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The False Sun- Bakker


Calibandar

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But it’s pretty much as we see Aurang at the end of Warrior-Prophet, when he interrogates Aëngelas

Oh, really? I have to admit that I don't re-read the books, as I find them repulsive and fascinating in almost equal measure and have to force myself to read through parts of them in the first place. WLW was a Slog of Slogs ;), particularly the Esmi and Kel Jr.sections.

Or maybe I thought at the time that the whole wings and 2 heads bit, one situated in the jaws of the other _was_ a primitive person's description of a space-suit.

Still strange that our favorite rape-aliens found a completely different world to be so congenial that they wander it starkers, even when expecting a fight of some sort.

That’s sorcery, a “glamour”

But isn't it the first time that we heard of Inchies having that effect on somebody not specifically engineered to be receptive? Certainly that poor schmuck that Aurang was questioning in the passage you quoted felt no attraction to him.

What the Gnostic sorcerers have is the concept of proof. Their mathematics is Euclidian, i.e., 300BC.

They do have an awful lot of different teorems for that, IMHO, and the concept of the Barricades was certainly too sophisticated either.

Of course, that's my pet peeve with most fantasy - magic is going to fundamentally change worldbuilding, you can't just graft it in yer olde medieval or antiquity scenario and have everything else be the same as without it. It is just lazy.

Them not really understanding that the Nonmen could actually kill them.

They should have been disabused of that very quickly, though, but they persisted in going to war (and dying in droves).

Highly speculative: maybe they have a soul-trapping device in the Ark.

I have thought of that, but how likely is it that this unit would be cold-storage only, without communication and ability to pilot remotes, etc? Basically, if they had such a device more that just the two As should have been around, in some form. Nor would the technical knowledge be lost.

Also, would _you_ sacrifice yourself and rely on the benevolence of a fellow rape demon, to keep your soul out of damnation :)?

And yup re: Pit of Obsenities. But is it an Inchoroi-given name or a Eärwite description?

Since soul-trapping is within the metaphysical understanding of even human schools, it seems plausible.

It is? I must have missed it. I'd have thought that developement of such a process would be a priority for them, considering. Also, makes it even more likely that Nonmen of old (and Kelhus) could check whether their soul-saving methods worked or not. I.e. there msut be something to the Nonman method.

This could be an analogy; the twist ending to the entire cycle of books might be a moral of the kind: don’t mistake your video games for reality.

Inverse Flame, the Inchoroi Farmville. I love it.

LOL, that would be incerdibly lame!

I didn't know it, but sad that Bakker plays into stereotypes and accords video-games the nefarious significance that they and their predessors such as rock, TV, foxtrot, etc. just don't deserve ;).

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Ent, I'm not sure if you were around in another incarnation back then but the consensus on the Three-Seas was that the Inchoroi at the end of the TWP was Aurax. His speech was structured in a sufficiently different way then anything Aurang has said over the course of the series. Thoughts?

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I did believe that was Aurax for the longest time myself. (While I assumed Aurang was bound to the Synthese.) But now we have two descriptions of Aurang perfectly matching Aëngalas’s interrogator.

But ultimately we don’t know. Valid question for the Scott, and one that he might well answer.

(Inferring identity from discrepancies in speech patterns sounds a bit too Moënghian for me. That way lies madness, Madness.)

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Still strange that our favorite rape-aliens found a completely different world to be so congenial that they wander it starkers, even when expecting a fight of some sort.

Keep in mind that the bodies of the Inchoroi are mostly (if not completely) constructs of the tekne at this point. For all practical purposes they are wearing spacesuits, just spacesuits made of flesh and bone (that are a little harder to take off than a spacesuit would be).

But isn't it the first time that we heard of Inchies having that effect on somebody not specifically engineered to be receptive? Certainly that poor schmuck that Aurang was questioning in the passage you quoted felt no attraction to him.

Not really. I thought the worst part about the scene at the end of the TWP wasn't that this guy has to watch his family get raped to death in front of him, but he has to watch them ENJOY THE HELL OUT OF IT the entire time.

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The Inchoroi had apparently done the whole "invade planets, wipe ensouled populations down to 144,000 individuals or below" thing on many other planets before without getting hammered in terms of casualties. I don't think they were planning on crash-landing on Earwa (wiping out most of the ship's passengers in the process), or losing all of their Space-Age technology ahead of time - and after the crash-landing, they didn't have a choice except to fight if they wanted to drive their "damnation-free World" project forward.

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"Onkhis" speaks to Shaeönanra twice in "False Sun."

“Very well,” Shaeönanra conceded, bowing in the shallow, cursive way of the Umeri. He turned to the attendant. “Summon our…” He paused as if at the humour of the word Onkhis had delivered to him. “Our guest.”

A flush of horror. Shaeönanra tensed against the sudden loosening in his bowel, not quite believing that the Inchoroi had dared name it aloud. Xir’kirimakra. The Inverse Fire. For a heartbeat he found his Voice divided between mere fear and what mattered. What? Did Aurang seek to seduce the Sohonc Archideme? Could he not see that Titirga was not one to suffer rivals, that Shaeönanra himself would be doomed were he to embrace their Holy Consult?

But these were vain questions. They fell away as quickly as Onkhis offered them up, so flimsy were the concerns that moved them. All that mattered, the Ground’s only consequential thing, was what he had seen…

Damnation.

Presumably "Onkhis" is simply an earlier form of "Onkis," the goddess of hope and aspiration according to the Thousandfold Thought glossary.

This isn't the first time we've heard of Onkis speaking. In TDTCB she prodded Inrau to run to the temple balcony, where the Synthese awaited.

