Do artificial beings have souls ?

Hi all. I've been thinking about certain beings we have met and the possibility for them to host a soul or not.
Particularly about Ixali, Loporrits and clones.
I'm under the impression that none of these creatures have souls, with maybe the exception of Ixali.

We know that Ixali were artificially made by allagans, and that they don't exist in the First.
So considering that they are fully man made, can they host a soul like other races ?
Or are they just built too different to work like a regular race ?

Allagans also made clones like we saw with Doga, Unei and Amon. These clones had their own consciousness, but no proof of having a soul either.
Garleans used allagans science to make clones of Solus. I assume they are the same as Allag's clones since we haven't seen them since Stormblood when Emet used them.

And finally, the lopporits, created by Hydaelyn. These things are tricky, they make me think of familiar like meteion, rather than an actual regular race.
They were made aside from the other races, to serve as their helpers/guides. Would hydaelyn give a soul to creatures made for a certain purpose ? Can she even grant people a soul ?

So does these being have a soul like most sentient races in the game ?

According to Ancient logic, anything that can sustain itself by the laws of nature is simply granted a soul by the star with time, which we witnessed first-hand in the case of Alpha.

It does raise the question of how those new creations are even able to be...well, alive, considering that the consciousness is tied to the soul, though it could be they are in possession of some manner of "artificial" soul akin to what allows arcane constructs to function until then.

The anatomy of souls and where they come from is something I'm hoping they'll touch on more deeply going forward considering we still don't know what the precise distinction between Ancient, Echo-blessed souls vs. normal ones is still, and it could potentially tie into the very origin/nature of the star itself.

While I'd acknowledge that the situation here is very complicated and nebulous, I'd also put forward the additional question of 'what difference does it make?'

I'm not saying this dismissively, like it's just not a worthwhile question to ask, because it is. By asking that, I mean... well, what's the functional difference between Meteion, who by all info we have doesn't (or by all evidence shouldn't) have a soul, and something that we know does have one, like, say, Hildibrand? We know Alpha eventually got a soul, but we've also been with Alpha both before and after that point; did that really change anything about how he behaved or functioned?

There's probably something you could cobble together with the Auspices, the Anima weapon questline, Gigi and other such story-lines but it's definitely a "some assembly required" part of the lore if u wish to engage with it.

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

While I'd acknowledge that the situation here is very complicated and nebulous, I'd also put forward the additional question of 'what difference does it make?

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I was just wondering about the implications of having a soul granted to you.
Familiar like Meteion don't seem have one, so it's not like it's a requirement for intelligent being. So then, why does a being like Alpha got one ? What difference do they have that one got a soul and not the other ?

And why does it matter to even get one in the first place, considering it only gives you two things as far as we know : the ability to go to the Lifestream upon death, and reincarnation.

For example like you and KageTokage said, Alpha got a soul and it didn't change anything. Omega even said they are both like material possessions and could be teleported by us as such, despite Alpha having his own soul.

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

The anatomy of souls and where they come from is something I'm hoping they'll touch on more deeply going forward considering we still don't know what the precise distinction between Ancient, Echo-blessed souls vs. normal ones is still, and it could potentially tie into the very origin/nature of the star itself.

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I really hope they do, i really wonder if there's a reason why the star grant some people a soul.
Doesn't really seem necessary for the little it does change.

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Originally Posted by Alpheus

There's probably something you could cobble together with the Auspices, the Anima weapon questline, Gigi and other such story-lines but it's definitely a "some assembly required" part of the lore if u wish to engage with it.

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That's a good idea, although i'm not sure the Anima weapon got a regular soul, seems closer to something like a familiar or construct.

It depends, as said during one of Elpis quests.
Life forms are separated into two categories: Regular living beings, and arcane entities.
The former have souls, because Nature saw fit to grant them one as they were close enough to "natural" and "sustaining". The latter don't.

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Originally Posted by Hermes, Lives Apart

Tell me─do you know the difference between living beings and arcane entities?
It is the presence of a soul. Yet the soul isn't something you can choose to have at will.
No, it manifests only in those beings whose forms adhere to the laws of creation. That can endure on their own.
Beings that do not fulfill this requirement, such as those spontaneously born of magic or natural phenomena, do not have souls.
No matter how much it might resemble flora or fauna, if it lacks a soul, then it is considered an arcane entity.

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For the loporrits, the answer is actually in game, on the Triple Triad description. They are arcane entities, and so have no souls.

