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Psykers and the Eldar race have very "bright" souls. While this soul is what gives them psychic powers, it also comes with the massive drawback of being vulnerable to the Warp (and, in the case of the Eldar, makes them sought after by She Who Thirsts). Nearly-soulless beings such as the Tau are very resilient to the influence of Chaos, while the soulless (such as blanks) are actually anathema to Chaos.

So what is even the advantage of having a soul in the 40k universe, apart from psychic powers? I have seen no indication that people with strong souls are smarter, or have more free will or creativity or morality, etc. than those with little or no soul. A soul in the 40k universe if not synonymous with your mind or consciousness; it is something you have in addition to it.

All in all, a soul seems more like a burden than anything else.

.

I'm actually super curious about this aspect of the lore myself. Never been able to find a satisfying answer to it.

*warning all below is theory* : )

At the risk of espousing head canon I have always thought of the "bright" souls thing as the ability of a race to manifest warp entities. Eldar did this pretty regularly in regards to the Eldar gods and of course Slaanesh, but humans have (debatably) made their own in the Emperor, although his manifestation is mysterious.

This ability being as beneficial or harmful as the entities created. Many of the Eldar gods were benevolent or at least benign, save Khaine and Slaanesh really. It is still probably a burden as each race with a “bright” soul needs to adhere to strict discipline or vast manipulation, least they create more dark entities. This is as true of the Eldar “paths” as it is with Imperial religion

Soul is, as it always has been, a metaphor. I think.

The universe has more dimensions that the ones we perceive. In 40k universe humans and other races can perceive These dimensions to some extent and some can even interact with them. Connection to the warp is genetic, this we know for a fact, some people’s genes are superior in this sense.

Some people’s perception of these extra dimensions is simply the feeling of their being more to to this life, superstitious feelings, uncanny incidents of prescience. Maybe the warp causes da-ja-vu. Some people can transport the energy in this other dimensions into these which manifest in all sort of controlled and uncontrolled ways.

The soul in 40k is the human consciousness that interacts with those dimensions and perhaps it is sentient and unaware of the dimensions of the materium. But both are of the same entity. When the physical body dies the entity can not perceive the dimensions of real space and is no longer anchored to those dimensions meaning that the other entities of the warp can consume what is left.

Shining bright means there is a greater perception of the immaterium from the mateirium, perhaps the ability to interact with the warp create a small warp rift in your mind that enable you to draw the energy into real space. Which creates the shining.

All made up but it fits my personal 40k narrative.

The soul, as I understand it, offers the possibility of a 'happily ever after' once the physical body dies. Prior to The Fall, I assume that Aeldari souls would have lived on with their gods. It is also a fairly indestructable vessel for a being's memories and personality. You can see this utilised by the Drukhari, who can be restored to life exacly as they were through a Haemonculus capturing their soul and implanting it in a clone of the original body. As far as I recall, one of the Dark Eldar "Path" books states that the soul is required for restoration; it is not a purely physical process.

What is its the point of having earlobes? You just do.

 harlokin wrote:
The soul, as I understand it, offers the possibility of a 'happily ever after' once the physical body dies. Prior to The Fall, I assume that Aeldari souls would have lived on with their gods. It is also a fairly indestructable vessel for a being's memories and personality. You can see this utilised by the Drukhari, who can be restored to life exacly as they were through a Haemonculus capturing their soul and implanting it in a clone of the original body.

The Eldari souls did not live on with their god. They got reincarnated.

 Niiai wrote:
What is its the point of having earlobes? You just do.

 harlokin wrote:
The soul, as I understand it, offers the possibility of a 'happily ever after' once the physical body dies. Prior to The Fall, I assume that Aeldari souls would have lived on with their gods. It is also a fairly indestructable vessel for a being's memories and personality. You can see this utilised by the Drukhari, who can be restored to life exacly as they were through a Haemonculus capturing their soul and implanting it in a clone of the original body.

The Eldari souls did not live on with their god. They got reincarnated.

Nice to know, thanks.

 Niiai wrote:
What is its the point of having earlobes? You just do.

I viewed this in the context of a large proportion of Necrons being rather miffed that the C'Tan nommed their souls during biotransference and left them as soulless beings.

What about the souls of a species with minimal connection to the warp made them valuable to the species? (The value to the C'Tan is obvious as a tasty morsel).

