The Unholy Consult post-release SPOILER thread IV

[Andorion]

A couple of further points:

Can a Dunyain love? At all? Given how the Dunyai women were treated and how it became a thousand year old cultural practice, how could Kellhus even conceptualise female love?

The magic in Earwa - all we see of magic battle magic. This is understandable as both series are set inside huge wars. But I am curious whether magic can be used for more constructive means, or in daily life?

[Spring Bass]

53 minutes ago, Andorion said:

A couple of further points:

Can a Dunyain love? At all? Given how the Dunyai women were treated and how it became a thousand year old cultural practice, how could Kellhus even conceptualise female love?

The magic in Earwa - all we see of magic battle magic. This is understandable as both series are set inside huge wars. But I am curious whether magic can be used for more constructive means, or in daily life?

. . . . Maybe? It seems like Kellhus may have loved Serwe and Esmenet, although the latter feels more like Informed Attribute from the author directly.

Magic can be used for constructive purposes as well, but sorcerers are classist snobs who often violently resisted being forced into using their magic for anything other than their own pursuits and warfare (not surprising in a civilization full of warrior-aristocrats where the actual workers are treated as the bottom rung). Even though sorcery would be immensely useful for mining, road construction, etc (and some of it did apparently still get done).

You'd think the Mysunsai would be doing a lot of that stuff, given that they're a mercenary school. Maybe that's how the Minor Schools keep their doors open. Of course, it would be much easier for a Gnostic school like the Mandate to do it, because their magic is much more precise.

[Rhom]

Not sure I'd want to risk damnation to build a new highway...

[Kalbear]

5 hours ago, Rhom said:

Not sure I'd want to risk damnation to build a new highway...

Seems like a better deal than risking damnation for being part of some random organization like the mercenary schools. Scarlet Spires makes sense given that they rule, and the Mandate makes sense because they think it's super important (plus they have the goad of the heart), but random people doing shit? 

Come to think of it, Kellhus using that sorcerous might to do that makes a hell of a lot of sense too. Earlier @lokisnow pointed out to me how difficult it would have been to industrialize quickly and get results that would make sense for the Great Ordeal to work, and that seems plausible - but it is far less onerous to make thousands of sorcerers do roadbuilding, especially groups like the Swayali, which were absurdly loyal to Kellhus and didn't have the preconceived notions of what was and was not beneath them. 

If they, say, obliterated a mountain via sorcery and used it to create a path (aside: how fucking cool would that have been) they could have made roads directly from Momemn to Sakarpus - and gone away from Dagliash entirely, crossing instead at the sea of Neleost or nearby on the other side. They could have also blown through the Occlusion in any place they desired. But the real gain would be the incredibly fast road between Momemn and Sakarpus, requiring not months of time to gather but weeks. 

[Hello World]

Did Kellhus go through Dagliash becuase it was the only way or because the Nonmen demanded that he take it? 

[Gronzag]

I don't know why he went through Dagliash, but the nuke trap there was set by the Consult, which means Dunyain, who also wanted Khellus to become the No-God which doesn't make much sense. How can he become the No-God if he is killed by the nuke?

[Kalbear]

1 hour ago, Hello World said:

Did Kellhus go through Dagliash becuase it was the only way or because the Nonmen demanded that he take it? 

He had to go around that side, because the other side is much harder to pass with an army unless you also go through the mountains of Ishual - which are also pretty hard to go through. Dagliash is a small side trip but it's on the way. 

1 hour ago, Gronzag said:

I don't know why he went through Dagliash, but the nuke trap there was set by the Consult, which means Dunyain, who also wanted Khellus to become the No-God which doesn't make much sense. How can he become the No-God if he is killed by the nuke?

I tried to fanwank this earlier. Basically the DunShae were happy with any number of solutions to their issue; the most important thing to them was to kill or neutralize Kellhus. They believe in the prophecy about the Anasurimbor, but they don't know precisely which one it is - this is why the skin-spy protects Mimara and was watching over her, and this is why (I think) there's a skin spy watching over Kelmomas - because it could be any of them. 

But they know in order to have any hope, they have to stop Kellhus. He is the only threat they care about. The Ordeal, the schoolmen, none of those are as big a deal. So they hope that they can catch Kellhus in the trap at Dagliash, with the side effect being that it will also likely have a lot of good sub-benefits if it fails - it'll wipe out the food supply, it'll kill a bunch of the army, it'll cause potential havoc. They aren't worried about the sranc loss; while they don't have any more on that side of the world, they have an ocean of Sranc in the Yimaleti mountains. They're not even worried about the sorcerers, because they have a bunch of tricks like the Sun Lance.

But they have to deal with Kellhus. So they try the nuke, knowing it might not work, and then they sacrifice Aurang to lure Kellhus in, knowing that that might not work, and then they bet on the Inverse Fire and the Carapace, and if that doesn't work they've got 100 skin spies with chorae, and if that doesn't work they've got their own magic, and if that doesn't work they've also got Kelmomas.

[Gronzag]

25 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

See ya later, Madness.

