Azurelight/Souls
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From the WW-forums Since we know very little, I'm just musing: I am making the following assumptions: I may not know all that has been written on souls, but I think I remember quite a bit. Please correct me if I made a factual error.
I also assume that humans have all body parts and organ as normal, the same goes for animals that this can be said about. A Human and animal has two souls: The Hun and the Po. The Hun is the soul being reincarnated, and it is the Hun that forms ghosts when it is not reincarnated properly. The Hun probably resides in the more forward parts of the brain (I base this on a combination of medical knowledge combined with what functions the different souls are attributed) while the Po forms in the more primitive parts, such as the reptile-brain or the brain stem. When a body dies, the Hun may travel on while the Po remains. (Yay, something canon comes up). If not treated properly, the Po may become a hungry ghost. If it is, it just dissolves. Both souls can be used for soul forging. The Po houses Exaltation.
In humans and other intelligent beings, the Hun is the most dominant soul. Then the more animalistic and primitive an animal are the more hold the Po has over its behaviour and the more instinctual it is.
What more do we know about souls? They are collected and managed by a god. (see E:TS)
Autochthon needs them
They may be finite or infinite
I will try to discuss the last 2 of these.
TW asked why Autochthon needs to eat souls. I don’t know where, but I think I read somewhere that he didn’t need to until he banished himself to the non-space of Elsewhere. Maybe he needed them to live when he abandoned the “infinite” flows of Creation and the Wyld and became a closed system. Also, some one told me that when he left , he hoped that, with a perfect recycling system he could survive indefinitely. This failed him though since his RS wasn’t perfect. (This Might depend on which scenario, but they are just scenarios). Also, although it refers to him being “hungry”, I don’t like to think of it as “Eating”. Instead I like to think of it as a Conductor/current relationship. For those who don’t know, every conductor has a property called Resistance (R). I is basically the electrical equivalent to friction, hence it reduces the useful energy you can get out of the current (transforming it into heat). What if auto need a soul current to survive but ha also has a resistance that wears and tears on the souls, until they become either useless or non existent.
As for the number of souls, I imagine it to be very large. I don’t think it is finite. I think that should the number dwindle, the pattern spiders can make new ones out of the Wyld that they weave into order. However, making a new one takes TIME.
Just a theory, written at 2:05 AM :D Addendum: Maddy? at the WW Exalted forum, posted the theory that souls can actually Proliferate and do so at a certain rate. I'll have to see what I make of this. Proliferation: If souls could proliferate, I imagine that it would be pretty slow(a generation time of perhaps 1000+ years). Further I imagine that there would probably be a limit to the growth(much in the same way as cells stop growing when they are out of space). The limit would be imposed by the “size” of Lethe. I’m still not sure if I like the proliferation thing though.
Reincarnation: I think reincarnation is there for two purposes. First and foremost there always have to be functional souls available for new humans to be born properly. If there were no souls, children would be stillborn much like in Autochthonia. The same would probably happen if the souls were to worn down to reincarnate properly and as I have noted the pattern spider backup should probably take a very long time. Therefore, souls reincarnate. The other purpose of Lethe would be as a recycle mechanism. Think about it like this: If a car gets old you can trash it and put it on the dump however the garbage will cause damage to the environment. However, if you recycle the car, the damage can be lessen and even negated. I imagine something similar is applicable to souls.
My new theory on Autobot is this: He is Sickly as we know, and W also knoe that when He blende the souls of X-files rejects with his toxins, it Became Soulsteele, which I don't think is toxic to him. Hence, I believe that he used the lower souls of his residents to forge soulssteele to mitgate his toxins. However, even lower souls have to be genrated from essence, and hence his essence level lowered. When it got low, he had to use higher souls, he lost alot of them, and now he needs new ones to avoid sucumbing to his condition.
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Interesting conjecture; I've moved it to its proper location, so that more people can enjoy it. If you've any questions on the matter, just drop by BestPractices and they should be answered...DeathBySurfeit
Where does Lethe and reincarnation fit into this though? - Trithne
Note: Sorry, managed to remove old comments in the revision. Damn!. -Azurelight
Fixed for you. - Trithne
Thanks-Azurelight
