While we were waiting for Exodus to be published, one of my colleagues suggested an idea about the identity of the Outsider which is very different from the "conventional" one most often discussed here. His argument went like this:
1) What is the most salient feature of the Outsider? That he is "outside" Mainframe.
2) What does the Outsider do? He enlightens Silk, which leads him on a path towards fulfilling the Plan of... Hmmm...
3) Which of the Gods is "outside" mainframe and, presumably, trying his best to get back in and fulfil his Plan.. This idea also adds another level to Silk's disillusionment with the false religion he has hitherto followed. He abandons Pas' satirical idolotary to worship the True God, the Outsider, only to later discover... Oops! Testing times for any would-be messiah figure! You could argue that it's said that the Outsider pre-dates the Whorl and created Mankind. But this is just a rumour, and just the sort of rumour you might expect that old monomaniac Typhon to put about... Finally, I think it's amusing that this extremely bleak reading was suggested to me, an atheist, by a keen amateur Catholic theologian.
David W