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A race of creatures resembling rabbits and living in Mare Lamentorum. In truth, they are arcane entities assigned by Hydaelyn to crew the star's great ark─the moon.

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Familiars having souls isn't unheard of, just uncommon though.


About the ixals, I'd argue that they have souls for a simple reasons: they can be tempered. Tempering is pretty much the Primal messing with your soul's aether balance, i can't see how you'd be able to be tempered without one.


Now clones is a harder question, and one I don't think we have enough information to find a conclusive answer.
On the specific case of Unei and Doga, they had souls. As to how they got their souls, and if it's the same as the original Unei and Doga, we don't know.

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Originally Posted by Doga, during The World of Darkness

Know that as long as this light of hope survives in you, our souls will still remain─even if our bodies are lost.

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Emet's clones seemed to be simply vessels, pretty much just meat suits to inhabit on a whim.

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Originally Posted by Solus, in Seiryu's Wall

I really must thank you for this surplus of vessels. I can mold any host into my own image, but having bodies tailor-made for me in this fashion is so much less tiresome!

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It's however completly possible he just didn't even care that they might have a soul in the first place.

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Originally Posted by Alenore

It depends, as said during one of Elpis quests.
Life forms are separated into two categories: Regular living beings, and arcane entities.
The former have souls, because Nature saw fit to grant them one as they were close enough to "natural" and "sustaining". The latter don't.

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I wonder if its less about being "granted" a soul but more about growing and creating one. An arcane entity will have the potential but only a few actually manage it. If the entity survives and manages to procreate in the natuaral sense, its offspring will have one because it was born. A soul is only a special kind of Aether after all. Based on the stuff revealed in endwalker, it seems that souls are imprinted by the lives they lead. With before reincaration they are scrubbed of the memory of former lives with one key exception, Events that are truly traumaric are retained to a degree. At least thats the conclusion i've come to given what we know.

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Originally Posted by Alenore

It depends, as said during one of Elpis quests.
Life forms are separated into two categories: Regular living beings, and arcane entities.
The former have souls, because Nature saw fit to grant them one as they were close enough to "natural" and "sustaining". The latter don't.





For the loporrits, the answer is actually in game, on the Triple Triad description. They are arcane entities, and so have no souls.

Familiars having souls isn't unheard of, just uncommon though.


About the ixals, I'd argue that they have souls for a simple reasons: they can be tempered. Tempering is pretty much the Primal messing with your soul's aether balance, i can't see how you'd be able to be tempered without one.


Now clones is a harder question, and one I don't think we have enough information to find a conclusive answer.
On the specific case of Unei and Doga, they had souls. As to how they got their souls, and if it's the same as the original Unei and Doga, we don't know.


Emet's clones seemed to be simply vessels, pretty much just meat suits to inhabit on a whim.

It's however completly possible he just didn't even care that they might have a soul in the first place.

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Thanks, that cover pretty much everything. Didn't know about the lopporits TT card, so they really are arcanes entities. They are like a more sophisticated mammet in a sense then.

I also forgot about the Ixal tempering, you're right people need a soul to be tempered.
Clones are definitely the trickiest. With all the information gathered here, i'm now assuming that they can simply develop souls since they can probably self sustain.

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Originally Posted by Anvaire

I wonder if its less about being "granted" a soul but more about growing and creating one. An arcane entity will have the potential but only a few actually manage it. If the entity survives and manages to procreate in the natuaral sense, its offspring will have one because it was born. A soul is only a special kind of Aether after all. Based on the stuff revealed in endwalker, it seems that souls are imprinted by the lives they lead. With before reincaration they are scrubbed of the memory of former lives with one key exception, Events that are truly traumaric are retained to a degree. At least thats the conclusion i've come to given what we know.

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It does seem to be something along these lines. I guess Ixali got a soul from the start, and since they can sustain themselves, they were just added to the cycle of reincarnation.

But then again there's Alpha who Omega describe as having a "organic composition but being indistinguishable from a stuffed doll".
And that allow us to teleport him as "material possession".
But he's a special case honestly.

Study of the soul hasn't been very conclusive and most of it is just guess. It's the one domain that the ancients tried to stay out of and nobody in game has really tried to nail it down. I'd say its like dynamis, not conductive to the scientific method.

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Originally Posted by RukoBoshi

Alpha got a soul and it didn't change anything. Omega even said they are both like material possessions and could be teleported by us as such, despite Alpha having his own soul.

