Quote Originally Posted by Hesitate89 View Post
The Queen feels like an Anima being like from Relic Weapon Story, that was given the memories and personalities of the Original Queen, and through possibly programming or Enhanced by Crown, along with Eletrope/Azem Cup relic.

Anima are reflection of the soul
This actually brings up an interesting point. The Anima weapons are technically new souls, generated by trapping aether in the weapons using sealants and exposing them to the experiences (battles...) and experiments needed to cause that aether to pull in a fresh consciousness from the aetherial sea or craft one of its own.

Then there's arcanima, which are the simulated souls created by arcanists that don't have a consciousness or will of their own. They don't draw against the aetherial sea in the same way to create their life forms; those life forms are created with a set of instructions, not unlike a golem, and can be created and destroyed without remorse (unlike the guilt that constantly plagued Hermes for the Ancients creation of soul-bound life forms only to end up killing them if they didn't work out. Arcanima solve that problem.)

We know that the Milala were master arcanamists.

What if Sphene - and indeed all the Endless - are not anima, but arcanima instead? Just really really advanced ones.

Why do they need real soul energy then though?

Edit: Another thought - What if the collection of souls was being done by a Meteion that managed to cross over the shard barrier at some point?