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Bakker LVI: the Rectum of Creation


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1 hour ago, Kalbear said:

That all being said, it's incredibly weird that Akka spends most of his time studying and talking about philosophy and not, say, magical theory, given where his power comes from.

I actually think Philosophy is where his power comes from. Think about the long-winded metaphysical texts that most us get bored with - Varied schemes that have no scientific proof and won't change scientific progress either way.

Those are the what the inutterals involve, I suspect.

OTOH, given the philosophers Akka mentions seem to be available for public consumption....why can't the Scarlet Spires figure that shit out? Why I suspect some level of abstract mathematics is in play, or at the least the kind of metaphysics philosophers only come up with after being exposed to advanced concrete realizations.

And if you get really, really good at both metaphysics and science you can invent a No-God...

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2 hours ago, Sci-2 said:

I actually think Philosophy is where his power comes from. Think about the long-winded metaphysical texts that most us get bored with - Varied schemes that have no scientific proof and won't change scientific progress either way.

Those are the what the inutterals involve, I suspect.

 

From what he briefly discusses with Kellhus in TTT, this doesn't seem to be the case at all. There's a specific description of at least one of them in TTT, and IIRC it doesn't have anything to do with philosophy. 

Also, given that it's in a dead language and it is the same spell as done by the nonmen, I don't get how Ajencis or Memgowa's philosophical musings would help much. 

2 hours ago, Sci-2 said:

OTOH, given the philosophers Akka mentions seem to be available for public consumption....why can't the Scarlet Spires figure that shit out? Why I suspect some level of abstract mathematics is in play, or at the least the kind of metaphysics philosophers only come up with after being exposed to advanced concrete realizations.

Or, again, it's just rote repetition without understanding, and that's why things haven't advanced for 4000 years.

 

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1 hour ago, Kalbear said:

From what he briefly discusses with Kellhus in TTT, this doesn't seem to be the case at all. There's a specific description of at least one of them in TTT, and IIRC it doesn't have anything to do with philosophy. 

Also, given that it's in a dead language and it is the same spell as done by the nonmen, I don't get how Ajencis or Memgowa's philosophical musings would help much. 

Or, again, it's just rote repetition without understanding, and that's why things haven't advanced for 4000 years.

But then why are Mandati called Philosopher Magi?

Yeah I doubt it's Ajencis or Memgowa's musings, it likely has something to do with Nonmen philosophy. After all they had to come up with the Gnosis, though I suppose they might've been given insight via their god.

Reason I don't think it's just rote is the whole thing about meaning, and the strength of Gnosis lying in direct description of reality as opposed to the Anagnosis.

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3 minutes ago, Sci-2 said:

But then why are Mandati called Philosopher Magi? 

Why are the Scylvendi called the people of war? Most of the time they lost, after all. Probably they're called that because their primary way of gaining patronage isn't through owning a country - it's through acting as royal tutors and teachers. 

3 minutes ago, Sci-2 said:

Yeah I doubt it's Ajencis or Memgowa's musings, it likely has something to do with Nonmen philosophy. After all they had to come up with the Gnosis, though I suppose they might've been given insight via their god.

Reason I don't think it's just rote is the whole thing about meaning, and the strength of Gnosis lying in direct description of reality as opposed to the Anagnosis.

I'd buy that more if it had changed in 4000+ years. That spells are basically identical from the ones that Cleric uses means to me that almost nothing has changed at all. 

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2 hours ago, Let's Get Kraken said:

Oh the new one is hysterical in an entirely unintentional way. Apparently showing a demonically possessed horse trying to rape a bound woman is okay...but said woman's nipples have to be digitally removed, lest innocent eyes be corrupted. Note, I didn't say covered up or shadowed, I said removed. Apparently they also made Casca super white in some of the early flashbacks, but I didn't stick with it long enough to see if they changed that.

Yeah I skipped around as it didn't seem worth it to watch all the way through - it was kinda cool to see some things animated like the journey to Quipploth. And they might be going back to traditional animation, which will be nice for Fantasia.