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That was a totally unnecessary justification anyway, because it's already established in lore that teleporting can take your party members along with you. I think it's stated by the aetheryte guards who explain teleport magic, and you definitely see the Warriors of Darkness do it when they escape you at Xelphatol.

I'd point out to all the people waffling on the nature of souls that for all apparent purposes, a soul is simply an intelligence that has become solid enough that it is able to survive the process of reentering the life stream without breaking down into it's component anima and thus is able to be reborn in time on this world or another. It doesn't -do- anything else, full stop. It doesn't have any special qualities beyond that single one, and it doesn't even, usually, retain it's memories (barring certain highly unusual things done to it's aether). The basic format of the soul, the core level personality, apparently remains, but even then variations on the form are enormously different over time.

Which in turn means that a soul is 'special' but is not a crafted thing but an emergent phenomena, any being that is sufficiently self willed will inevitably gather enough aetheric density to the part of itself that does the decision making and thinking to inevitably gain enough aetheric density to continue existence after death, and even THIS can be wiped out under the right circumstances (As Dynamis proved capable of doing)

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Originally Posted by Iscah

That was a totally unnecessary justification anyway, because it's already established in lore that teleporting can take your party members along with you. I think it's stated by the aetheryte guards who explain teleport magic, and you definitely see the Warriors of Darkness do it when they escape you at Xelphatol.

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We also see this in the Sage job questline, where one person distracts the WoL and their companion while another completes the teleport spell, taking their entire party with them.

I am curious what it actually means to have a soul in universe or not.

Like, as we understand it, when you die, your soul returns to the aether to be recycled/reborn. No heaven or afterlife, just float for a bit then get recycled. Cool. But with very few exceptions (like Minfillia/Ascians/Maybe certain peoples of the Azem Steppe), being a reborn soul is not really meaningful/does not offer some kind of benefit.

Does not having a soul limit your abilities to do things, or have some detrimental effect?

Also, I think spot on to Shadowdancer- perhaps having a soul or not is just being above a certain level of aetheric density.

Several times character make reference to hells. So people do believe in an afterlife even though they known there isn't one.

Yeah games should never touch what happens when we die in definitive ways. Creates lots of problems. Also if everyone knew they would just be reborn I imagine the suicide rate would be like....crazy high.

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Originally Posted by Necrotica

Several times character make reference to hells. So people do believe in an afterlife even though they known there isn't one.

Yeah games should never touch what happens when we die in definitive ways. Creates lots of problems. Also if everyone knew they would just be reborn I imagine the suicide rate would be like....crazy high.

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To be fair though, I don't think the population at large is even aware of the intricacies we players are aware of. Like, I'm not even sure the average guy on the street is aware Hydaelyn is an actual entity and not just another name of the planet. I also would wager most people don't even know what or who a "Zodiark" even is.

Most of what we see in the religious sense is either centered around the 12 gods or some kind of Earth analog (Shinto/Animism, Reincarnation myths, etc)

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Originally Posted by kaynide

To be fair though, I don't think the population at large is even aware of the intricacies we players are aware of. Like, I'm not even sure the average guy on the street is aware Hydaelyn is an actual entity and not just another name of the planet. I also would wager most people don't even know what or who a "Zodiark" even is.

Most of what we see in the religious sense is either centered around the 12 gods or some kind of Earth analog (Shinto/Animism, Reincarnation myths, etc)

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Exactly this. The population at large is not aware there even IS a planet, or what it entails for there to BE a planet. It bears noting that the bulk of characters we meet are scholars especially learned in Aetherology, and Sharlayans to boot, who are known to both be more aware of things and incredibly cagey about that information, so most of the people we meet only have the worldview of their religion; since the WoL also doesn't go around dispelling any notions, otherwise the Ala Mhigan side of StB would've gone very differently if we'd gone around everywhere saying "You know there are no Heavens and Hells, right? And we're not too sure Rhalgr is real..."

Granted, with Myths of the Realm, who knows just how much of "Myth" will end up being actually real but misunderstood, so it's likely the "Heavens" and "Hells" DO exist but in a different way than we think of them.

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Originally Posted by Necrotica

Several times character make reference to hells. So people do believe in an afterlife even though they known there isn't one.

Yeah games should never touch what happens when we die in definitive ways. Creates lots of problems. Also if everyone knew they would just be reborn I imagine the suicide rate would be like....crazy high.

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No, I don't think they would. Plenty of real-world religions believe in reincarnation. Interestinly, according a report I looked up (it's the internet though, so take it with a grain of salt), it's lower in the countries where the dominate religion does believe in reincarnation.