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A while ago, I remember reading something on /tg/ about how the Necrons lacked souls, and some quick internet research seems to confirm this. I also remember it being mentioned that the lack of souls was slowly harming the Necrons in some way, but also made them free from fate, which annoyed Tzeentch. Even this information happens to be somewhat inaccurate, the idea interested me, so I was just wondering about being soulless in 40K in general. Exactly what advantages and drawbacks does it confer? Could somebody, theoretically, have their soul removed? If so, what would happen to them? Are there any other examples of soulless creatures or beings having their souls removed in the wider 40K canon?

Oh, and according to the Lexicanum, Culexus assassins merely "appear" to be souless due to their abilities, just to pre-empt that. But let me know if that's inaccurate. I'm also guessing that being soulless may make one similar to a Culexus, though.

For Humans, it makes them Untouchables, which means they are immune to psychic powers in almost every way, and can extend this power out in a bubble around them, though there seems to be degrees of how soulless you are.

The trade off is that every other human being has an instinctive revulsion about you and so Untouchables tend to live lonely, friendless existences on the fringes of society.

People can have their souls removed rather easily, though the exact definitions are hard to pin down. It would seem that some instances of daemonic possession lead to this, though not all. A human being used as a daemonhost, for example, basically has their soul traded away in exchange for the Daemon (Eisenhorne calls this the "Obliviation", and is how he knows the Daemon is trying to trick him, as it pretends to be the person his host once was). Of course, Chapters like the Exorcists seem to suggest it doesn't work this way, so the fluff is hardly consistent.

Long time since I read the book but in Nemesis they talk about this and they even have a sort of "chaos" culexus that if I don't remember it wrong have the ability to destroy your soul or atleast it seems that way since the way its described is that it is truely horrifying way to die.

It means you're a robot. That is the necrons' deal, they are robots.

Of course you can say oh no, before they were robots they were Necrontyr, and human untouchables aren't robots so you can be soulless without being a robot.

Well, the World Eaters were nut s about bloodshed and the Thousand Sons thought they were smarter and more powerful than everyone else and the Emperor's children were narcissists before any of them became formally "chaotic."

The Necrontyr were effectively robots before they were actually robots. That is what the setting is for, it is like a courageous character actually being a lion.

Untouchables do not have agency. The famous untouchables are Cain's sidekick and Bequin. Both of them are effectively robots - self contained individuals who despite their abilities to perform work - рабо́та - do not have their own animus - their own souls.

If you do not have a soul it means that even though you are attractive and charming and work intimately with your true love, you will never consummate or even express your love, in the example of Bequin.

Very, very few people in the 40K setting have agency. That's part of being a dystopia. This is not reserved to Untouchables.

Well, the World Eaters were nut s about bloodshed and the Thousand Sons thought they were smarter and more powerful than everyone else and the Emperor's children were narcissists before any of them became formally "chaotic."

This is not actually true. The World Eaters and the Emperor's Children and the Thousand Sons, etc etc etc were Chaos Marines long before any thought of fleshing them out pre-Heresy existed. Now, they are trying to shoehorn a history onto some characters for which we already know the future.

For example, however they get there, the World Eaters *must* end up a shattered legion of Khornate warbands, rolling around the Eye of Terror, selling their services to whomever can provide them the greatest chance for carnage, because that's how they've been presented since the very beginning.

The Horus Heresy novel series is an interesting example of "ret-conning". They're trying to fill books with elements to make an interesting story, the ending of which we already know, have known, for many, many years now. It's personal opinion on whether or not they're doing a good job at it.

 salix_fatuus wrote:
Long time since I read the book but in Nemesis they talk about this and they even have a sort of "chaos" culexus that if I don't remember it wrong have the ability to destroy your soul or atleast it seems that way since the way its described is that it is truely horrifying way to die.

The daemonskin assassin is more akin to a Callidus in that it can shape-shift, but it does eat souls, one of which proves a bit too strong for it to digest. What Nemesis also brings up though is a 'protiphage' - a Culexus assassin specifically created to be soulless.

Fascinating. Question: What the heck is a "soul" in this context?

I don't know fluff that well, but I do know that
1) It's possible to be a soulless and still be a living human being (eg Jurgen the Stinky Pariah) -- so soul in 40K is not your "life force" or any kind of biological necessity.
2) Not having a soul makes you immune to, even repellent to, certain Warp entities (eg daemons) and effects.... unless they're the ones who ate your soul so they could hijack your body (Daemonhosts) -- so soul in 40K has something to do with the Warp.