I wonder if there could ever be a Bakkerverse anime. Perhaps a story set in the times of the Ark-Fall, ending with the rise of the No-God the first time around.

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39 minutes ago, Sci-2 said:

I wonder if there could ever be a Bakkerverse anime. Perhaps a story set in the times of the Ark-Fall, ending with the rise of the No-God the first time around.

There is too much stigma (mostly from Bakker himself) around something being animated to have that happen, although I think it would be pretty neat to "see" Nonman Gnosis in action among other things, like Wracu, the Tall (while still sane), Ishterebinth before it was ruined, along with stuff like the Breaking of the Gates and Siöl itself.

It really is a massively lost opportunity.

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4 hours ago, Let's Get Kraken said:

Did they ever wind up doing the Lost Children arc? I really couldn't bring myself to watch another episode of that anime after the first two, the animation and pacing were just too bad. And I say this as somebody who rabidly defended the Golden Age movie trilogy and the old 90s anime, both of which were riddled by some pretty sloppy effects. But anyway, yeah, curious if they ever did Lost Children. That remains my favorite arc, and quite frankly dark fantasy at its absolute finest.

I'm convinced animation is the only way Bakker could ever really be adapted to the screen, big or small.

Pretty sure they never went back to it.

But agreed animation seems the best route...the Inchoroi scream refugees-from-some-hentai after all...

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Animation could make both the sorcery and the Dunyain thinking process look amazing, in a way that would be really hard to do in live-action. 

On 11/19/2018 at 8:16 PM, Kalbear said:

I'd buy that more if it had changed in 4000+ years. That spells are basically identical from the ones that Cleric uses means to me that almost nothing has changed at all. 

Why would it necessarily change? They got it from the Nonmen, who presumably had spent millennia working out virtually all the possibilities of gnostic sorcery. Maybe they're just at the point where creating new gnostic spells would be extremely difficult to impossible for regular Mandate Schoolmen, taking either millennia of practice and experience (as with the surviving Quya), or a very rare mind. We only know of one non-Dunyain or Dunyain-descended person who can even do metagnostic spells. 

Meanwhile, the Glossary does show innovation in Anagogic sorcery.  

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1 minute ago, Winter Bass said:

Why would it necessarily change? They got it from the Nonmen, who presumably had spent millennia working out virtually all the possibilities of gnostic sorcery.

Because Kellhus changes it in like 3 weeks. It's clearly not the limits of gnostic sorcery. Furthermore, we see other innovators like Emilidis and Titirga who showcase more interesting aspects of spells as well. 

1 minute ago, Winter Bass said:

Maybe they're just at the point where creating new gnostic spells would be extremely difficult to impossible for regular Mandate Schoolmen, taking either millennia of practice and experience (as with the surviving Quya), or a very rare mind. We only know of one non-Dunyain or Dunyain-descended person who can even do metagnostic spells. 

Maybe, sure. But 4000 years when your entire life is devoted to doing nothing but spellcasting and war with zero innovation is, well, pretty odd. Even if the spells don't change, the tactics of using them, the tactics of using spellcasters together in various ways, the strategies of multiple arcs of fire and whatnot - these things should also be developed.

But for the most part we don't see that either. We see occasional dueling between mages where clever tricks are done, mostly around the environment (Akka dropping the building on chorae users, Titirga's pit trap silliness) but we never see coordinated attacks or communication even among Kellhus' squad. 

But really, 4000 years where there is absolutely no development and then there's immediate development because Kellhus? Sorry, don't buy it. Newton was really, really smart, but calculus wasn't something that came right out of the blue, and there was a lot of math that preceded it that backed it up. That is, of course, assuming that it's a mathematical or scientific thing, which is what I've been saying it might as well not have been for the Mandate. They know as much about how the gnosis works as a mechanic knows about the programming that runs the computer of the car they're working on. 

1 minute ago, Winter Bass said:

Meanwhile, the Glossary does show innovation in Anagogic sorcery.  

What was that?

