that the gods don't know to the gods. Quite literally, Kellhus is the loving that is haunting the dead. It's pretty interesting to re-read the Head On A Pole bits with that in mind, and thinking of it as his mission to broker a treaty with the Pit and Ajokli. 

[Happy Ent]

“Seriously, it’s crashed.” Mekeritrig said. “I may be the Erratic here, but I’m sure it hasn’t moved for 120 years now. I can remember the last time I had NonPoon, but I don’t remember the last time the meter increased. It’s just stalled. Let’s just install this damn patch, power it down, unplug the battery, and do a fresh restart.”

“I’m sure it’s fine. And if we had moved the repo to git from the start, this would never have happened anyway,” opined Shauriatas, the words bouncing between sphinctering mouths.

“Fucking git. The Progenitors ran the whole bloody Ark on Subversion, and if it’s good enough for them, it’s good enough for us. Besides, Aurax would never get a hang of the whole index concept.” Aurang reluctantly pulled another corpse from the Carapace. He briefly ejaculated while the Sranc brought forward the next Norsirai wretch. He stopped them with a dejected wave of his still-sticky hand. “But Mek’s is right. Pull the plug.”

“No wait! Now it moved!” Shauriatas screamed.

“No it didn’t. You were hitting the Carapace!”

“I never!!” Shauriatas signaled the Sranc to unshackle the skeletal Norsirai.

“Yes, you did!”

“I never, never did anything... I don’t even have arms!”

Aurax slapped the Carapace with his shining phallus, yelling and hitting the cage repeatedly. “’ello Polly!! Testing! Testing! Testing! Testing! This is your nine o'clock alarm call!” He grabbed the captive Norsirai with a powerful hand, shoved him into the eldritch apparatus, and pushed the button with all force. Incandescence. “See? Nothing. It crashed! Null pointer exception! Kernel panic! 404 File not found! The Carapace Must Restart Because the Remote Procedure Call (RPC) Service Terminated Unexpectedly. lp0 on fire. This.” Aurax slapped the Carapace with every word.

“Is. An. Ex. No-God!”

[jurble]

Look what I found in TTT

Quote

Even though he knew the man simply flattered him, Conphas decided that he agreed. He told himself that the Prince of Atrithau was the most accomplished liar he’d ever encountered—a veritable Ajokli!

It was there all along right in the open.

 

[lokisnow]

2 hours ago, Happy Ent said:

“Seriously, it’s crashed.” Mekeritrig said. “I may be the Erratic here, but I’m sure it hasn’t moved for 120 years now. I can remember the last time I had NonPoon, but I don’t remember the last time the meter increased. It’s just stalled. Let’s just install this damn patch, power it down, unplug the battery, and do a fresh restart.”

“I’m sure it’s fine. And if we had moved the repo to git from the start, this would never have happened anyway,” opined Shauriatas, the words bouncing between sphinctering mouths.

“Fucking git. The Progenitors ran the whole bloody Ark on Subversion, and if it’s good enough for them, it’s good enough for us. Besides, Aurax would never get a hang of the whole index concept.” Aurang reluctantly pulled another corpse from the Carapace. He briefly ejaculated while the Sranc brought forward the next Norsirai wretch. He stopped them with a dejected wave of his still-sticky hand. “But Mek’s is right. Pull the plug.”

“No wait! Now it moved!” Shauriatas screamed.

“No it didn’t. You were hitting the Carapace!”

“I never!!” Shauriatas signaled the Sranc to unshackle the skeletal Norsirai.

“Yes, you did!”

“I never, never did anything... I don’t even have arms!”

Aurax slapped the Carapace with his shining phallus, yelling and hitting the cage repeatedly. “’ello Polly!! Testing! Testing! Testing! Testing! This is your nine o'clock alarm call!” He grabbed the captive Norsirai with a powerful hand, shoved him into the eldritch apparatus, and pushed the button with all force. Incandescence. “See? Nothing. It crashed! Null pointer exception! Kernel panic! 404 File not found! The Carapace Must Restart Because the Remote Procedure Call (RPC) Service Terminated Unexpectedly. lp0 on fire. This.” Aurax slapped the Carapace with every word.

