>My understanding of the dwarvish raison d'etre is that they labour
>unceasingly to repair the "world machine". Many people, when writing to
>the digest regards dwarves, have conjured visions of vast underground
>factories full of noisy machinery, and individuals whose role in life is
>to fit sprocket A to spindle B (which they get to do for eternity, if they
>do it right). To me this doesn't quite fit. Part of the problem is that I
>can't imagine the world machine as mechanical.
That's not the point. The Dwarves see the Cosmos as the World Machine just as the Central Genertelans see the Cosmos as being peopled by Gods. When a Dwarf looks at the Sun using his magical vision, he sees it as a glowing cog of blazing fire. Likewise he could look up into the Night Sky and see the planets moving along on their clocklike epicycles. This reinforces the idea that the world machine exists or more importantly, it reduces the world to something that he can understand.
>In any case, dwarves
>are craftsmen rather than factory-line workers: I recall a description of
>dwarven musket units where every musket is different, hand made by its
>owner.
They are Henry Fordesque craftsmen. Most dwarves in a factory make a particular type of component and make it well. They could be trained to make another component but then they would have to start from scratch. Iron Dwarves are made for fighting at a particular position in their regiment, frex.
>We know dwarves produce nilmergs and jolanti, but the process is sorcerous
>rather than technological. A jolanti climbs cooling from a vat of magma
>only after the appropriate spell has been cast. His sensory organs are
>carved by stonemasons, but require sorcery to get them working. If you
>were to cut one open, you would surely find stone organs rather than
>little cogs. My point here is that dwarves put as much effort into
>working with spirit as they do with stone, iron, bronze, fire, dark etc.
But what does the Dwarf think he is doing when he casts a spell? To activate a Jolanti's eyes, the mostali might think he is creating a path so that the some specialized energy fields from the World Machine pervade the organs so that they be capable of function.
As for the organs, best not to remind a dwarf about that. It calls into question their own imperfect organs (which are seemingly Grower in origin) and then they'll have to visit the Gold Dwarf for therapy (which involves a partial mindwipe and installing mental blocks so they don't think down that route again). Those capable of handling the strain will claim it's a relic of the last good growth in the cosmos and that the Jolanti organs are Made copies.
>Back to my query, which is essentially, what do the dwarves see as wrong
>with the world machine, and what exactly are they doing to fix it? I've
>had a number of ideas, but they're still only part formed.
It is an error IMO to actually believe the mostali claim that they are correcting the world machine. It's what they were built for but what what would happen if the world machine was fixed? I have a strong suspicion that they would carry on as they always have done because they know of nothing else to do. Only diamond dwarf status could ever grant them the ability to think outside the circle.
So in my opinion the world machine is fixed (it was fixed at the Dawn, what more proof do you need?) and the dwarves don't know it yet and are unlikely to find out. To keep a highly skilled workforce prepared for the next catastrophe (you never know when one might come up*), the diamond dwarves and the true mostali keep up the pretense that the world machine still needs to be repaired. A few long range predictions are made from time to time to give the workers the impression that Progress Is Being Made but the end-result is inexplicably not detailed. Apart from Trolls and Elves being extinct (telling that!) and Stone shall return to life (which is in itself extemely vague and one suspects purposely unrealisable).
*The Sunstop may be an example of a catastrophe here so the mostali may not be totally useless. But I prefer to think they are so it isn't IMHO.
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