Vlad the elder=Time Prophet
quote:
Originally posted by DalekTek790:
Another disagreement. The brains were more fully Insect than him. They knew the original agenda, and the original agenda had all them being assimilated into the Giga Shadow. That’s why they’re so glad he’s come. After the essence entered an uncleansed human host, the remaining host part was inextricably bonded to it. Thay’s why the Insect in The Giga Shadow, the disembodied essence in Mantrid, and Dr. Longbore in Texx Lexx (okay, that last one is sort of speculative, but the others illustrate my point) were voiced by Walter Borden. The characteristics from the last host were carried with the essence, and could only be diluted by the passage into later Divine Shadow hosts, which never happened because of the premature Divine Cleansing.
The Predecessors and HDSs are programmed to look forward to the Divine Rebirth as a good thing, as their “destiny,” (and it is), but beyond that they really don’t know anything about it:
“What is the Giga Shadow?”
“The Giga Shadow is the end, and it is the beginning. First will come the Cleansing, that will feed the Rebirth. The Giga Shadow is the new life beyond order. A time of rejoicing, our destiny.”
When the day arrives, they think they’re in for something great. Surprise! The Giga Shadow is an Insect, and will destroy anything remotely human.
The Divine Order seems to operate largely on a need-to-know basis. Citizens never question His Shadow’s wisdom and guidance, military officers never question His Shadow’s orders. They will fly straight into fractal cores, shoot each other, and even kill themselves if HDS tells them to.
The clerics don’t really know anything either. As the Time Prophet says:
“Clerics, loyal to His Shadow, had long prayed for the rebirth. For them, there was no higher calling than to be one of the eight chosen to oversee the ritual. And now, after thousands of years, eight were finally called forth. But fear of the Divine Order had chilled the blood of much of human kind, and seeds of doubt had taken root in the most unlikely soil.”
And as the lead Cleric says, “Ours is not to question. Ours is not to understand. Ours is to feed Order.” And as one of the Cleric geezers says, “The glory of the Divine Mystery takes precedence over a single life.”
And HDS and the Predecessors definitely do NOT know what the Giga Shadow is, or of the Insect origin of their essence (or even what protoblood is). How do I know? Because Kai did not know. Kai had no idea he was fighting the last surviving Insect, and he possessed all of HDS’s memories, from killing the predecessor, and killing HDS himself. In fact, right after he kills HDS, Kai announces, “He knew nothing of the Giga Shadow either.”
And the Giga Shadow is not devoid of Insect Essence. As he tells Kai at the end of 4.0/1.4, “I passed some of my essence to humans…” The operative word is “some,” as in, not all. It seems apparent from the series that Insect Essence is nearly infinitely divisible into separate entities (or can coalesce into a single huge entity). the essence can enter and control Yottskry, but still leave a little bit in Kai as well. And, as Mantrid explains, Insect parents transfer some of their essence to their offspring in order to bring them fully active. In fact, the Insect Essence may be a bigger part of the Insect Civilization than the giant Insects themselves. Perhaps the real intelligence is the Essence, and the Insects are just a convenient and powerful host body.