Spoilers for 7.0 Alexandrian life style

[Lady_Silvermoon]

Sorry for not responding and letting this drop off. I just haven't really felt as enthusiastic or passionate about talking about the story this time around. As I've said some of these things are only possible if you assume that regulators are preloaded with a soul. And I am starting to think that with these and a few other things the writers didn't really think about them too hard or past the initial idea.

Which sucks as I liked the story while going through it and enjoyed Wuk Lamat. I even understood why she continued to come along with us. I just hope they explore more about how the Alexandrians and the few Turali who wear these think about the regulators and what it really means to wear one. Especially when they barely scratch the surface of this life style via the side quests and how some are just now feeling a bit uncomfortable about it all. Not being able to remember a parent/person who fed you such wonderful meals that they might as well be a living person eating food in living memory. Or that there's a little regret in not being able to clearly remember a friend who talked you into using them after having a talk about it over a few drinks at a bar. And even if it wasn't explored what would it mean if a child had lost their parent during the attack due to running out of banked souls.

All I know is this system isn't really sustainable and probably started up at a high price. That and had a lot of trial and error if the lines in Alexandria are anything to go by.

Based on what you are saying, I believe you are under the mistaken impression that regulators destroy souls. They do not. A person wearing a regulator keeps the soul they started with and when they meet what would be an accidental death, the lifeforce out of a soul cell is used to revive them. So now they have both their soul and a drained soul inside them. Their memories are imprinted on top in order to maintain their personality as the dominant one. When someone dies of old age or illness wearing a regulator, then the souls they've used during their lifetime are then released to the aetherial sea and their soul is stored in the regulator to be cleaned and packaged into a soul cell.

So while it's delaying people's return to the aetherial sea it's not soul killing anyone or draining all life from the planet or anything. Because FF7 is very popular, people think this is a mako plotline, but it's not, which is why the characters didn't stop them from doing it. They find it distasteful and sacrilegious, but it's not actual a threat to the star. At least not from the information we've been given thus far.

The Endless was a different situation as what they needed to be maintained required people to die. And while they were able to coast on natural deaths for four centuries, they've reached a point where Sphene feels she must cause some deaths to get the corporeal aether she needs to sustain the Endless.

[SannaR]

Based on what you are saying, I believe you are under the mistaken impression that regulators destroy souls. They do not. A person wearing a regulator keeps the soul they started with and when they meet what would be an accidental death, the lifeforce out of a soul cell is used to revive them. So now they have both their soul and a drained soul inside them. Their memories are imprinted on top in order to maintain their personality as the dominant one. When someone dies of old age or illness wearing a regulator, then the souls they've used during their lifetime are then released to the aetherial sea and their soul is stored in the regulator to be cleaned and packaged into a soul cell.

So while it's delaying people's return to the aetherial sea it's not soul killing anyone or draining all life from the planet or anything. Because FF7 is very popular, people think this is a mako plotline, but it's not, which is why the characters didn't stop them from doing it. They find it distasteful and sacrilegious, but it's not actual a threat to the star. At least not from the information we've been given thus far.

The Endless was a different situation as what they needed to be maintained required people to die. And while they were able to coast on natural deaths for four centuries, they've reached a point where Sphene feels she must cause some deaths to get the corporeal aether she needs to sustain the Endless.

Never said I thought they were destroying souls, but that they have to be getting the souls from somewhere as up to now no one has been able to make new souls. If a regulator is made it either has to have a preloaded soul on it or it must come from somewhere else. They weren't around until they "perfected" it when they preserved the original Sphene's memories or there abouts as prior to that they used the suits Otis was placed in. People can bank extra souls if they do good enough work. So if they're not creating new souls and aren't destroying them except for maybe what Zoraal Ja did or being used to power Living Memory then where are they coming from? Also how I took it is even after a person actually dies while wearing one even their soul goes to get cleaned and stored to get banked by someone else at another time. The only thing released from the cycle being their memories. And when they 1st started using them again assuming that a regulator is made and given a soul before use where would they be getting these souls? If they're not preloaded with a soul then yikes.

