Trying to wrap my head around the plot (big spoilers)

[Heijoushin]

Forgive me if this has been discussed before, but I've just finished Deadfire, and I need to clear some things up about the main plotline. I'm sure you gentlemen will provide me with your wisdom. 

1. We discover that the Engwithans created not only the Gods but the entire reincarnation cycle (AKA The Wheel). To me, this brings up one very big question: How did life and death work before the Engwithans invented the wheel? I mean, babies were born back then, right?

2. By destroying The Wheel, does that mean there will be a global effect like Waidwen's Legacy? (No babies born anywhere because reincarnation is broken.) No one seems fussed about this in the ending slides. 

3. Why are the Gods (some of them anyway) convinced that the Kith can solve this? The current animancy technology is obviously very primitive compared to the Engwithans. It seems to be the equivalent of asking doctors from 1000 years ago to cure cancer. And we've seen that the Dyrwood was powerless in the face of Waidwen's Legacy in PoE1.

 

Bonus question: A man comes up to you and says, "Guess what: Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory are real. But I'd hate for you to have no agency in what happens in the afterlife, so I'm going to break Heaven and Hell. You've got one generation to fix it or all the souls stay in Purgatory for eternity. Don't worry, human ingenuity is good stuff." How do you feel?

 

Edited May 28, 2018 by Heijoushin

[Taevyr]

This is how i view it, though there've been plenty of discussions on the topic already.

 

Reincarnation existed before the gods and engwithans, as the reason Od Nua built his statue was "so his son would reincarnate properly". Meaning there was reincarnation, but it was kind of shoddy.

 

Here is where we get into speculation: Since there was already a reincarnation system, the engwithans looked at it and thought " not only can we improve it, we can make a religion out of this". They made it so reincarnation was neatly ordered thanks to the interference of the gods they created, who now decided where and how souls reincarnated, Berath being the main overseer of the process. This is possible thanks to the wheel. I'd say the process is comparable to developing an important river: you deepen it and broaden it a little, make it so ships/souls can pass through easier, quicker, and less hindered, and add some sluces and dams to control the flow.

 

Eothas goes in and destroys it all, wrecking the rebirth cycle. Which must have been quite transcendent for him, since it's the god of rebirth rebirthing the rebirth cycle.

Anyway, the original, natural system may still be in place, but now it's also connected to the wreckage of the machinery the engwithans added to control and manipulate the flow of souls, meaning the entire control system is in shambles: Sluces are stuck, dams can't be regulated anymore, and the flow of the "river" is clogged beyond reason. Souls are stuck in the In-Between, and they don't seem to be going anywhere for now.

 

How exactly this will affect Eora is a mystery, since we're never told except that supposedly "IT WILL DESTROY EVERYTHING", which isn't that informative. As for the gods, they're simply acting according to the ideal they embody: Magran and Galawain like the trial, Wael likes the mystery of it, and so on. Not all of them like it, but there's little they can do without ruining themselves in the process.

 

However, Rymrgand could technically try to ruin Kith's chances to rebuild the wheel, in order reach his end goal of ending everything. Considering the first DLC'll be called 'Beast of Winter', I'm hoping for this particular possibility.

[Casper]

However, Rymrgand could technically try to ruin Kith's chances to rebuild the wheel, in order reach his end goal of ending everything. Considering the first DLC'll be called 'Beast of Winter', I'm hoping for this particular possibility.

i was hoping for naasitaq myself.

Edited May 28, 2018 by Casper

[Casper]

double post sort of. *sigh*

Edited May 28, 2018 by Casper

[Heijoushin]

...

 

Thank you for taking the time to answer. Good analogy with the rivers. However, I'm not convinced that there was a reincarnation system in place. It's not clear whether Od Nua came before or after the Engwithans. The official timeline (https://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Timeline) puts Od Nua at ca.800 but doesn't mention when the gods or the wheel were created. I figured it was a lot earlier.

