The Nature of the WOL (Spoilers)

[Ayuhra]

This brings up an interesting conundrum.

The timeline goes something like this:
1. Calamity approaches!
2. Council summons Zodiark
3. Sacrifice half of the Ancients to bring the Calamity under control.
4. Sacrifice half of what's left to bring life back to the world.
5. Propose to sacrifice most of THAT life to bring back the original sacrifices.
6. Dissenters summon Hydaelyn to protect that life.
7. Hydaelyn Sunders the world.

There are many things about this timeline that make it quite likely that the myriad Spoken races all existed PRIOR to the Sundering. Would the Dissenters have taken such a drastic step if the life they were preserving was nothing more than trees and deer? It's POSSIBLE that they were environmental extremists of that sort, but I find it far more likely that this new life included new intelligent races - basically, the races we know, such as Kobolds, Hyur, Roegadyn, Sahagin, and so on and so forth. All of these races, then, existed PRIOR to the Sundering, and this is how they all wound up existing across all Thirteen Shards. Now, it could certainly be the Ascians' perspective that there was only One Race (that mattered) prior to the Sundering, and so they weren't LYING, exactly, when they told Varis of this.

Additionally, I do not believe that all intelligent life forms contain a piece of an Ancient's soul. The population of Ancients was decimated (first by the Calamity, then by the horrendous sacrifices to Zodiark), so it seems unlikely that there were enough Ancients to provide a soul fragment to every living person - and even if there were, what happens when that limit is eventually reached, and another baby is born? No, it seems more likely to me that the majority of people are "new life" of the sort created by Zodiark and protected by Hydaelyn. Souls in this system do not persist intact, but are instead dispersed into the Lifestream upon death and become the source for new souls. The Sundered souls of the Ancients exist within this system, but remain intact, occasionally being reborn into new bodies with no recollection of their prior lives.

I wonder if those who souls were Ascian once are the ones with the Echo? I mean we are originally led to believe Hydaelyn gave special souls the Echo but ALL Ascians have Echo.