{
  "$type": "site.standard.document",
  "canonicalUrl": "https://serpentsquiggles.neocities.org//posts/black-nerve/apocrypha/nous-inspira",
  "description": "|",
  "path": "/posts/black-nerve/apocrypha/nous-inspira",
  "publishedAt": "2023-04-03T00:00:00.000Z",
  "site": "at://did:plc:ivoe7cntxuy6at7uzmxzs2ft/site.standard.publication/3mfk6cpprzt2t",
  "textContent": "::: related\n- [](umbracog.html)\n- [](ophisrhodon.html)\n:::\n\nBack in the 16^th^ century, when the Third Dominion was in full swing\nand the slave from the north slew Thanata Thimithi, then-matriarch of\nher clan, it precipitated the clan's defection from the regime.\n\nFor much of the remainder of the Third Dominion's reign, they were\ndetermined to pull the Thimithi back into line. Their agents of choice\nwere, more often than not, the Anthimati clan, whose cursed eyes of\nnouprojection could have... a certain persuasive effect.\n\nEven after the dominion fell, the Anthimati clan never discarded their\ngrudge. Though there were other plenty of other feuds between\nfamilies, they mostly had their definite beginnings and swift endings,\nor otherwise waxed and waned with the years. In contrast, there was\nsomething unending about the procession of snake eyes burned by fire\nand ardent blood shed by rosen thorns --- all of this is to say, when\none speaks of the \"warring clans period\", those clans might as well\nhave been just the Thimithi and Anthimati.\n\nStill, there's something asymmetrical about this conflict, isn't\nthere? Sure, fire is hot, if you get hit and don't have protection, but\nthe Anthimati will turn your very mind and senses against you.\n\nIt's understandable, then, why the Thimithi badly needed a counter if\nthey were to remain free of subjugation.\n\nWhat they ended up with is, of course, what we're here to discuss\ntoday: the technique known as nous inspira.\n\n- - -\n\nLet's change track, and explain why the nous inspira is weird, when\nit comes to nouprojection defenses.\n\nThink about it like this. Say you're a vesperbane, and your enemy is\ntrying to nudge your thoughts against your best interest, poison your\nsenses and imagination with false images, and so on. All those nasty\nillusionist tricks.\n\nYou, obviously, don't want this to happen, so how do you manage that?\n\nYou might think it helps to focus, to train your mind to follow a line\nof thought without getting distracted. If the threat is your mind being\nmaliciously changed, then tautalogically, you want your mind not to\nchange, to maintain its intended signal unfalteringly.\n\nAnd if this is what your answer is, it's the same as 90% of the\nscholarship on this topic. It's what the percipients study, it's what\nUnbrood operatives are trained to do, and it's how the \"mind blank\"\nspells normal vesperbanes use for this generally implement their\ndefense.\n\nWhatever you might think to do, it's probably not to lean in, to let\nyour mind run wild with every impulse, to make it more malleable, more\nmercurial.\n\nBut that's exactly what nous inspira does, if we oversimplify and elide\na lot of very specific instruction and guidance that's probably been\nall but lost at this point.\n\nIntuitively, the principle here is that any attempt at \"mind control\"\ncan't control your whole mind, so instead we maximize chaos. If you\nfollow after every nudge, then more often than not it's going to be\nyour natural intuition rather than foreign influence. And if you do\nsuccumb to an intruder-thought, it doesn't matter that much because\nyou'll be jumping to another flight of thought soon enough. It won't\nstick.\n\nAnd by being more spontaneous and chaotic, you foil projection in\nanother way: fundamentally, every mind is different, and the art of\nprojection is based on guesswork and common patterns. They figure out\nthe rhythms and connections of your mind by watching it and replaying\ndesired stimuli.\n\nAnd how useful is that if your mind is ever-changing, if two nudges only\nslightly different might send it chaotically in very different\ndirections?\n\nOne cannot predict what you're doing if you have no fucking clue\nyourself.\n\nThis isn't the whole technique, but it's the first form a student\nmasters: the wildfire mind.\n\nThis is typically trained by dancing by the flickering light of a great\nbig campfire, learning to move and think on impulse.\n\nNow, you might imagine that random flailing is a pretty hefty drawback.\nThis is true, and thus, wildfire thought is more of a state of being\npartially trained, or at best, a last resort.\n\nTo be truly useful, an initiate must master the second form: focused\nflame.\n\nThis is what you might expect: refining the wildfire mind into something\nmore directed, yet still spontaneous.\n\nThe metaphor and the training exercise typically used for this is that\nof music. A inspirer learns dances and songs that are easy to predict\nif you're acquainted with them, but hard to follow if you don't, keeping\nprojectors guessing.\n\nWhen these songs become deeply engraved on the mind, they become a kind\nof error-correction tool --- foreign thoughts become obvious, because\nthey won't fit with the practiced mental rhythm, and thus become easier\nto shrug off.