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20 minutes ago, Triskele said:

Maybe there was a phenomenal accomplishment in the achievement the Nonmen and the Sohonc in developing and refining the Gnosis but they largely hit a threshold / barrier, and it took an Einstein (Kellhus) to advance it from that point.  

Maybe? I'm pretty skeptical of that given that Akka actually knows about the possibility of a second inutteral but thought it was just impossible. There's a difference between discovery and engineering, and the latter requires, well, practice more than eureka. 

Mostly, I don't see evidence of them even really trying to experiment or refine even around the knowledge they have. As an example, swords were in relatively common use for thousands of years, shields even longer, and spears longer still - but the phalanx was a combination of those concepts that required no major advances in tech, just advances in use of that tech (and coordination and training). I'm surprised, for instance, that there are not ways for sorcerers to combine powers to overwhelm wards in a synergistic way beyond just all of them casting spells against the person. Or for sorcerers to be able to combine to cause effectively natural disasters or massive damage beyond just casting a lot of fireballs at once. We've talked about not using sorcerers as engineers and diggers and how stupid that is, but even more stupid is schools spending their time fighting wars for the most part and those wars not really resulting in actual tacticians, nor were actual generals particularly good at deploying their wizards. 

What's even more bizarre to me is that despite their absurd knowledge of the metaphysical, going so far as to allow machines to interface with the Outside and display results to users in real time, the Inchoroi had basically zero grasp of magic until it was taught to them by the nonmen and they had their idiot servants graft it into their bodies. I realize they came from a world that was supposedly anarcane ground, but they didn't stay there, and their discovery of the Inverse Fire came after they traveled away from their own world and discovered the problems. 

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11 hours ago, Callan S. said:

Source? I mean the trailer uses basic animation?

I only have it on third-hand knowledge, but it's something he has repeated to a couple people over the years.

Of course the trailer uses animation, it's the only real way to do this.  And of course it makes little sense that Bakker is dead set against animation as a medium, much in the same way that he is largely categorically against any sort of merch.  Although, from the new site, there actually is some merch.  So, who knows, maybe he might actually change his mind...

5 hours ago, Kalbear said:

What's even more bizarre to me is that despite their absurd knowledge of the metaphysical, going so far as to allow machines to interface with the Outside and display results to users in real time, the Inchoroi had basically zero grasp of magic until it was taught to them by the nonmen and they had their idiot servants graft it into their bodies. I realize they came from a world that was supposedly anarcane ground, but they didn't stay there, and their discovery of the Inverse Fire came after they traveled away from their own world and discovered the problems. 

I don't think the Inverse Fire post-dates the Progenitors building Ark though.  The Inchoroi though, do post-date the Inverse Fire:

Quote

“They were a warrior-caste,” the burnt one continued, “bred to lust and to hunger for all forms of trespass, to heap such damnation upon themselves that the merest glimpse of the Inverse Fire would reignite their ardour.”

I don't recall anything that suggests that the Progenitors only created the Inverse Fire after the Ark though.

Quote

In their curious, collective manner, the Mutilated told how the Tekne so transformed the problems faced by the progenitors that all the old ways became impossible. It raised them from their traditions, struck the shackles of custom from their intellects, until only their common animality constrained them. They worshipped themselves as the measure of all significance, gave themselves over to wanton gluttony. Nothing was forbidden them, short the obstruction of others and their desires. Justice became the calculation of competing appetites. Logos became the principle of their entire civilization.
“By imperceptible increments,” the one-eyed Dûnyain said, his face strange and glaring, “the Tekne unfettered their desires, allowed them to plumb ever deeper perversions.”
The Tekne. Yes. The Tekne lay at the root of their argument.
“They began moulding themselves the way potter’s mould clay,” the unscathed one said.
The Tekne and the transformations wrought by its bottomless potency ...
“They stood upon the very brink of the Absolute,” the teeth-baring Dûnyain called. “It pricked their fingers, it was so near!”
How, in relieving the Inchoroi of want and deprivation, it had stripped them of everything sacred ...
“There was only one riddle they could not solve,” the lone unscarred Dûnyain said, “one ancient enigma the Tekne could not fathom ...”
“The soul,” his teeth-baring brother gasped.
Three heartbeats of silence followed—silence and tumbling revelation.
“It became their Mystery of Mysteries, the focus of their most cunning intellects.”
It no longer mattered who spoke—for the Mutilated did not lie, and the Truth spoke with but one soul.
“And when the soul at last yielded its secrets to their scrutiny ...”
And there he was, a beehive head slung from the Aspect-Emperor’s imperial reflection. How? How had he found himself in such wretched straits?
“They discovered their entire race damned.”