So both times Onkis has spoken, Aurang has been present. I'm not sure what, if anything, this indicates.

I suppose that Shae could be using "Onkhis" as shorthand for thoughts arising from the subconcious. And Inrau only half-believes that Onkis is speaking to him; instead he fears he is only hearing his own doubts.

But, if that's not the case: why is a supposed Goddess of Inrithi and pre-Inrithi tradition doing the work of the Consult? Who or what is Onkis?

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Theory-time: So, it seems to me that Nil'G finds out about damnation, but doesn't tell the other non-men, because he's afraid they'll be seduced by the Inverse Fire. Gin'Y dies, figures out the truth of hell and Nil'G's 'betrayal'. Gin'Y is pissed that he missed his chance to join the Consult, and avoid damnation. So far, seems like solid footing. Then, somehow the Intacts of the Ishterbawhatver mansion figure out Nil'G's betrayal. Just as Nil'G fears (and as Kel predicts is the only rational course of action when he thinks of what the Dunyain would do) the Intacts go over to the Consult, and Nil'G takes off (or is ousted by a coup) to wander the earth of millennia like Cain in Kung Fu. That all seems to hang together.

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The Inchoroi had apparently done the whole "invade planets, wipe ensouled populations down to 144,000 individuals or below" thing on many other planets before without getting hammered in terms of casualties. I don't think they were planning on crash-landing on Earwa (wiping out most of the ship's passengers in the process), or losing all of their Space-Age technology ahead of time - and after the crash-landing, they didn't have a choice except to fight if they wanted to drive their "damnation-free World" project forward.

The thing that strikes me is that if Earwa is like the big old lynchpin planet somehow for all this damnation activity, isn't it a tad convenient that exactly as you say, they kick ass on many worlds, but when something screws up and they crash land - oh hae, this is the right world! Few, that's a spot of luck, rather than just crashing on some dumbass unimportant world, which is the far more likely case presumably.

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@ Callan, Maybe the Inverse Fire could have had a different character during their earlier travels, and as they neared Earwa, a transformation in its nature ignited some small-scale civil war amongst the Inchoroi. I'm reaching, but once you swallow the pill that Earwa is special and probably is the/a meaningful center of the universe, it's not that difficult to buy into.

Also: How do beings entirely devoid of the onta even come to know the inevitability of their damnation? It seems like the Outside would be pretty unfathomable to most of them. Is the Inverse Fire some kind of Essence of Outside that is neither a ciphrang or God? Or is it a technological construct? I doubt it was specified, just wondering.

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Interesting details about the Nail of Heaven: The Nonman name for this thing is Imburil, The Newborn. It’s so bright that it casts Shaeönanra’s shadow. That’s pretty bright!

I don’t think that level of brightness has been mentioned the Second Apocalypse. (That proves nothing, of course. Nobody in Eärwa might find it remarkable, so it’s just never mentioned.)

But…

If the Nonmen really call it the Newborn, the “star” is an astronomial phenomenon in living Nonman memory. Just a few millennia old. Moreover, we have weak evidence that it was a lot brighter 3000 years ago than at the time of the Ikurei dynasty. Hence, it’s fading.

It could be a nearby nova.

But here’s a nicer theory: the Nail of Heaven is a side-effect of the Blessed Falling. It’s a dimensional portal or whatever Star Trek speak we want to use for it; the wormhole through which the Ark of the Skies arrived. Maybe we can even concoct some technobabble that makes it plausible that this wormhole opened exactly along the rotational axis of Eärwa. (Which is an observation that needs some kind of explanation in any case.)

McCoÿ: I’m gIving her all she’s got, captain.

Sil: Rape the warp core if you have to.

In a last, desperate gambit involving inverse tachyons, the Ark manages to overcome the gravitational pull, dropping out of warp exactly at the position calculated by Mr. Aurax. The jump destroys vital spaceship functions, Sülü barely manages to crash land the thing.

Pic of Ark breaking through hole.

Ark falling through atmosphere.

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The thing that strikes me is that if Earwa is like the big old lynchpin planet somehow for all this damnation activity, isn't it a tad convenient that exactly as you say, they kick ass on many worlds, but when something screws up and they crash land - oh hae, this is the right world! Few, that's a spot of luck, rather than just crashing on some dumbass unimportant world, which is the far more likely case presumably.

I think something like what HE says above was involved, they finally figured out that Earwa was the planet they were looking for. Then they risk everything to get there, and are relieved to find its technology level is beneath contempt - until they discover sorcery.

Unfortunately, the Inchies are going more and more insane, due to the self-manipulation of their genetic code. They take to the skies in their first war because they either are overconfident or are desperate to turn the tide of battle using their weapons of light...or because Sil has some sort of control over them as he is most connected to the Ark which is their Mother.

Note that even when they win they don't puruse their enemies, likely for fear of death or because they tire relatively easily.

ETA: Though the soul trapping of dead Inchies is also a possibilty, I'm learning toward desperation or Sil controlling them.

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Don't want to read whole thread due to potential spoilers. Can you read The False Sun if you are only through the Judging Eye? Or does it have spoilers for White Luck Warrior?

It doesn't spoil any of the plot- it takes place thousands of years in the past. However, it reveals some backstory that would otherwise appear in The Unholy Consult.

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I don't feel like copy/pasting over a thousand words of text (including a few quotes), plus there are those reading this who might not want anything "spoiled" for them by seeing passages from "The False Sun" and the earlier "The Four Revelations of Cinial'jin" quoted, so for those who want to read my extensive thoughts on those two stories from a structural viewpoint can feel free to click on this link to read them.

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