 

Secondly, most of the in-game dialogue seemed to indicate that without the wheel, all the souls would just sit in the "in-between" forever. Maybe I wasn't reading closely enough, but the game just doesn't seem to make a very good case for the "breaking the wheel" option. Eothas' plan seems ridiculous and the only people who support him are a bunch of crazy other gods who are pre-programmed to like challenges. 

Edited May 28, 2018 by Heijoushin

[Taevyr]

 

However, Rymrgand could technically try to ruin Kith's chances to rebuild the wheel, in order reach his end goal of ending everything. Considering the first DLC'll be called 'Beast of Winter', I'm hoping for this particular possibility.

i was hoping for naasitaq myself.

 

Nobody told me we couldn't have both!

[Taevyr]

 

...

 

Thank you for taking the time to answer. Good analogy with the rivers. However, I'm not convinced that there was a reincarnation system in place. It's not clear whether Od Nua came before or after the Engwithans. The official timeline (https://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Timeline) puts Od Nua at ca.800 but doesn't mention when the gods or the wheel were created. I figured it was a lot earlier.

 

Secondly, most of the in-game dialogue seemed to indicate that without the wheel, all the souls would just sit in the "in-between" forever. Maybe I wasn't reading closely enough, but the game just doesn't seem to make a very good case for the "breaking the wheel" option. Eothas' plan seems ridiculous and the only people who support him are a bunch of crazy other gods who are pre-programmed to like chal

It's largely a theory, a GAME THE.... let's not go there. The one thing everyone agrees on is that it's way too vague, and Sawyer has already mentioned the possibility of adding more clarification to the dialogue through twitter.

[Heijoushin]

Yeah, I've found the old thread now (https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/98322-ending-spoilers-the-ending-of-deadfire-and-what-it-means-for-the-lore/page-1) Aramintai sums up my frustration very well. Hopefully they will add some clarification later.

Guess this thread can be closed now...

[flamesium]

Forgive me if this has been discussed before, but I've just finished Deadfire, and I need to clear some things up about the main plotline. I'm sure you gentlemen will provide me with your wisdom. 

 

1. We discover that the Engwithans created not only the Gods but the entire reincarnation cycle (AKA The Wheel). To me, this brings up one very big question: How did life and death work before the Engwithans invented the wheel? I mean, babies were born back then, right?

 

2. By destroying The Wheel, does that mean there will be a global effect like Waidwen's Legacy? (No babies born anywhere because reincarnation is broken.) No one seems fussed about this in the ending slides. 

 

3. Why are the Gods (some of them anyway) convinced that the Kith can solve this? The current animancy technology is obviously very primitive compared to the Engwithans. It seems to be the equivalent of asking doctors from 1000 years ago to cure cancer. And we've seen that the Dyrwood was powerless in the face of Waidwen's Legacy in PoE1.

 

Bonus question: A man comes up to you and says, "Guess what: Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory are real. But I'd hate for you to have no agency in what happens in the afterlife, so I'm going to break Heaven and Hell. You've got one generation to fix it or all the souls stay in Purgatory for eternity. Don't worry, human ingenuity is good stuff." How do you feel?

 

 

 

1. Game doesn't say. We know for sure life existed before the Engwithans made the gods though.

 

2. Game doesn't say. As you say, if Eora is in a global Hollowborn crisis as soon as The Wheel is broken the ending slides would / should mention it. There's a theory that there's a reserve of souls which have already been through The Wheel which are ready and still able to transfer into bodies as usual, which would postpone a global Hollowborn crisis.

 

3. Probably because they expect the situation to focus minds on the task at hands - look at how much progress was made during WW2 for instance. Also because they are anticipating kith having access to the secrets of Ukaizo.

[rheingold]

The narrative is a bit of a mess at the moment, and rather disappointing. Only person I can see being happy with what Eothas did is Rymrygand because I'm presuming that no wheel means no reincarnation, hence death is final. Which is what he wants.

Not entirely sure though, it's just not well thought out at all from the writers side.