\n\nThe skill ceiling here is very high, and for almost centuries, it's\ngenerally considered acceptable for a Thimithi to reach only this level\nof development to be considered combat ready, and once they do, there's\nplenty to more learn here --- more complex songs, improvisationally\nframing more complex thoughts and actions into the rhythm of a song ---\nwithout ever needing to master the higher forms.\n\nBut should they pursue them, the next step is the radiant spirit.\n\nIn the realignment war and then later as a part of the Pantheca proper,\nthis technique was what made the Thimithi born leaders and commanders,\nand it became common pillar of their combat doctrine.\n\nThe nature of the radiant spirit is simple: all minds emit adumbrations\nthat vibrate nearby enervate, but this effect is generally so subtle\nthat only exceptionally sensitive receptors are capable of being\naffected.\n\nTo be radiant, then, an inspirer must learn to turn up the volume on\ntheir mind.\n\nThis has two chief effects: it weakens projection by the same principle\ntalking over someone weakens arguments, and it acts as a projection of\nits own.\n\nThus, the benefit to the user is minor, but the benefit to her allies\ncan be game-changing. Enemy projections become hampered, and with\nsimple training, allies can learn to relax and synchronize with the\nrhythm of radiant inspirer's mind, directly amplifying their own\nresistance to nouprojection.\n\n(Interestingly, one of the selling points of the Anthimati's\nophisrhodon is that it grants the beholden resistance to other\nnouprojection. In a way, then, you can think of the nous inspira almost\nas the \"good\" counterpart to the \"evil\" ophisrhodon. This is\ndefinitely how the Thimithi presented it.)\n\nNow, all of the steps so far have been things that, theoretically,\nanyone with a mind could achieve with some effort. But the radiant\nspirit is limited by physics: there is physically only so much enervate\nin a person brain, which limits how \"loud\" they can be.\n\nBrains can gain more enervate through umbracog training, but that's\nsomething that the vespers' intervention (academics argue whether this\nis \"well-intentioned\" or not) generally prevent vesperbanes from\nacquiring. By nature they flush the additional enervate from their\nhosts' brains.\n\nThus, radiant spirit is generally explained to the world as a Thimithi\nbloodline ability. The truth of it is, (perhaps due to the special\nfavor of the vespers?) the Thimthi have a peculiar innate affinity for\nnouprojection themselves, and this is how they use it.\n\nAfter radiant spirit comes inner reflection. This is one of the\nmost perilous forms, and something Thimithi elders forbid any but the\nwisest and most developed practitioners from attempting. This is\nbecause the inner reflection is the point where advanced technique and\nrefinement double back around and risk running counter the\nfundamentals.\n\nWith the radiant spirit, you are metaphorically shining light out into\nthe world. The inner reflection asks: why not accept that light back\ninto yourself, and make an eye of the mind's flame?\n\nThe problem with this is, well...\n\nYou see, the nous inspira is supposed to protect you from nouprojection,\nright?\n\nThe inner reflection, put simply, is \"what if we allowed projection to\naffect us anyway?\"\n\nLearned incorrectly, this completely negates the protection and makes\nthe user more vulnerable to projection.\n\nBut learned correctly? An eye of enlightenment is opened, and it\ninterfaces directly with the brain at the speed of enervate\ntransmission.\n\nIt's the purest form of extrasensory perception. You can sense\ntechniques even as they're being molded, feel your foe's mind as they\nplan their next move.\n\nAnd it amplifies the radiant spirit's effect, too: if you can feel your\nally's minds, you can subtly alter your song to more tightly\nsynchronize with them.\n\nWhat more is their to learn? Well, the apex of nous inspira\ndevelopment is termed the divine flame. This is the point at which\nthe user's wild and freeform adaptability and their extrasensory\nconnection to the world around them (combined with a style trained\npast the point of muscle memory) allows them to enter a total flow\nstate wherein you might well describe them as being one with the world\nitself, acting in such perfect concert with what seems almost\nsupernatural foreknowledge --- it's as if they are channeling a higher\npower.\n\nThere's a reason why worshiping Theiona Thimithi, the first\noverscourge, and the last master of divine flame, as if one of the\nexalted ancestor is considered fringe, but not ridiculous.\n\n- - -\n\nThe above description gives one a general idea of the principles at play\nwith the nous inspira, and the way it looks, but this would be\ninsufficient to recreate it. Just as a great poem has meaning meanings\nachieved with clever, unexpected choice of worlds, a great technique\nachieves many effects with a clever, unexpected mechanisms.\n\nA more mundane metaphor: we ask one to \"say cheese\" to get them to\nsmile for a photo --- this odd trick works because of the details of how\nthe mouth must shape itself to say cheese.\n\nSimilarly, there are specific techniques used to get a mind to \"think\ninspira\".\n\nThe way the Thimithi generally teach it, the nous inspira requires a\nsp",
  "title": "Nous Inspira"
}