[Illuyankas]

I'm pretty sure that they knew Scale House would collapse through reading and understanding the invisible diagram thing spread over the city. I don't think they wanted it to, though.

[Dolorous Menhir]

I actually thought the collapse of Scale House was a necessary step towards making Icarium's device work, and that it was no coincidence that it fell down at the exact moment Icarium stepped onto Lether. Not sure though.

[Thelomen Toblerone]

It's more an Iccy-Nah'ruk link.

I seem to remember something in a pervious book about a construct Iccy recognises or built in a K'Chain Nah'ruk settlement, or a Nah'ruk in one of his constructs, or something like that.

[RodeoRanch]

Good. I'm not the only one who is confused.

[Thelomen Toblerone]

The more Im on this forum, the more things in the books I get confused about, as things I thought I understood turn out to be proven not like that. Makes the anticipation for the final book and complete unveling of the mysteries all the more....annoying, yet exciting.

[Brennan]

The collapsing of buildings originally occurs beacuse Icarium enters Letheras. The machine is designed to fix his memories, and heal him. It was built (apparently by him) earlier, and reconfigures to fit to him at this point. That is the initial collapse--sort of a way of saying hello when plugged in (so to speak), and it presages the destruction caused by the machine when it is turned on.

Once the time is right, he uses it. The goal of the machine is to bring Icarium into time--so that he has memories, grows, and changes. Currently, he is outside of time, and thus, cannot remember. This tool of his is much more significant than his other timekeeping devices. I am only presuming Icarium built it. It is possible that someone else did, and he is just using it.

this has a very interesting parallel with the wounding of the world which intially created time (time, and life, started when the KCCM wounded the heart of mother dark/chaos).

Anyway, once the machine is started, it reconfigures, causing great destruction. Like all of Icariums devices, it is flawed, and doesn't do quite what he expected.

Some interesting bits:
It is interesting that Icaruim is onyl able to use this machine when he is now, supposedly, healed from his madness.
It is even more intriguing that he disappears. One could even theorize that if he is travelling in time, maybe he goes back in time to become the crippled god (bizarre theory #1).
I doubt he is gone, too powerful and sad to disappear. And it is very clear there is a link to Mappo that is still waiting.
What was the previous city? I cannot remember the details, but something odd. Perhaps something else entirely.
And how does this all fit with the fundamental theme of betrayal? I think it has something to do with mistakes made by K'rull. It is quite suprising, isn't it, that the elder gods would heal Icarium, rather than kill him. In the same way it is very suprising that the elders (or whoever) don't just kill the crippled god. All other gods die, what is different in this case?

Lots of questions to answer in the next few books.

[Gem Windcaster]

Brennan;187471 said:

The collapsing of buildings originally occurs beacuse Icarium enters Letheras. The machine is designed to fix his memories, and heal him. It was built (apparently by him) earlier, and reconfigures to fit to him at this point. That is the initial collapse--sort of a way of saying hello when plugged in (so to speak), and it presages the destruction caused by the machine when it is turned on.

Once the time is right, he uses it. The goal of the machine is to bring Icarium into time--so that he has memories, grows, and changes. Currently, he is outside of time, and thus, cannot remember. This tool of his is much more significant than his other timekeeping devices. I am only presuming Icarium built it. It is possible that someone else did, and he is just using it.

Completely makes sense. The outside of time explanation is very good. I kinda hopes that it is explanation SE has thought for this. Also that Icarium travels time. Maybe can can go back in time and see what he himself has done?

[Tiste Simeon]

Thelomen Toblerone said:

The more Im on this forum, the more things in the books I get confused about, as things I thought I understood turn out to be proven not like that. Makes the anticipation for the final book and complete unveling of the mysteries all the more....annoying, yet exciting.

Huh. Knowing Erikson he will leave us all hanging. He's playing with our lives! But yes I know what you mean. I finished RG going "WHAT!! I NEED TTH NOW!!!"

[Danyah]

I feel like when I finished the other books.

Erikson you bastard, just finish the story and have it delivered at my door in 5 minutes.

[Dolorous Menhir]

I like your points about Icarium's machine Brennan, especially the reconfiguring idea. But I've got to disagree with some of your other statements.

Brennan;187471 said:

this has a very interesting parallel with the wounding of the world which intially created time (time, and life, started when the KCCM wounded the heart of mother dark/chaos).

That's not the case. The KCCM death-spell was a reaction to Scabby's invasion, as seen we learned in MT. It was for causing this that the Elder Gods took such brutal revenge on Scabby. At that time we know for sure that the KCCM, FA, Imass, Tiste and Jaghut races were already in existence, so life did not begin then.

The Matron's deathspell meant that one day the universe would end, for it ensured the eventual destruction of Mother Dark. It had nothing to do with starting time or life.