Any new poster is under suspicion of being a new identity of a skin-spy Madness.

It sucks, though, that we didn't find out what was Khellus' plan for salvation. He knew that he was damned, and yet he he worked until the very end against the resurrection of the No-god. On the other hand, I'm under the impression that Ajokli's influence was subconscious and complete takeover, like the one in the Golden Room, is not something Khellus would have agreed to. 

Which begs a question: what was Khellus' solution for damnation? What was his conscious agenda for 20 years? 

[Darth Richard II]

Did i miss drama again?

 

I don't think Kelhus actually agreed to anything, which just makes things more confusing.

[Gronzag]

Also, now that Dunyain have mastered Tekne, why don't they make themselves immortal, like Inchoroi have made Non-men, and cure any physical injuries they have suffered?

[Kalbear]

3 hours ago, Gronzag said:

Any new poster is under suspicion of being a new identity of a skin-spy Madness.

They aren't as hidden as they think. Some have always noticed them by their absence. 

3 hours ago, Gronzag said:

It sucks, though, that we didn't find out what was Khellus' plan for salvation. He knew that he was damned, and yet he he worked until the very end against the resurrection of the No-god. On the other hand, I'm under the impression that Ajokli's influence was subconscious and complete takeover, like the one in the Golden Room, is not something Khellus would have agreed to. 

Which begs a question: what was Khellus' solution for damnation? What was his conscious agenda for 20 years? 

Maybe he didn't have one. Simplest solution is that Kellhus was only set on ending the consult threat forever, and then being done. 

[unJon]

50 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

They aren't as hidden as they think. Some have always noticed them by their absence. 

Maybe he didn't have one. Simplest solution is that Kellhus was only set on ending the consult threat forever, and then being done. 

I tend the fields. 

[Rhom]

16 minutes ago, unJon said:

I tend the fields. 

Who better to burn them?

[Callan S.]

16 hours ago, Gronzag said:

I don't know why he went through Dagliash, but the nuke trap there was set by the Consult, which means Dunyain, who also wanted Khellus to become the No-God which doesn't make much sense. How can he become the No-God if he is killed by the nuke?

Ah, thanks. That explains why he found it - he was allowed to find it. Slightly dicey, you'd think, with the timing. But that's the problem with Dunyain - the shortest path.

[jurble]

17 hours ago, Gronzag said:

Also, now that Dunyain have mastered Tekne, why don't they make themselves immortal, like Inchoroi have made Non-men, and cure any physical injuries they have suffered?

The Dunyain haven't mastered the Tekne, they've got an operational understanding of the Ark's tools, per Bakker.

[Gronzag]

1 hour ago, Ajûrbkli said:

The Dunyain haven't mastered the Tekne, they've got an operational understanding of the Ark's tools, per Bakker.

That doesn't make any sense. According to Dunyain themselves, Tekne == Logos. If the original Inchoroi were able to create sranc, bashrag, and make Non-Men immortal, and two last Inchoroi + Mangaecca latter create skin-spies, then surely five Dunyain working together for several years must have been able to work miracles with Tekne by now. Otherwise, it would mean that Inchoroi were more intelligent and better at Logos than Dunyain.

[unJon]

55 minutes ago, Gronzag said:

That doesn't make any sense. According to Dunyain themselves, Tekne == Logos. If the original Inchoroi were able to create sranc, bashrag, and make Non-Men immortal, and two last Inchoroi + Mangaecca latter create skin-spies, then surely five Dunyain working together for several years must have been able to work miracles with Tekne by now. Otherwise, it would mean that Inchoroi were more intelligent and better at Logos than Dunyain.

That doesn't follow. Postulate that Ark worked better back then. 

[jurble]

1 hour ago, Gronzag said:

then surely five Dunyain working together for several years must have been able to work miracles with Tekne by now.

The Inchoroi don't understand what DNA actually is (though they have a word for it per Achamian - Bios).   They have machines that abstract the process of genetic engineering, but they don't understand fundamentally what's going on a chemical or physical basis.  The Ark's machinery isn't a textbook.  The Dunyain have no idea about the chemical composition of DNA, they don't know and have no way of learning how genes are expressed or how the subsequent proteins function, they don't know how the machines actually physically or chemically edit the strands. 

All these functions are abstracted by machinery, and the Dunyain are smarter than the Inchoroi, but they're still operating at an abstracted level, meaning they can't anticipate or predict what changes they make to an organism's DNA will result in.  They, like the Inchoroi, have to proceed in an experimental manner.   The nature of their intellect means they can move faster, understanding the underlying relationships between various gene-gene interactions or what not, but it's still requires relying on generation times to have things born because they lack the underlying first principles from which to skip the practical experimentation.

Moreover, it took the Inchoroi centuries, via trial and error to create Sranc, Bashrag, etc.

[Gronzag]

33 minutes ago, unJon said:

That doesn't follow. Postulate that Ark worked better back then. 

 

16 minutes ago, Ajûrbkli said:

...

Where in the books have you read that?

[jurble]

Read what?  You didn't quote anything.