I'd think that last step was the discovery (invention) of the Inverse Fire.  I'd think that somehow through the Inverse Fire they managed to see two things.  One, that they were indeed damned no matter where they went.  And two, that there was a place where it was possible to "close" this off.  That is, somewhere that meaning was malleable.  (I have no real clue how or why they'd have been able to figure that out, but I'm just guessing that the most likely one is that somehow they saw back out of the Outside through the Inverse Fire, or something.)

Of course this means that they could have predicted sorcery.  Indeed, they probably should have.  But the Progenitors themselves were likely well and "dead" if they ever were on Ark and the crude tool of the Inchoroi simply weren't generally apt to consider novel problems without defaulting to their go-to of simply murdering everyone bare-handed.  As Wuttëat tells us, it worked on countless other worlds.  Honestly, if Ark hasn't crashed and died, it's likely Sorcery wouldn't have mattered in the long run, just would have been something of a speed-bump.  Heck, if Sil wasn't such a hot-head (which isn't possible, he existed solely to be a hot-head, but still) things likely go much smoother.

It's only because the "plan" went to shit from the moment they entered the Eärwan system that really any of the clear flaws in whole endeavor became real issues.  Mostly centered on the fact that Ark was likely the key to the whole thing.  I think it's likely the Ark was the architect, Inchoroi and everything else were merely tools.  So, when Ark died, it's like a bunch of hammers, saws, and screwdrivers were left to try to build something rather complex on their own.  If Ark had lived, it probably would have deduced sorcery rather quickly, have devised Grafts and incorporated them into new Inchoroi in a short matter of time.  Not to mention, Ark probably could have furnished more Heron Spears and who knows what else as weapons.

In reality, the biggest flaw in the plan was how instrumental to the whole thing Ark was.  The gap between what the Inchoroi collectively knew and what Ark knew was just far too great.  This might have been partly done for reasons of keeping the Inchoroi under "control" or simply because the Progenitors were dumb enough to think that Ark could not die, so why bother giving it's henchmen information they'd never need.

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1 hour ago, Hello World said:

I didn't know there was a new site... I guess https://www.rscottbakker.com/ is just going to remain stuck in WLW times indefinitely. :dunno: The new site looks pretty cool though.

I "stealth" linked in here a while back, but I should have posted it more explicitly.

https://secondapocalypse.ca/

Pretty sure it was made by Bakker's brother and possibly others.  Not sure is Jason was involved in actually building it, but certainly he knew of it since it's his art all over it.  Plausibly Jason is the only one who could convince Bakker of what could be done with animation, but again, it is likely a lost cause for irrational reasons.

But yeah, I think that old is a dead letter, which, like almost everything else, makes no sense, but who are we?

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7 hours ago, .H. said:

I don't think the Inverse Fire post-dates the Progenitors building Ark though.  The Inchoroi though, do post-date the Inverse Fire:

I wasn't saying that they did. I was saying both postdate the Progenitors leaving their anarcane world, which presumably would block even basic study of nonobjective manipulation of reality. The basic timeline is something like:

basic mastery of physical editing and mental editing -> space exploration -> discovery of inverse fire principles -> creation of ark/inchoroi

7 hours ago, .H. said:

I'd think that last step was the discovery (invention) of the Inverse Fire.  I'd think that somehow through the Inverse Fire they managed to see two things.  One, that they were indeed damned no matter where they went.  And two, that there was a place where it was possible to "close" this off.  That is, somewhere that meaning was malleable.  (I have no real clue how or why they'd have been able to figure that out, but I'm just guessing that the most likely one is that somehow they saw back out of the Outside through the Inverse Fire, or something.)