[mazeltov]

One big question is: why would Gaun go rogue and try to bring down the system not once, but twice? Was dismantling the system has was designed to manage part of his programming? Do the gods have some sort of self-awareness beyond their prescribed roles (i.e. do they learn or "evolve")? Did some ancient Engwithan engineer of the "Pantheon Project" have second thoughts about the wisdom of their enterprise, and set a killswitch to trigger in Eothas at some future time, or under certain conditions?

[Tarlonniel]

And what happened to the gods' non-interference clause that they talked so much about in the first game? Not that any of them observed it too scrupulously, but Eothas really went off the rails. Twice.

[Slotharingia]

It's pretty confusing and while people have theories on it, the story should ideally not be so vague that no one actually knows what any of it means or feels any real motivation to pick one thing or the other at the end. The thing about the Gods creating reincarnation although people were obviously born before without it is really confusing, as is the concept of making the wheel again - if it gets remade, why break it? Eothas refuses to explain why his actions will create this alleged Golden Age. The main story is the worst thing about the game. Theories and guessing should for the most part be confined to things that are uncovered by doing side quests/reading codex etc.

[Wormerine]

I don’t know what Eothas did, what effect it had, how life worked before the wheel.

 

Also there are only few new books in Deadfire. Why? Whyyyyyyy?

[Skazz]

One big question is: why would Gaun go rogue and try to bring down the system not once, but twice? Was dismantling the system has was designed to manage part of his programming? Do the gods have some sort of self-awareness beyond their prescribed roles (i.e. do they learn or "evolve")? Did some ancient Engwithan engineer of the "Pantheon Project" have second thoughts about the wisdom of their enterprise, and set a killswitch to trigger in Eothas at some future time, or under certain conditions?

I don't see that as a killswitch trigger. Hell, I don't even see that as an expression of self-awareness. Much like Abydon before him, Eothas seems to be taking his pre-programmed role to its logical conclusion.

 

He's the god of compassion, benevolence, and rebirth. Similarly to Abydon, this isn't really about defying the system as much as him trying to achieve the ultimate expression of his function. He was made to love kith unconditionally, and to him, destroying the Wheel is clearly the most benevolent course of action for all kith at the moment - everything else, like his own existence, is secondary.

 

If this were Magran, or Ondra, or whomever, sure, a case could be made for such actions constituting an act of defiance. Not so for Eothas, who seems to be running his "compassion" routines as usual.

Edited May 28, 2018 by Skazz

[Opheleus]

1. If Od Nua lived and ruled before the creation of the gods, then we can assume there was a cycle, just not a very reliable one. If he's post-creation, then I imagine life and death worked like they do in any world/setting without reincarnation, gods, and an afterlife: life is created by mortals, and their bodies and souls fade upon death. A soul can be destroyed, as seen with Thaos. The biggest question is whether or not the In-Between was a thing prior to the gods, or if it was a creation of theirs or Thaos'. If it was present, it would be another piece of evidence to support a reincarnation cycle being around before the gods.

 

2. Maybe. Waidwen's Legacy was caused by the trapping of souls, and Berath (I believe) says that Eothas' actions would cause some of the souls to be stuck in the In-Between. However, since life was clearly a thing before The Wheel, it might be that without the gods' meddling - the "natural" cycle will once more take place. This might mean that souls will be reincarnated, but in a more unpredictable manner. Alternatively, it might mean that new souls are formed and the old ones simply disappear/die out - thus ending reincarnation, but not necessarily life itself. The worst-case scenario is that the gods buggered the cycle beyond natural repair. There might've been a system in place, but if they took over and changed it - now that they're gone, the old one might not be able to resume. If this is the case, then it's even more important for Animancers to take control of the cycle, since they'll basically be the only hope left assuming new souls can't be created. If the old cycle is done for, and the new one disappears, then that might be it for Eora. However, I don't think that's the case...

 

Eothas gives you the option to sway him, and among those options - the two biggest ones are (paraphrasing): "Give us a head start" and "I want you to end it all". Since you can convince Eothas to help and one of the endings is him raising Engwithan ruins for all to explore and learn from, there must be a way to "fix" the cycle - or continue it via Animancy; thus, Waidwen's Legacy 2.0 shouldn't be a thing.