[Lady_Silvermoon]

Never said I thought they were destroying souls, but that they have to be getting the souls from somewhere as up to now no one has been able to make new souls. If a regulator is made it either has to have a preloaded soul on it or it must come from somewhere else. They weren't around until they "perfected" it when they preserved the original Sphene's memories or there abouts as prior to that they used the suits Otis was placed in. People can bank extra souls if they do good enough work. So if they're not creating new souls and aren't destroying them except for maybe what Zoraal Ja did or being used to power Living Memory then where are they coming from? Also how I took it is even after a person actually dies while wearing one even their soul goes to get cleaned and stored to get banked by someone else at another time. The only thing released from the cycle being their memories. And when they 1st started using them again assuming that a regulator is made and given a soul before use where would they be getting these souls? If they're not preloaded with a soul then yikes.

The Alexandrians have had the ability to extract souls for four centuries. And keep in mind, they figured this out during a world war. A bunch of people would have been dying on both sides. Some time after that, they figure out the other stuff, regulators, Endless, robo Otis, etc. But the Storm Surge is a war that leaves them the last surviving civilization on their shard. At the very least the last survivors on their continent. So they would have the souls of all those dead in stock. We actually see the stock when Sphene is talking to Zoraal Ja, they have thousands of souls in storage.

I don't understand why you're insisting that the regulators have to come with a soul in them already. You put it on and you buy one. If you put it on and there are no souls in it, then you get all the memory wipes, but you don't get revived after you die, your soul gets stored inside. We actually meet a character with no spare souls, the Arcadion fighter that insults Sphene. He's proof that you can walk around with an empty regulator. I don't understand why you believe otherwise, which is what made me assume you believed the souls were being destroyed.

As for why the system is sustainable, the used souls are stuck in the person who used them until death, which is why regulators are required to keep that person's mind the dominant one. At death the used souls are released back into the aetherial sea, and the unused souls and the wearer's soul are sent to Origenics for processing.

Psychonekrosis does sound very much as to what was happening to us prior to rejoining with Ardbert. I also feel it's not sustainable due to the ability to bank souls. Even before Zoraal ja stole and used up a lot of souls they were in short supply. And afterwards if you talk to one of the workers in the government sector they say that the doling out of souls has backed up a lot due to the attack.

Zoraal Ja not only used up a lot of the supply on himself, his attack on Everkeep meant that a lot of people burned through a lot of souls all at once which would up demand. So yes, due to his actions they are in a state of low supply and high demand, but that doesn't mean it's unsustainable. It means the prices of souls will go up dramatically, which will cause more people to die of accident increasing the supply (and yes, I just realized how dark that is). But it's a system any of them can choose to opt out of whenever they like. No one is forced to wear a regulator.

[SannaR]

Snip

I don't think the Alexandrians had the technology until the dome was built if not some time around there and definitely not how we know them today until after they preserved Sphene's memories. Though I suspect that even that didn't work out as planned as the announcement that they had done it comes off as it wasn't perfect.

Anyway the reason why I insist apon the assumption that they come with a soul is that regulators can be looked at the same way as a person being soon after the sundering. Without a regulator a person only has one soul. The one that resides inside their body. That's how the Arcadion fighter along with anyone post Zoraal ja's attack that has no more bonus souls can still be alive. Now lets give a person an empty regulator. They still only have one soul so any accidental death they have prior to earning enough credits to buy a soul means they die, everyone forgets about them and their own soul goes to Origenics to be cleansed and their memories to Living Memory. If they come with a soul then they get a buffer. That and having a job seems to be tied to having a soul inside of your regulator. As one npc you talk to during a quest where one of the people in charge of soul distribution asks you to talk to how some folks feel about their situation after the attacks says they basically in a catch 22 situation. Where the place they worked at before the attack was completely destroyed in the attack. That they need to buy a soul so that they can find a job, but they don't have enough credits to buy a soul.

We also know that souls were already at a low supply high demand before the attack and afterwards there's an even lower supply of them. I'm also fairly certain beast souls aren't able to revive people as we see with Zoraal ja after Gulool Ja Ja killed him and with that hunter we're introduced to. Where beast souls seem to only function the same way that a warrior's inner beast works. In that they act as a berserker mode that might not allow the user the ability to ascertain what is happening around them. As both Zoraal ja and the hunter looked to move on instinct vs how the Arcadion fighters are aware of what is happening around them.

[Lady_Silvermoon]

That and having a job seems to be tied to having a soul inside of your regulator. As one npc you talk to during a quest where one of the people in charge of soul distribution asks you to talk to how some folks feel about their situation after the attacks says they basically in a catch 22 situation. Where the place they worked at before the attack was completely destroyed in the attack. That they need to buy a soul so that they can find a job, but they don't have enough credits to buy a soul.

