White-Luck Warrior X: X Marks the Slog

[Sci-2]

@HE: Wasn't it here in the False Sun Thread? Also, don't you need to have a working definition of continuity to define a space filling curve?

Also, does anyone get why these pins tear down the barricade? Is it a sequence of pins, where the distance between pins approaches zero at the same rate as the distance between sheets of the curve approach zero - so it introduces a discontinuity into every sheet with which breaks down the continuous generation of the curve?

(If the above is utter bullshit, apologies. Like I said, my classes on this kind of math are from years ago.)

[White Walker Texas Ranger]

I was imagining something simpler. The ward has empty spaces which direct any forces which comes in contact right through it while the non empty spaces stop any objects, so you'd need a force that applied to the curve but doesn't touch any non-empty space. Though I think you'd need an infinite number of pins to have any meaningful effect on the ward.

It'd probably be easier to just use a chorae.

[jurble]

Wait.... why was it so difficult to break open Min Uroikas that it took Mek and the Mangaecca like hundreds of years before Shae to break it open? They could have paid a peasant to lob a Chorae at the barrier, as you point out, O-o.

Unless the barrier would stay intact, and it would merely allow the one holding the chorae to pass through?

[Shryke]

Why do you think a Chorae would work on it?

[Kalbear]

No? He figured it out after seeing the dream.

i don't think that's true. He effortlessly describes it to mimara. He isn't struggling to determine what it meant. The behavior and description is known and obvious to him.

Just not to us.

This is the same as in sauglish - Akkas knowledge of artifact and magic is quite deep, especially for historical stuff. And honestly, if the mandate has been having a not so Cold War with the consult for 2000 years or so it stands to reason they would have done some research into their enemies. Kellhus observation of the inches mentioned above isn't Kellhus figuring it out after all - it's akka stating it to Kellhus.

[jurble]

Why do you think a Chorae would work on it?

Isn't that what chorae do? Negate magic and what not.

[Castel]

Isn't that what chorae do? Negate magic and what not.

Magic that exists in this plane's frame. If the magic has it's own frame then no.

[Sci-2]

I read it the way Kal did. Akka knew all along how Shae made himself immortal.

However, I'm not sure this is a problem that we only learn about it now, seeing as there wouldn't be much need to discuss it earlier that I can recall.

[Kalbear]

Rereading it I think I'm right and wrong. Akka had never seen shae before and was a bit surprised by how he looked, but he wasn't hugely surprised by the way he lasted as long as he did. My guess is that akka had theories of how shae escaped damnation but this was proof - as akka says and emphasizes, now he KNOWS how he escaped. But when he explains its with very detailed information - and that wouldn't have been present to nau directly. Notice how we get the info of akka explaining soul shearing and soul transference so easily.

I also think that ent is wrong. Reading this it seems very clear that nau at least believes this to be what shae is now. The line 10 bodies, one malevolent soul speaks to that.

[Kalbear]

I read it the way Kal did. Akka knew all along how Shae made himself immortal.

However, I'm not sure this is a problem that we only learn about it now, seeing as there wouldn't be much need to discuss it earlier that I can recall.

there was plenty of need earlier - and it actually happened. Akka talked with Kellhus about the nature of the consult and their true form and power. Even then we only got the most base of knowledge - but akka clearly has a whole lot more. He parcels it out to mimara here and there in tiny morsels but not much more than that; what's cheap is that if soul trapping is so well known and understood, we probably should have seen it in use more.

Also, the line "A pit bent into a circle, the most perfect of the Conserving Forms..." - this suggests there are multiple known ways to save a soul, and the forever falling one is the one without as many issues. But akka clearly understood it right away.

The fracturing of identity that akka describes also hints at the construction of the no god as a similar construct to shae, which of course makes sense given his abilities to save himself. A soul without identity but with faculties? Sounds legit.

[Shryke]

Magic that exists in this plane's frame. If the magic has it's own frame then no.

Plus, if you build a wall with magic, you can't chorae that wall down.

[Shryke]

I'm not seeing how this is different from any fantasy novel ever, where information is parcelled out on a need-to-know basis.

[Madness]

To be quite honest, I expect things will get weirder yet. Mayhaps, Serwa remembers fighting Sheonanra as this flying Shield of Sil, though my guess is that it only hovers around within the Ark.

Likely, though, I'd expect that he has another build specifically for battle - Iron Man meets Second Apocalypse. The only reason that Aurang uses the Synthese is because it's been effective for all it's been necessary for him to do. Agency strikes me as the argument here, that Sheonanra's form and agency aren't what we expected from the most powerful sorcerer in the world... arguably.

Also, I'd just add that I think Achamian's seemingly "extra-knowledge," reflects narrative form as Shryke has mentioned, but also might reflect soceretic knowledge, not knowledge of the explicit rules of Damnation and the nature of the relationship between the World and the Outside.

[Kalbear]

I'm not seeing how this is different from any fantasy novel ever, where information is parcelled out on a need-to-know basis.

we have had this conversation elsewhere, but basically it sucked in those other places too and the primary difference is that it isn't just the information about mechanics, it's that it exists at all. He was better about this in the first series where we saw things first more often, and then were explained; in this one we have a lot of random new things that weren't hinted at at all in the first novels.

[Kalbear]

Also, on chorae and the wall - I assumed that chorae would negate the power of the wall locally but wouldn't destroy the generating effect. And that doesn't help. Yeah, you could get a normal guy into the pit but then what? Aurax and Aurang can't get out the same way, the sorcs can't get in, everyone's still stuck.

[Sci-2]

I'm not sure Chorae always work against every form of sorcery. Didn't Bakker say the Aporos has to do with paradoxes inherent to grammars? What if the wall itself is relying on Aporetic sorcery or some construction that encapsulates the grammars in for which Chorae are effective?

Also, I do agree with Kal that when the Wathi doll came up we should have learned about the shearing of consciousness and hungers since Akka knew about it at the time.

[generic]

My guess is that akka had theories of how shae escaped damnation but this was proof - as akka says and emphasizes, now he KNOWS how he escaped. But when he explains its with very detailed information - and that wouldn't have been present to nau directly. Notice how we get the info of akka explaining soul shearing and soul transference so easily.

He might just have had enough knowledge to figure it out on first glance. We have seen two soul trapping devices and we have also seen posession. One of those devices did some strange things with circles. Then there is whatever Seswatha did with his heart which is one of the most noticable blank spaces in TSA.

[Madness]

FYI, I'm pretty sure this excerpt is the first time Achamian's ever even thought about his Wathi Doll.

If memory serves, in order, Esmenet explores Achamian's pack when they were fleeing the nightmares of Mengedda and finds it, Serwe watches when Achamian retrieves it and Kellhus says its name, Eleazaras watches Achamian speak its name, and a random Javreh watches it scratch the Uroborian Circle.

This would then be Achamian's first perspective on it. Why would any of those other characters have Achamian's knowledge?

[Sci-2]

There's the point where the doll frees Akka. I'm also pretty sure the part where Akka uses it to test Kellhus's ability as one of the few is from his POV though its 3rd person.

The sheering of the soul into two parts should also have been mentioned when Seswatha is going down to the coffers.

It's not necessarily a retcon, but it's a bit weird that it's never come up before now.

[Madness]

Nitpick:

There's the point where the doll frees Akka

This is from the Javreh's perspective before Achamian boils him.

I'm also pretty sure the part where Akka uses it to test Kellhus's ability as one of the few is from his POV though its 3rd person.

This is Serwe's perspective.