Originally the warp was depicted as the mirror of our universe. Everything reflected into it, stars rocks etc. Not in a literal sense, but they did have presence. Life forms having more complex structures and brains, created nor complex reflections. Sentient life created the most complex of all reflections.


Souls were just your warp mirror that formed as a natural part of existing.

So there is as much a point to a soul as there is a point to mass creating gravity, it's just a fundamental law of the universe.

Other than that, yes, it's linked to psychic potential.
And possibly potential for depth of emotion (whether or not that's a good thing).

It's also worth noting that given that a partial or full blank has a naturally repulsive presence to everyone else, you could argue that by reversing that logic, natural charisma may be a passive property of a soul.

locarno24 wrote:
Other than that, yes, it's linked to psychic potential.
And possibly potential for depth of emotion (whether or not that's a good thing).

It's also worth noting that given that a partial or full blank has a naturally repulsive presence to everyone else, you could argue that by reversing that logic, natural charisma may be a passive property of a soul.

In more recent Psychic Awakening background, it seems to hint the Necrons are inducing a sort of mental passivity in people caught under the warp dampening effect of their Great Work (pylon networks). So it may be that dampening the connection of a being to its soul dampens emotions and will to live or resist.

The Dark Heresy rpg books appeared to suggest that the normal low level psychic ability of all humans manifested itself in sixth sense "I've got a bad feeling about this" or good luck, that could be basically be reflected in normal rules rather than actual psychic ability rules.

I mean, not being killed by your mother at birth out of sheer revulsion and terror is a good advantage (re: Pariahs).

 harlokin wrote:
The soul, as I understand it, offers the possibility of a 'happily ever after' once the physical body dies. Prior to The Fall, I assume that Aeldari souls would have lived on with their gods. It is also a fairly indestructable vessel for a being's memories and personality. You can see this utilised by the Drukhari, who can be restored to life exacly as they were through a Haemonculus capturing their soul and implanting it in a clone of the original body. As far as I recall, one of the Dark Eldar "Path" books states that the soul is required for restoration; it is not a purely physical process.

They aren't clones IIRC. They take a remnant of the dead persons body and use suffering to basically trade for their soul and that gets stored around torture chambers and the body regrows. Why clone when you can work torture into things?

There is a sort history between Vect and a captured imperium officer in a WD.

During the conversation Vect explain a bit the purpose of the Dark Eldar torture and find rather amusing the human word for soul (as trying to reduce so much into such small thing)

 BaconCatBug wrote:
I mean, not being killed by your mother at birth out of sheer revulsion and terror is a good advantage (re: Pariahs).

Hehe, I was just thinking of that. In the 40K universe, those individuals without souls are reviled.

Although I have a vague recollection of the measurement not being binary. There are those with strong souls, those with dim souls, those with a sort of zero soul, and I believe Pariahs and Culexus existed as a "negative" on the scale of "soulhood". I can't recall where I read that though, or if it was indeed a thing. Possibly older Culexus lore? Unsure.

 Insectum7 wrote:

 BaconCatBug wrote:
I mean, not being killed by your mother at birth out of sheer revulsion and terror is a good advantage (re: Pariahs).

Hehe, I was just thinking of that. In the 40K universe, those individuals without souls are reviled.

Although I have a vague recollection of the measurement not being binary. There are those with strong souls, those with dim souls, those with a sort of zero soul, and I believe Pariahs and Culexus existed as a "negative" on the scale of "soulhood". I can't recall where I read that though, or if it was indeed a thing. Possibly older Culexus lore? Unsure.

IIRC Nulls and Pariahs are two sides of the same coin. The Sisters of Silence are nulls (but originally included Pariahs), they have a dampening effect on psychic powers with negligible warp presence. Pariahs are extreme end nulls that cause anything with even a hint of psychic intentional, normal humans included (though I suspect the effect would be lessened against Nulls), to be literally bowel voiding disgusted and terrified by them just by existing. The Cullexus Temple use Pariahs and they have ZERO warp presence.

 Insectum7 wrote:

 BaconCatBug wrote:
I mean, not being killed by your mother at birth out of sheer revulsion and terror is a good advantage (re: Pariahs).