“Is. An. Ex. No-God!”

vis-a-vis the metabolic processes?

[jurble]

So, made a realization about this bit while composing a reply on the SA forum.

Quote

There she stands before her, Anasûrimbor Esmenet, the Blessed Empress of the Three Seas. Haggard. Palace-pale. A rose-silk sheet clutched to her breast ... Dark with the writhing, straining shadows of countless carnal transgressions. Glowing with the promise of paradise.

Bakker, R. Scott. The Unholy Consult: Book Four of the Aspect-Emperor series (Aspect Emperor 4) (Kindle Locations 3570-3573). Little, Brown Book Group. Kindle Edition.

I knew Esmenet was Saved, but I hadn't made the connection that Esmenet's only sins are those she committed as a prostitute.  For some reason none of the murders or torture she committed for Kellhus counted as sins.  Now, the question is why?  Let's say the Ordealmen are damned because of rapey-cannibalism, so Mimara's Judging Eye won't work on them.  But Kosoter was damned for killing in Kellhus' name.  Except that Kosoter knew he was damned, so he might have gone above and beyond his duty in murder.

But, we know not all the Ordealmen are damned - Sosering Rauchurl is Saved.  So the damnation of the Ordealmen might really be restricted to just the rapey-cannibalism.

So it leads to me to 3 possibilities that i can think of:

1. There are no sins when acting under the direct auspices of Kellhus.  However, killing slightly more than you have to leads to damnation (Kosoter).  Or doing what Kellhus implies but does not actually state to do leads to damnation (rapey-cannibalism).  But this would imply Esmenet never killed more than she had to... and she burned Carythusal.

2.  Intent matters.  Doing something for the sake of yourself is what damns.  The issue here is that the treatment of the Whale-Mothers damns the Dunyain despite Mimara saying it was absent any intent to harm, though she says their intent to attain the Absolute was also damning.  Here the issue is that much of Esmenet's tyranny was driven by her own fear for her safety.

3.  Ordering torture, burning and murder is not a sin.  As far as I know, Esmenet never took personal participation in anything she ordered. 

 

One issue is that Mimara sees Sins in contrast to Good Deeds.  So it's not innocence alone that saves - one's good deeds must outweigh one's sins.  So Esmenet has to have done something good enough to outweigh her carnal sins.   It wouldn't surprise me if her good deeds amounted to just 'being a wife and having kids.'

[Darth Richard II]

12 hours ago, Castel said:

I guess you're right. I think PoN was far tighter and had a better ending. I think the ambiguity of TAE is worse in hindsight, with the series being done. As of WLW I was honestly enjoying some of it, but he didn't stick the landing and it got worse. 

I meant "unreasonable" because this particular case annoys me far more than all the other mysteries about the metaphysics that Bakker has let be ambiguous. Probably because I feel like it's going to be a needlessly fruitless field of discussion and it's the fault of the author (unlike say...Big Moe crackpots).

In comparison to how I feel it's really small potatoes, but it seems more negligent than deliberate.

I imagine its a bit of both, but I was told somewhere on here once that the people on these and other forums who spend years digging through these things for hints and what nt are only like 1percent of his actual readership, so I'm thinking its more people reading these as if they were Gene Wolfe books, instead of just taking the weird stuff as just weird stuff.

I do find it odd about how Bakker kept talking about how after we read this WE WOULD KNOW the title of the final series, but no one seems to actually know for sure, although there are some good guesses.

[jurble]

Right, that's an argument for the ambiguities in the series being negligent rather than deliberate as Castel put it.  Bakker, blinded by being the author and all, thinks the series is more straightforward than it is.   This is where an editor would've come in handy, I suppose.

[Happy Ent]

1 hour ago, lokisnow said:

vis-a-vis the metabolic processes?

Ah, I should have put that in there. Metaphysical processes, or something about subject–object collapse. Ah well, there will be other parodies. 

(Four Ordealmen is coming up sooner or later.)