Are you sure the NPC you talked to didn't mean they couldn't go out and work because they had anxiety about doing any labor without a spare soul rather than they won't be hired without a spare soul? I haven't done the side quests, so I don't know which NPC you're talking about.

ETA: I thought about it more and given people are allowed to go without the regulators entirely, not being able to find work unless you have a stock of souls doesn't make sense. That seems like the kind of thing that would have to be mentioned in the MSQ given they stress how Sphene allows people to choose how they wish to live and provides supplies for those who do not wish to make their home in Everkeep. If going without a regulator meant living in poverty, then that should have came up. I think perhaps the NPC you spoke with either works in a dangerous field or just has general anxiety about being out of spare souls.

[SannaR]

Are you sure the NPC you talked to didn't mean they couldn't go out and work because they had anxiety about doing any labor without a spare soul rather than they won't be hired without a spare soul? I haven't done the side quests, so I don't know which NPC you're talking about.

ETA: I thought about it more and given people are allowed to go without the regulators entirely, not being able to find work unless you have a stock of souls doesn't make sense. That seems like the kind of thing that would have to be mentioned in the MSQ given they stress how Sphene allows people to choose how they wish to live and provides supplies for those who do not wish to make their home in Everkeep. If going without a regulator meant living in poverty, then that should have came up. I think perhaps the NPC you spoke with either works in a dangerous field or just has general anxiety about being out of spare souls.

It most likely is anxiety. The quest doesn't say what she did just that she wasn't a hunter. Though Solution 9 isn't as safe as most would like you to think if people can threaten to beat up a garbage collector who had to take a break because they have a milder case than the boy we get introduced to does of their aether tilting too far towards lightning.

[Alleo]

So while it's delaying people's return to the aetherial sea it's not soul killing anyone or draining all life from the planet or anything. Because FF7 is very popular, people think this is a mako plotline, but it's not, which is why the characters didn't stop them from doing it. They find it distasteful and sacrilegious, but it's not actual a threat to the star. At least not from the information we've been given thus far.

Is this stated somewhere in the cutscenes because I cant remember that they said that souls return to the livestream after the person who used them died. They only ever focused on the person itself and that they are kinda like the void creatures. As far as I remember those creatures combine their souls with those they eat and thus loose part of themselves. This is also the reason why the regulators have the memory overwrite function. As soon as someone has used a spare soul, that function activates to make sure, that no remaining old memories of the spare soul overlap with the other one. That would seem highly unnecessary if the spare soul just stays seperated inside the body.

I also think that the scions would not have reacted so negative towards that system if the souls are released to the lifestream after one use as a spare soul. I am also not sure how Alexandria would have been able to hold up the system if the souls are released back into the lifestream. They would have needed a huge amount of new life being born to sustain such a system. Heck even in the present, where childbirth seems to be at the lowest point they still dont have any restrictions on soul usage.

Specifically it's the Endless making it unsustainable, though, rather than the regulators reviving people. That system's got completely separate problems and needs to be shut down for those reasons, but the unsustainability comes from the ever-increasing amount of souls needed to sustain Living Memory.

It's not clear if the soul cell system is actually entirely soul-neutral, or if it's a drop in the bucket in comparison.

Do they need whole souls to sustain the endless? I have heard that quite a bit and I am honestly confused about it. After going through the story in my native language (german) I thougth that the energy that they used to power the endless comes from death people but not by using their souls but by extracting another sort of aether from them at the moment of death. The cutscene of the first attack on tural shows how one of the soldiers extract two orbs from the dead old lady. One is the soul (white) and the other seems to be the energy that they need for the endless. It cant be the memories because those are extracted in that facility in the tower.

Sphene also stated that in the past they were able to sustain the system with the endless by using the energy from their dead people.

So bascially when a person dies their soul gets stored in the regulator while their living aether energy gets harvested for the endless. (I wonder if that is the reason why they collected Namika before her death...so that they are ready to get that aether before it disappears)The soul gets cleaned and while the clean soul gets stored for further use, their memories are uploaded in living memory and giving form through the use of the orange energy. (They show us in the dungeon that the souls and memories are going in two different directions.)