My guess is that your soul is your individual psychic reflection or manifestation in the Warp, just as the Immaterium as a whole is the psychic reflection of all living things. If this is so, then it is possible for someone's soul to get detached, destroyed, or never formed in the first place without them dying as a result -- your biological life causes your soul to exist, not vice versa.

But I speak from a position of modest fluff-knowledge.

 SisterSydney wrote:
Fascinating. Question: What the heck is a "soul" in this context?

Badly thought out and implemented. The classic idea of a soul makes no real sense. It's a psychic smudge your brain seems to create in the warp, completely unnecessary and irrelevant to the overwhelming number of people who supposedly have them.

Well, if it is your personal psychic shadow in the warp, presumably it's what makes you vulnerable to -- and in a tiny number of cases capable of -- psychic powers.

And then it might have something to do with agency or being fully human: there could be some kind of feedback between soul and brain that's important for these purposes , even if it's not essential for life.

That's the thing though- souls appear to be more of a liability than anything. For psykers they grant power at the risk of demonic attack. For regular humans they do nothing except empower the warp and make you a tasty target for demons. *If* you're one of the rare few who are psychically strong enough to resist chaos and control your powers- which let's face it must be a vanishingly small percentage of the human race overall- then maybe the soul thing works for you.

That said being a soulless/blank doesn't seem to affect the person themselves in any real capacity. Bequin was 'fully human' but with the added bonus of immunity to psychic powers. Granted there is the whole repulsion thing but I'd be curious to know if it affects other blanks.

Ask yourself this- if the entire human population of the galaxy- save for the Emperor and Astropaths- suddenly became blanks, would that be a good thing?

Soulless people get all the best jobs.

Also I really wish Necron Pariahs were still a thing.

That said being a soulless/blank doesn't seem to affect the person themselves in any real capacity. Bequin was 'fully human' but with the added bonus of immunity to psychic powers. Granted there is the whole repulsion thing but I'd be curious to know if it affects other blanks.

Without her limiter, it made her impossible to be around for long periods of time, which is why she was a fringe-dwelling, nomadic joygirl before she met Eisenhorn.

Being soulless in 40K dooms you to the life of an outcast, that is why they call them "pariahs".

Does that effect other blanks? Didn't the members of Eisenhorn's Distaff (all blanks) get along just fine in each others presence?

We're not told much about them, before their unfortunate incident. They also all wear limiters, which seem to mask the Untouchable nature of them, which may play a part in that.

Actually, your research is missing the point about Necrons - Necrons do have souls. That's pretty much all they have these days - Biotransferance is moving the soul from the flesh body into the mechanical body.

Most of the other stuff about them - personalities, emotions, etc, were removed as unneccessary for the Warriors (previously the slave caste) and the Immortals (previously the military caste).

See what does that mean though? Moving the sould from the flesh to the mechanical? Does it have any real effect?

I'd love a decent, solid explanation of a soul that accounts for altered mental states and keeps the soul relevant.

 Kojiro wrote:
See what does that mean though? Moving the sould from the flesh to the mechanical? Does it have any real effect?

I'd love a decent, solid explanation of a soul that accounts for altered mental states and keeps the soul relevant.

Well, we are incapable of providing a decent, solid explanation of a soul in the real world, I don't expect a bunch of game designers to do better than humanity's collective philosophers, theologians and scientists.

That said, in 40K, a creature's soul appears to be its connection to the Warp, apart and separate from its potential ability to wield psychic powers (which is a genetic condition). It has nothing to do with your emotions (which are conditioned bio-chemical responses in the brain), your attitude or, really, anything else at all. It is a thing that is separate from the biological life-form, as the Untouchables demonstrate that it is possible to be without a soul and yet remain alive, while the Necrons are proof that the soul can be removed from the living body and placed into an artificial vessel. As far as the "effect" that it had on the Necron, well, we don't know. Necron Warriors are utterly incapable of speech or independent thought. They are what remains of the Necrontyr mercantile class, artists, philosophers, slave caste, and, basically, anyone that was not a member of the Royal Courts, their immediate underlings, and the Technician class, which maintained the wonders of the Necrontyr Empire. The Necrons destroyed their entire culture to fight the Old Ones.