Right. They somehow were able to prove that hell exists, damnation is real and they're really, really fucked. And then they created Ark to attempt to obliterate the universal damnation. 

(an aside: I still don't understand why immortal beings would care about damnation. Another place Good Place gets right with the existential crisis episode; it's hard to care about ethics when you're immortal)

7 hours ago, .H. said:

Of course this means that they could have predicted sorcery.  Indeed, they probably should have.  But the Progenitors themselves were likely well and "dead" if they ever were on Ark and the crude tool of the Inchoroi simply weren't generally apt to consider novel problems without defaulting to their go-to of simply murdering everyone bare-handed.  As Wuttëat tells us, it worked on countless other worlds.  Honestly, if Ark hasn't crashed and died, it's likely Sorcery wouldn't have mattered in the long run, just would have been something of a speed-bump.  Heck, if Sil wasn't such a hot-head (which isn't possible, he existed solely to be a hot-head, but still) things likely go much smoother. 

Given how important sorcery was to beating them, I'm gonna call shenanigans on this. You can say that they shouldn't have invented lasers or nuclear weapons either by that token, and could have simply overwhelmed worlds with ecologically pure terror creatures (like the Chthorr) instead of relying on presumably fairly scarce radioactives and other exotic materials. Ain't like carbon is going away. 

7 hours ago, .H. said:

It's only because the "plan" went to shit from the moment they entered the Eärwan system that really any of the clear flaws in whole endeavor became real issues.  Mostly centered on the fact that Ark was likely the key to the whole thing.  I think it's likely the Ark was the architect, Inchoroi and everything else were merely tools.  So, when Ark died, it's like a bunch of hammers, saws, and screwdrivers were left to try to build something rather complex on their own.  If Ark had lived, it probably would have deduced sorcery rather quickly, have devised Grafts and incorporated them into new Inchoroi in a short matter of time.  Not to mention, Ark probably could have furnished more Heron Spears and who knows what else as weapons. 

In reality, the biggest flaw in the plan was how instrumental to the whole thing Ark was.  The gap between what the Inchoroi collectively knew and what Ark knew was just far too great.  This might have been partly done for reasons of keeping the Inchoroi under "control" or simply because the Progenitors were dumb enough to think that Ark could not die, so why bother giving it's henchmen information they'd never need.

Again, that shouldn't mean that magic should be some kind of weird alien thing to them. For instance, even if  they aren't wanting to use sorcery as a weapon for whatever  reason there is absolutely no reason that the Inchoroi shouldn't all be of the Few and be able to see the Onta, because it gives everyone an advantage who has it. 

I don't have a problem with Inchoroi struggling to discover magic and graft it; I have a problem with them not having it already. 

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13 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

basic mastery of physical editing and mental editing -> space exploration -> discovery of inverse fire principles -> creation of ark/inchoroi

OK, yeah, that makes sense.

14 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Right. They somehow were able to prove that hell exists, damnation is real and they're really, really fucked. And then they created Ark to attempt to obliterate the universal damnation. 

(an aside: I still don't understand why immortal beings would care about damnation. Another place Good Place gets right with the existential crisis episode; it's hard to care about ethics when you're immortal)

Yeah, I agree.  Although I tend to think they weren't truly immortal.  They were only "functionally immortal."  That is, they would die of old age, but there would still be effects of it.  Likely mostly cognitive/mental ones.  Kind of how, in part, Aurang doesn't remember the whole of his existence, only episodes of it.

17 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Given how important sorcery was to beating them, I'm gonna call shenanigans on this. You can say that they shouldn't have invented lasers or nuclear weapons either by that token, and could have simply overwhelmed worlds with ecologically pure terror creatures (like the Chthorr) instead of relying on presumably fairly scarce radioactives and other exotic materials. Ain't like carbon is going away.

