What are your thoughts on the effectiveness of the cogwork core? It was supposed to sustain song eternally, which I interpreted to mean that choir bugs would no longer bound to sing eternally. Wouldn't that just free all the citadel bugs of their previous duty and weaken the justification for the rule of the conductors and other higher castes?
The only thing that reconciles this in my mind is that if the cogwork core couldn't produce enough song to replace the entire chorus, but merely to replace the volume of bugs that were dying or falling silent.
It's a plot question that I have been thinking about a bit while reading up on the lore
It's not really clear. On the one hand, we have a choral commandment that seems to pretty clearly indicate that the conductors felt that they could pass the responsibility of song to the core. On the other, that begs the question of 'how did silk wake back up at all?' My current theory is that the core was enough until it wasn't; it was never going to actually be sufficient to hold silk forever, and the conductors believing it was sufficient was simply another example of their mistake
Either way, I don't think the conductors and the rest needed all that much justification to continue ruling. Most of the pilgrims we meet are very deep in their religion, and would likely blindly follow the conductors anyway. Remember too that only the conductors know the true purpose of the song. For all anyone else knows, the core is simply complementary
What are your thoughts on the effectiveness of the cogwork core? It was supposed to sustain song eternally, which I interpreted to mean that choir bugs would no longer bound to sing eternally. Wouldn't that just free all the citadel bugs of their previous duty and weaken the justification for the rule of the conductors and other higher castes?
The only thing that reconciles this in my mind is that if the cogwork core couldn't produce enough song to replace the entire chorus, but merely to replace the volume of bugs that were dying or falling silent.
It's a plot question that I have been thinking about a bit while reading up on the lore
It's not really clear. On the one hand, we have a choral commandment that seems to pretty clearly indicate that the conductors felt that they could pass the responsibility of song to the core. On the other, that begs the question of 'how did silk wake back up at all?' My current theory is that the core was enough until it wasn't; it was never going to actually be sufficient to hold silk forever, and the conductors believing it was sufficient was simply another example of their mistake
Either way, I don't think the conductors and the rest needed all that much justification to continue ruling. Most of the pilgrims we meet are very deep in their religion, and would likely blindly follow the conductors anyway. Remember too that only the conductors know the true purpose of the song. For all anyone else knows, the core is simply complementary