Quote

Anyway, once the machine is started, it reconfigures, causing great destruction. Like all of Icariums devices, it is flawed, and doesn't do quite what he expected.

Icarium's devices are always flawed? On the contrary, they all seem to work extremely well, at least when it is obvious what they are supposed to be doing.

[Thelomen Toblerone]

Oh, for the good old days of last summer when I started reading the series. I'd finish one, and be able to move on to the next immediately. ARGH! The sheer anticiation and tension of having to wait for TTH....

[Shockwave]

Just to chip in here, but he opens veins, and references K'rul. Could he be creating his own 'beginning' just like K'rul did to create the Warrens? A whole new form of magic, a world, what? Remember how much old women dreaming worlds there are in DG?

Just a random thought, and I've no idea how to quite wedge it into the current world, but certainly a worrying one.

- Shockwave

[Ganymed]

This is my first post, so please be patient with me, though I've been lurking around for quite some time now.

I think that Icarium wanted to make himself the vessel for time just like K'rul made himself the vessel for all the warrens. I felt that in all the books the notion of time ist somehow interwoven with ones memories (as with Icarium) or with the memories of an entire race (as with the T'Lan Imass).

This would make sense from an archaeological point of view and as we know SE has this very background. What else is time and especially history than memories of the events in the past. Without the memories of various events one could not measure the time between and since them.

Anyway, we have no clue if it went right and Icarium was successful. And i've no clue, why Icarium would have waited this long or why the important memory of the "device" in Letheras came to him just then.

Hope I didn't make a fool out of myself.

[Nors]

To deep for me, Ganymed..

What if Icarium built the machine to take his own memories? Maby he's the one responsible for the ruins under Letheras, during a rage, and made a device that took away the guilt. So by starting it up again he collapses under that guilt and becomes the CG! (ok, I also like that thought..)

[asparagus]

I really haven't done any thorough research, but I got the impression Icarium has some kind of brain defect. This defect can give him anti-social episodes and gives him memory loss. In his normal state, he hears accounts of these episodes and does not like what he hears. He wants to remember. That is why he makes memory-modules. I thought the device in Letheras was a kind of recording device. Like the man in 'memento'. He had to tattoo everything on his skin, just to remember. Icarium does not use skin but uses the lithosphere.

As for what happened to Icarium: I think he is not dead, but just transported somewhere (or sometime) else. And maybe he took some others along as well. After a convergence you need to have a divergence, right? And if all the main characters would stay in one place and exchange thoughts and experiences, well, they would figure out SE too soon, wouldn't they?

[philospher77]

I got the impression that the machine wasn't "flawed", but that it had gotten out of alignment during the thousands of years that the parts had been sitting around. Thus, all the shifting back into position that caused so much distruction in the city.

And I think that the machine was intended to restore Icarium's memory, and anchor him in time, so that he could remember things going forwards. But because of the misalignment, it sucked in other people's memories as well (instead?). In other words, I think that Icarium meant to get in the machine, have it dig all his memories out, and reimplant them somehow so that he would remember them. And then I think he was supposed to be himself, but better.

So yes, I really want to know what happened to him too! I will be most unhappy if he's just dead. Although dead doesn't seem to mean a whole lot in this series.

[Urb]

I like shockwave's idea.

After drawing his own blood, Icarium thinks (page 872, hardback): If K'rul can, why not me? When Lady Envy was talking to K'Rul he told her the Warrens are his blood or something. And we know that before the warrens there were the holds (hope I'm not way off here). If Icarium now becomes the source of an entirely new magic, the Cabal would now have their one god (like K'rul in a way is).

Many uncertainties though...
I think SE likes to confuse people as much as possible.

[natakamus]

I got the impression that the memory-stealing effect of the machine was in-consequential. Basically, whomever gets too close to Icarium's machine's when they get revved up is S-out-of-luck. Maybe his machine needed memories to start a new warren, like Tellan in MoI.

I like the idea that he's started a new warren; perhaps this warren is Time-aspected? Would this new warren have anything to do with the monicker "Lifestealer"?

[Agraba]

I don't know if this was mentioned yet: Some place in Bugg's POV (if none of you buy this, I'll have to dig into RG myself) he mentioned the devices across the city as Eres'al architecture. Then, we know that after the Eres woman touched Icarium, when Taralack abhorrently mentioned that he'll have to tell Icarium of all his horrible accounts, Iccy kept saying "there's no need". Since we know that the device is of the nature of memory stealing, I think it was intended to take all of Icarium's memories and store them. Also, he knew exactly to go to it once he came to Lether, so I think that the Eres woman gave him the knowledge of that device (explaining why he kept saying "no need" to Veed after the incident).

Thus, from all this I infer that Icarium built this device together with the Eres woman.