I'm not quite following that line.  Sorcery was important in stemming the tide and that was really all that was needed given how Ark was not capable of generating reinforcements for the Inchoroi.  Presumably, alive, Ark could have overwhelmed them, sorcery and all.  I presume as well, Ark, alive, would never have been breached either.  I mean, sure, I could be wrong, but it just doesn't seem likely.

Kellhus does ask why nukes weren't employed more and we are told by the Mutilated that those kinds of weapons are not effective in generating the sort of deaths that "fuel" the "code flash" that the No-God needs.  For whatever reason.  I think lasers, in the fashion of the Heron Spear are fair game though.  I'd presume that Ark, alive, would be able to provide/fashion more of these too.  Or at least keep more of them working.

Again, I can't help but think that Ark fully-functional is a total game changer.  It means the Inchoroi numbers would never dwindle, they'd likely have more Tekne at hand, and the Ark itself is likely unbreachable.  Ark being alive also likely means that the Sarcophagus likely does not need to be external to the Ark itself, rendering it unlikely to have every been possibly attacked, let alone hit by the Heron Spear.  Not to mention, Ark could have probably used one of it's "integrated" "circuits" to run the No-God apparatus, meaning it would likely have been active from Day One.  Long, long before anyone would have gotten their hands on the Heron Spear.

I don't see how sorcery would best an active, fully-functional Ark.  It barely was better than a busted-ass, dumb-dumb operated Ark.

22 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Again, that shouldn't mean that magic should be some kind of weird alien thing to them. For instance, even if  they aren't wanting to use sorcery as a weapon for whatever  reason there is absolutely no reason that the Inchoroi shouldn't all be of the Few and be able to see the Onta, because it gives everyone an advantage who has it. 

I don't have a problem with Inchoroi struggling to discover magic and graft it; I have a problem with them not having it already. 

Yeah, I mean, they could have had that Graft ready.  Or had it already.  But it is completely useless on every other planet in the universe, so while it's an omission, it doesn't seem like an egregious one to me.  Especially not since, the Progenitors likely surmised Ark would be alive upon reaching the Promised World, and could easily just fart out new Inchoroi that did have the proper Graft(s).  I mean, if we imagine that Grafts are zero-cost, then this makes no sense, of course.  But I think it's silly to assume that all Grafts, even in the expert hands of Ark would come at zero-cost.

The fact that Ark was the savior and Ark died really screwed them though.  The dumb-dumb Inchoroi were really left to do what they could with what little was left to them.  Because for whatever reason, no one thought to make them fully autonomous.  Maybe this was to prevent any chance of insurrection.  Maybe it was just plain hubris, thinking that Ark couldn't and wouldn't ever fail.

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4 minutes ago, .H. said:

Yeah, I agree.  Although I tend to think they weren't truly immortal.  They were only "functionally immortal."  That is, they would die of old age, but there would still be effects of it.  Likely mostly cognitive/mental ones.  Kind of how, in part, Aurang doesn't remember the whole of his existence, only episodes of it.

I don't think that Aurang has the same backup ability that the progenitors do. I'm not sure that Aurang's memories are even particularly real. 

4 minutes ago, .H. said:

 

I'm not quite following that line.  Sorcery was important in stemming the tide and that was really all that was needed given how Ark was not capable of generating reinforcements for the Inchoroi.  Presumably, alive, Ark could have overwhelmed them, sorcery and all.  I presume as well, Ark, alive, would never have been breached either.  I mean, sure, I could be wrong, but it just doesn't seem likely. 

As far as I could tell the sorcery basically entirely kicked their ass when they were most functionally powerful technologically. And while Ark would have been useful, there's nothing to indicate that Ark does anything more than what the Inchoroi already do - laser weapons, nukes, biological terror weapons. Hell, even the No-God is another relic of Ark apparently, though why it wasn't ever brought up until after the humans get on board when they apparently used it time and time again is yet another weirdness. 

4 minutes ago, .H. said:

Kellhus does ask why nukes weren't employed more and we are told by the Mutilated that those kinds of weapons are not effective in generating the sort of deaths that "fuel" the "code flash" that the No-God needs.  For whatever reason.  I think lasers, in the fashion of the Heron Spear are fair game though.  I'd presume that Ark, alive, would be able to provide/fashion more of these too.  Or at least keep more of them working.