Thats how I understood it. Yet when I read here on the forum or on reddit it seems that many people believe that they are using souls for the endless too. Some even saying that they use a soul and then put the memories on it. Did the english version write it that way?

I just want to point out that the Endless don't use souls. They use life force, an alternate translation of "corporeal aether".

Yeah thats what I think too. The energy for the endless is not the soul but whats left of a dead person. Which is why the system was sustainable for a short amount of time in the past. (Its also the reason why it was kinda easy for me to deactivate living memory. These ghosts did not even have a soul at all. They are really just memory given form)

[Cleretic]

Yeah thats what I think too. The energy for the endless is not the soul but whats left of a dead person. Which is why the system was sustainable for a short amount of time in the past. (Its also the reason why it was kinda easy for me to deactivate living memory. These ghosts did not even have a soul at all. They are really just memory given form)

Honestly, in this discussion, it's a distinction without a difference. If the Endless need to be powered by a thing that can only be gotten from people when they die, does it really matter if the thing they're being powered by is souls, 'corporeal aether', blood, or any other substance?

The Endless are powered by life force/corporeal aether. The regulators are powered by souls. Both of them come from people dying, and Sphene was willing to kill the entire world outside that dome to solve the supply shortage the Endless were causing. A 'well actually' on what substance that is doesn't change a nick of the scenario.

[Alleo]

Honestly, in this discussion, it's a distinction without a difference. If the Endless need to be powered by a thing that can only be gotten from people when they die, does it really matter if the thing they're being powered by is souls, 'corporeal aether', blood, or any other substance?

The Endless are powered by life force/corporeal aether. The regulators are powered by souls. Both of them come from people dying, and Sphene was willing to kill the entire world outside that dome to solve the supply shortage the Endless were causing. A 'well actually' on what substance that is doesn't change a nick of the scenario.

I have seen so many posts on different sites that were like: Those are real people because they got a soul and memories. They compare them even to those at Ultima Thule.
While I just read these and be like: But thats not true. These are walking memories. Memories that are completely at the mercy of the towers. And these towers are powered by the aether of the dead. (They are imo kinda like the shades that Emeth Selch created. Just with a bit more personality because of the memories)

In the end you are right, it does not really matter because Sphenes plan is bad. But I do think it paints the wrong picture if too many believe that these were constructions with a soul.

That's how it works with voidsent. They are combined, but not permanently. You kill a voidsent and all the souls inside it are able to get free. The difference is there is no aetherial sea for them to return to. When we kill Zoraal Ja we see all the souls float out of him, showing upon his death they were able to escape. Their disgust comes from the use of people's souls as currency, not due to the system being so destructive it'd break the afterlife. They'd have to put an end to it if it was destroying the afterlife and they currently have control of the Alexandrian government through Gulool Ja.

But what stops the regulators from just snatching up all the souls in the persons body after death? Zoraal Ja also seems to be a special case because we dont see souls leaving other death bodies. (Like the guard he killed or all those killed in solution 9.)

I guess for me it just makes the most sense that these souls wouls also be collected because it would make it easier to keep the system running.

[Cleretic]

I have seen so many posts on different sites that were like: Those are real people because they got a soul and memories. They compare them even to those at Ultima Thule.
While I just read these and be like: But thats not true. These are walking memories. Memories that are completely at the mercy of the towers. And these towers are powered by the aether of the dead. (They are imo kinda like the shades that Emeth Selch created. Just with a bit more personality because of the memories)

In the end you are right, it does not really matter because Sphenes plan is bad. But I do think it paints the wrong picture if too many believe that these were constructions with a soul.

I consider the Endless real no matter what they're powered by. Or more specifically I think 'real' is a subjective, arbitrary and meaningless standard that people are using to claim whatever stance they've landed on has some post-hoc legitimacy, but that the Endless do fit my personal subjective, arbitrary and meaningless standard. Interestingly I do agree that they're closest to the shades of Fake Amaurot, but they're close in a way that crosses the line; I don't consider Fake Amaurot's people 'real', I consider them Emet-Selch's sockpuppets, extensions of his own argument and worldview. In-universe, they're no more 'real' than Cillian Murphy's performance as Oppenheimer. Maybe even less, actually, because at least Cillian Murphy's unarguably real.

But it's also not really connected to the subject we were discussing, which was the actual mechanical intentions and purpose behind the Origenics system.