Quote Originally Posted by Alleo View Post
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.
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.

And you don't need a huge amount of life to be born to sustain the system as death through old age and disease is more common than death through accidents. Even with the way they let themselves die easily since they know they can come back, they were still the last surviving civilization on their planet and before Zoraal Ja used most of them they had a pretty impressive bank of souls stored up. Given the number he used at once, they will likely cost more credits but unlike life force the Alexandrians don't need to wipe out swaths of people to get more.