 

I don't think that's correct. I think they said that you can't just reduce the population; you have the reduce the population while the No-God is active. So they couldn't just nuke the planet if the No-God wasn't around. 

4 minutes ago, .H. said:

Again, I can't help but think that Ark fully-functional is a total game changer.  It means the Inchoroi numbers would never dwindle, they'd likely have more Tekne at hand, and the Ark itself is likely unbreachable.  Ark being alive also likely means that the Sarcophagus likely does not need to be external to the Ark itself, rendering it unlikely to have every been possibly attacked, let alone hit by the Heron Spear.  Not to mention, Ark could have probably used one of it's "integrated" "circuits" to run the No-God apparatus, meaning it would likely have been active from Day One.  Long, long before anyone would have gotten their hands on the Heron Spear. 

I dunno. It's not clear how many numbers of Inchoroi that could be created (why create a crazy long-lived race that can be grafted multiple times if you can simply grow them easily?) The No-God being outside Ark appears to be a necessity of Ark itself, possibly because it needs to be close to the actual physical location of the deaths. Also, the only thing that makes the No-God sarcophagus safe is the chorae; without it, it is incredibly vulnerable to attack. 

As to the integrated circuits, this is one of those weird details that makes less sense the more that you think of it. The best case is that somehow the Earwan brain of humans is close enough to a progenitor's brain that it can be used to run the system, and that means that Earwan human brains are reasonably similar to Progenitors - despite them not being particularly close to, say, nonmen brains. 

The theory I tend to stick with is that the No-God requires a native species in order to work. The programming analogy I use here is that the No-God is essentially a middle man attack, but it needs code samples of the endpoint before it can determine the API being used to talk  between the clients (souls on the planet) and the service (the Outside). Without it, it cannot create the feedback loop. Because this is an integration that's supposed to work broadly, most things won't function properly as a reasonable code sample. Only a select few will. The rest will cause the middleman attack to fail due to lack of information or lack of perfect information. 

4 minutes ago, .H. said:

I don't see how sorcery would best an active, fully-functional Ark.  It barely was better than a busted-ass, dumb-dumb operated Ark.

I don't see how Ark and Inchoroi knowing sorcery wouldn't be even more effective, and a hell of a lot cheaper than carrying around radioactive materials. 

4 minutes ago, .H. said:

Yeah, I mean, they could have had that Graft ready.  Or had it already.  But it is completely useless on every other planet in the universe, so while it's an omission, it doesn't seem like an egregious one to me.  Especially not since, the Progenitors likely surmised Ark would be alive upon reaching the Promised World, and could easily just fart out new Inchoroi that did have the proper Graft(s).  I mean, if we imagine that Grafts are zero-cost, then this makes no sense, of course.  But I think it's silly to assume that all Grafts, even in the expert hands of Ark would come at zero-cost.

I just don't see how it's useless. Point of fact, anarcane areas are apparently pretty rare in the universe. Now, if they're exceptionally common that'd be one thing - but if that's the case, all the Ark has to do is figure out that something is anarcane and then not bother with it. 

4 minutes ago, .H. said:

The fact that Ark was the savior and Ark died really screwed them though.  The dumb-dumb Inchoroi were really left to do what they could with what little was left to them.  Because for whatever reason, no one thought to make them fully autonomous.  Maybe this was to prevent any chance of insurrection.  Maybe it was just plain hubris, thinking that Ark couldn't and wouldn't ever fail.

Well, I don't think it's hubris; to them, Inchoroi were as you say, little more than hammers. I don't expect anyone to design their house so that if humans end up not around the hammers can get back to work and make the house on their own. The fact that they enslaved their hammers to believe that they were going to hell and made them into hammers of zealotry is weird enough.

The Inchoroi were autonomous and fairly intelligent; they were, however, not progenitors, nor did they know enough to take over Ark. 

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