Hehe, I was just thinking of that. In the 40K universe, those individuals without souls are reviled.

Presumably, this natural revulsion would not exist among a race that does not possess souls at all.

Insectum7 wrote:

 BaconCatBug wrote:
I mean, not being killed by your mother at birth out of sheer revulsion and terror is a good advantage (re: Pariahs).

Hehe, I was just thinking of that. In the 40K universe, those individuals without souls are reviled.

Although I have a vague recollection of the measurement not being binary. There are those with strong souls, those with dim souls, those with a sort of zero soul, and I believe Pariahs and Culexus existed as a "negative" on the scale of "soulhood". I can't recall where I read that though, or if it was indeed a thing. Possibly older Culexus lore? Unsure.

They were described as voids, absent of anything. The only reference to negative levels was the animus speculum which fired 'negative' psychic energy.

You might be remembering the greek letter assignment created later by Abnett and BL, where anything below Rho was 'negative' on the psychic scale:
https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/The_Assignment

-Guardsman- wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

 BaconCatBug wrote:
I mean, not being killed by your mother at birth out of sheer revulsion and terror is a good advantage (re: Pariahs).

Hehe, I was just thinking of that. In the 40K universe, those individuals without souls are reviled.

Presumably, this natural revulsion would not exist among a race that does not possess souls at all.

One of the reasons the concept of the necrons creating the pariah gene worked so well, was because of my comments previously, souls are a natural part of existing in the universe. It would be no more possible to evolve an absent soul as it would be to evolve an absent nuclear force. Artificially creating one through c'tan reality warping powers though is another matter. Hence why they've been a popular concept even after GW removed them. Although there are different levels of soul potency, the concept of a warp reflection is innate to the material universe.

As even non sentient creatures have a warp presence and inanimate objects as well. The gravity wells of stars distort warp space which is why it's hard to make a warp jump into a system close to a planet.

Personal head cannon here based off of the necrons, the emperor, and the eldar.

The intuitive idea is that the soul is the self, the I in "I think therefore I am", but that's not quite right. In 40k the soul is a fragment of the imaterium that allows connection to the warp, which is hosted in a biological body. This connection gives mortals the ability to influence the warp (this is how they feed the chaos powers, and how psychic powers work), as well as perception of other souls (this generally causes empathy, but can cause antipathy in the case of creatures like pariahs), and allows the warp to influence the creatures mental and physical well being.

Most mortal souls disappear after the biological death of the host, dissipating into the imaterium, but strong souls can survive this transition and stay whole. In better times these souls could be reborn into new bodies, carrying the memories and personality of former host, but these days they mostly get eaten by demons.

One way to study the soul is to look at examples of creatures who have lost their souls, necrons for instance. The necrontyr didn't have strong souls, but they did have souls. The process of bio transferance appears to have taken the memories and personality from the biological brain, and made a digital copy of them that was uploaded to their new bodies. The body was killed during this process, which sent the soul back to the imaterium where it dissipated, or more sinisterly the soul was eaten by the C'Tan hovering around the bioforges.

The fidelity of this process depended on the Necrontyrs rank in society, but for the nobles and certain vital retainers, their minds emerged more or less intact from the process. The problem is that they remember having a soul, and their current experiences without one are a pale imitation. They don't feel empathy, their emotions are muted (but not entirely gone, for instance Imotekh hates Orks), and they are painfully aware of this deficiency.

So without souls the qualia appear to be inferior, but the minds are still capable of reason, planning, and survival.

@BaconCatBug and Hellebore, thanks for the clarification. It's been a loong time. Particularly the "assignment" link.

I do so miss the Pariah lore, and how it may or may not have been intertwined with the Culexus temple and that sunless planet where they train.

 BaconCatBug wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

 BaconCatBug wrote:
I mean, not being killed by your mother at birth out of sheer revulsion and terror is a good advantage (re: Pariahs).

Hehe, I was just thinking of that. In the 40K universe, those individuals without souls are reviled.

Although I have a vague recollection of the measurement not being binary. There are those with strong souls, those with dim souls, those with a sort of zero soul, and I believe Pariahs and Culexus existed as a "negative" on the scale of "soulhood". I can't recall where I read that though, or if it was indeed a thing. Possibly older Culexus lore? Unsure.

