When Abominations Die

Per Y'shtola's special eyes, when a person who has become an abomination dies, their soul itself is destroyed. Meteion had a way to destroy souls permanently. Despite having this method, she felt the need to trap souls in order to prevent them from being reborn.

Now these souls were also used to power her song of Oblivion (maybe? implied but don't think ever stated), but I was under the impression she was concerned about souls being reborn. Made her big speech on how even if all life on one planet was destroyed, the souls/aether would eventually be drawn to another world to be reborn. Why was that a concern when she can just delete souls?

She actually didn't have a way to perma-destroy souls, that was a misjudgement based on observation. We saw 'once they turned the soul's not there' in Thavnair and assumed it was destruction because we didn't know there was an alternative, and then later learned that it's because the people whose souls turn get sucked up into Ultima Thule.

I was under the impression the only souls she had been gathering were those from the other stars that lacked a Lifestream and were attempting to return to the "greater flow" she mentioned.

Though at the same time, I'm not convinced that the souls of those who turned were completely gone given that we've had weird cases like Ardbert who was spread too thin to be seen by anyone but us or Hythlodaeus, suggesting conventional aethersight isn't telling the whole tale. The notion of souls having different "colors" in the eyes of the exceptionally keen-sighted suggests to me that there's some deeper aspect to them that is not as easily perceived.

There's also the simpler fact that we're still able to get Echo visions from all the blasphemies involved in the role quests, which by necessity would require their souls to be still be intact to some degree.

Was it echo vision from the person or more like how we saw Hermes talk about giving Meteion flowers once they got back?

The blasphemy's former aether was being sucked into the dead sun/egg in Ultima Thule. The monsters we were fighting were made from the people's dynamis left behind and being warped by the despair. Y'shtola can't sense dynamis, so to her it looked like the aether was just gone altogether. At that point we hadn't even learned of dynamis and only vaguely understood it as akasha.

Meteion stated that the only way for her to actually stop the cycle of life was to prevent anything from being born at all, so her plan was to lock up all the aether in her dynamis powered world, stop the natural flow everywhere, and just wait for the inevitable heat death of the universe.

I feel like if aether was being pulled away from the blasphemies that would've been perceptible via aethersight at the moment of them turning as you can already visibly see it dispersing whenever someone turns and there wasn't any indication that the dynamis permeating the world was interfering with the perception of aetherial phenomena in general, either.

Given that there's set-up for a side story pertaining to the fate of the souls gathered in Ultima Thule, I'd be surprised if we didn't get a more clear answer about whether or not the souls of Etheriys were also being pulled there,.

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

I feel like if aether was being pulled away from the blasphemies that would've been perceptible via aethersight at the moment of them turning as you can already visibly see it dispersing whenever someone turns and there wasn't any indication that the dynamis permeating the world was interfering with the perception of aetherial phenomena in general, either.

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The way I figure it, the act of someone turning was so enormous that Y'shtola (the only person who'd actually have been paying attention to this, let's be real) just didn't notice it. To her, the process looks like all of someone's aether collapsing in on itself into a void, which then expands into the negative space shape of a horrible monster of some description. Add to that the fact that she was seeing that stuff happen in an environment that was... well, mostly on fire, I can forgive her not noticing 'oh hey a little wisp of aether comes out and heads to the sky'.

Meteion's goals are multifaceted. She does desire to hasten the end to existence, and the cycle of life, death, rebirth is an obstacle that she ultimately doesn't have as much control over as she would like to have. She can't truly obliterate a soul, but she can prevent it from returning to the Aetherial Sea where it will be born into a new body. Those who succumb to dynamis are stripped of their corpeal flesh and their soul taken to the dead sun, where it will stay until the eventual heat death of the universe. I think this method is given to us when she offers Hermes to go with her to the edge of existence. She was going to honor him with being her egg's first resident.

I feel like the Scions would've/should've remarked about the fact that the souls of the turned weren't beyond salvation if it were actually true, given that they initially expressed grief over the fact they seemed to be completely gone.

Though as previously mentioned that might just end up being a plot point that's addressed in future content since there's no indication the trapped souls of the dead star were actually released after Meteion's defeat.

Given that there's now a direct aetherial link between Etheriys and Ultima Thule thanks to the Ragnarok's trip there, the souls could realistically be ferried across that same channel to the Lifestream if need be, but I wonder if the souls of those from other stars could also potentially end up being included for better or worse.

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

I feel like the Scions would've/should've remarked about the fact that the souls of the turned weren't beyond salvation if it were actually true, given that they initially expressed grief over the fact they seemed to be completely gone.

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You might remember, the Scions weren't exactly in a position to remark on things when we learned that, and by the time they were, momentum had started pulling everything on. Hard to find a point for them to say that.

She first tells us that bit after Urianger and Y'shtola disappear, and the remaining three all had their personal grievances about the matter, particularly Alphinaud who took small solace in thinking that those who hadn't turned would at least be able to be reborn and thus could perhaps take a moment to logic it out then reaffirm his determination knowing that even those thought lost forever still had that small hope.

It just feels weird to me that there's literally no direct acknowledgment of the souls of the turned still being intact in some capacity.

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

She first tells us that bit after Urianger and Y'shtola disappear, and the remaining three all had their personal grievances about the matter, particularly Alphinaud who took small solace in thinking that those who hadn't turned would at least be able to be reborn and thus could perhaps take a moment to logic it out then reaffirm his determination knowing that even those thought lost forever still had that small hope.

It just feels weird to me that there's literally no direct acknowledgment of the souls of the turned still being intact in some capacity.

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There is, actually...during the last healer role quest for the expansion.

I also assumed as much given Fordola's hypersensitive Echo would probably make her able to detect traces of a soul more conventional methods would not...though it's still an implication as opposed to a direct confirmation.

I'm hoping the subject of the blasphemies doesn't get dropped in 6.x and perhaps Sharlayan and others delve into research about them and the nature of dynamis.

Is there a citation or something for the idea that the souls being hit by dynamis get sucked up to Ultima Thule?

I know she says her "egg" holds the aether of souls in it so they can't be reborn, but I don't think she ever made a direct connection between that and the effects of her "gift". It sounded like it was a secondary plan where she was basically sucking up the celestial lifestream. I don't recall the "egg" and the "gift" being related directly, just used in conjunction to be thorough about ending all life. The song of oblivion voids out people that are currently alive; and the egg will keep those that are already in the lifestream of their world from escaping to the cosmos and being born anew anywhere else by eventually imprisoning the entire cosmic lifestream.

At least, that's how I understood it.

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Originally Posted by Alleluia

Is there a citation or something for the idea that the souls being hit by dynamis get sucked up to Ultima Thule?

I know she says her "egg" holds the aether of souls in it so they can't be reborn, but I don't think she ever made a direct connection between that and the effects of her "gift". It sounded like it was a secondary plan where she was basically sucking up the celestial lifestream. I don't recall the "egg" and the "gift" being related directly, just used in conjunction to be thorough about ending all life. The song of oblivion voids out people that are currently alive; and the egg will keep those that are already in the lifestream of their world from escaping to the cosmos and being born anew anywhere else by eventually imprisoning the entire cosmic lifestream.

At least, that's how I understood it.

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It's just something that's being inferred off of given information.

I personally feel loath to believe it since it would've meant that logically nobody who died on Etheriys while the Final Days was going on would've been spared from having their souls trapped in Ultima Thule blasphemy or otherwise, as there's no indication the people of the other stars had been turning and rather it was a side effect of Etheriys being the first world Meteion was deliberately trying to destroy by flooding it with dynamis.