IIRC Nulls and Pariahs are two sides of the same coin. The Sisters of Silence are nulls (but originally included Pariahs), they have a dampening effect on psychic powers with negligible warp presence. Pariahs are extreme end nulls that cause anything with even a hint of psychic intentional, normal humans included (though I suspect the effect would be lessened against Nulls), to be literally bowel voiding disgusted and terrified by them just by existing. The Cullexus Temple use Pariahs and they have ZERO warp presence.

You're correct. Psykers and Pariahs actually all exist on the same scale. As noted above, human 'normal' includes very, very minor psychic awareness - enough for occasional dashes of intuition, empathy and a feeling of creepyness from unnatural things. More sensitive people are higher up the scale without reaching 'telepathy and fireballs' level.

At the top end, you have the psyker 'grades' mentioned initially in Dan Abnett's novels for Inquisitor and subsequently in quite a few others; Alpha-Plus ('uncategorisable' like pre-chaos Magnus), Alpha, Beta (Stern), Gamma, Delta (Ravenor) and so on.

At the bottom end you have grades leading up to Omega, with levels of 'blank-ness' - low-but-not-ridiculously-so are species like the Tau, who are not only not psychic but actively slightly harder to use psychic power on than an equivalent inert object, to blanks like Jurgen and Bequin and the sisterhood who can disrupt and block warp stuff and whom nobody likes, to, at 'Omega', 'true' pariahs who are actively painful for 'normal's to be around.

The strongest we've seen is one 'omega-minus' in the Atlas Infernal novel - a fetus locked in a stasis jar by the inquisition that nearly killed Azhek Ahriman in a second of exposure, and - depending on exactly how his abilities worked - 'Spear', the black pariah from Nemesis, who was able to kill another pariah (in this case a culexus)

On that same scale, the Sensei (who as per the original RoC are undetectable by scrying) might be seen as true neutral. A flat 0 on the scale at least in terms of having a psychic signature. That was supposedly from them being naturally at one with the flows of the warp. so they didn't stand out from the background.

 Haighus wrote:

 Niiai wrote:
What is its the point of having earlobes? You just do.

I viewed this in the context of a large proportion of Necrons being rather miffed that the C'Tan nommed their souls during biotransference and left them as soulless beings.

What about the souls of a species with minimal connection to the warp made them valuable to the species? (The value to the C'Tan is obvious as a tasty morsel).

Lett us asume we in real life do not have a soul. We would then atribute everything to the biological (or programing part for necrons) of the body. And then the soul is something else? Just sounds like sloppy writing for me. I guess the question is if the soul has some form of counsiusness. If not it is just magic juice. If yes then is it another counsiusness on topp of the other consiusness? If yes then the setting has not done a good job of diferenciate it.

Either way I find it not that interesting.

In 40K, the system for organic life seems to be Cartesian duality with the soul being the mind, emotions, and consciousness. Eldar souls are clearly conscious as they can pilot wraith constructs.

Sever the connection between soul and body as Eldar D-scythes seem to do, and what you are left with are bodies in vegetative states. Maybe not even that for long as maybe the basic life support functions of breathing and heartbeat are not sustainable in the long run without a soul.

Non-organic life like Necrons seem to be different as they can think (at least the nobles can), yet lack a soul. However as their engrams are copies of the original organic necrontyr, the Necrons seem to find something deeply lacking in their current soulless state.

My understanding of D-Scythes is that they kill you outright rather than leave you in a vegetative state implying that either losing your soul at all kills you or if it's a sudden change the shock kills you.

Necrons could be wrong about needing souls. They're not exactly rational and them having souls after all would fit with newcrons well enough.

I generally view things as mind-body-soul being different pieces. A Necron or null only has the first two. An Eldar soul stone has mind and soul, wraith units are when they are provided a body. The soul in this explanation being an indefinable anima that acts as a mirror to the mind but based upon the warp instead of the materium.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Haighus wrote:

 Niiai wrote:
What is its the point of having earlobes? You just do.

I viewed this in the context of a large proportion of Necrons being rather miffed that the C'Tan nommed their souls during biotransference and left them as soulless beings.

What about the souls of a species with minimal connection to the warp made them valuable to the species? (The value to the C'Tan is obvious as a tasty morsel).

Obviously the Necrons are irked by their newfound lack of earlobes.