 

3. Some of them like challenges and trials - so they can't help themselves, while others care for kith and might give 'em the benefit of the doubt. Kith created the gods and The Wheel once, no reason why they can't do it again. Dyrwood was a lot less progressive and highly superstitious. It also had an ancient, immortal narcissist screwing them over at every turn and feeding the flames of suspicion. Without him and the Leaden Key (and Ondra), kith could've and probably would've reached and perhaps even surpassed Engwithan-level Animancy. The VTC under Castol seem especially keen on advancing the field, and with the Deadfire being more open to it - and now with the Engwithan ruins being uncovered - Animancy might advance quicker than ever before. The rate of advancement is obviously dependent on a lot of stuff, and if the kith races/factions don't make peace they might destroy themselves before solving the puzzle. This task becomes even more difficult if new souls can't be created, 'cause that would mean - like you've said - that they'd have to solve the issue before the last of them died. However, we've seen a number of characters that defied death and extended their lives via magic and other means (but mostly magic), so their cooperation could go a long way in aiding the survival of the kith.

 

Obviously a lot of this is speculation and interpretation, but to be fair - we don't have a whole lot to go on. If anything, Deadfire has made things even more confusing. That's why I kind of like the "end it all" ending; it's dark and gloomy, but at least it makes sense and leads to a lot less headaches. That being said, I really enjoy PoE lore - mainly the PoE1 stuff. Not a giant fan of the representation of the gods in Deadfire; I much preferred their mystique, even after the big reveal.

[Mazama]

Iirc you can ask Berath to explain what breaking the wheel means she says that souls temporarily enter the In-Between before going to the Beyond to be reincarnated. Breaking the wheel prevents the souls from entering the Beyond. All life will slowly wither away when there are no more souls left in the Beyond to incarnate.

 

I thought the Engwithans created the gods in response to discovering the wheel and the existential despair it caused when they learned there was nothing else, but apparently they created the wheel as well. I don't think Thaos was lying or ignorant of the system considering his role, so there must of been some form of reincarnation before the Engwithans were around.

[Heijoushin]

Okay, I found the relevant statements on Josh's tumblr. So the Word of God is:

 

"I have to take responsibility for the lack of clarity on this. It was not my intention to retcon via omission anything that’s already been established in Pillars of Eternity. Eothas’ conversations started out being pretty large. In the process of editing them down, I had to make difficult choices about what should go.  There were sequences where Eothas talked about how things worked before the Engwithans and why the destruction of the machine at Ukaizo would have the extreme consequences he describes. These sequences felt like they disrupted the pacing of the conversations and they didn’t seem strictly necessary.  When we had our team play week, I didn’t receive feedback that the absence of this information was bad/raised questions – but that may be because anyone who thought about it knew the information from our design documents/conversations/presentations/previous versions of Eothas’ dialogues.

I think that this information can be explained in-game in the future, but I apologize for any confusion that the omissions have caused."

 

"However, Od Nua (in Pillars I) does reference the Beyond/the Wheel existing prior to the apotheosis. He does this indirectly: Od Nua was an Engwithan and all of the other Engwithans disappeared after the apotheosis, which followed his downfall. The purpose of building the adra statue was to create a vessel that could house Maros Nua’s soul, pulled out of the Beyond. Od Nua did this because he did not believe his son’s soul would be “properly” reincarnated."

 

*shrugs* I dunno, maybe this is what comes from writing too much lore and history and then based a convoluted story over it. I liked some aspects, but ultimately, a more pedestrian 80s video game plot like "defeat the big bad" might have left players feeling more satisfied at the end of the day.

Edited May 29, 2018 by Heijoushin

[nivodeus]

I recently played and finished the game with the DLC. During Beast of Winter, in the Sunken Kingdom, the King talked about how Ukaizo was before the Engwithan came, a vast expansive Empire in the Deafire, with many Kiths from far away land come and acknowledge him.

And then the Engwithans (I assume) came and offer to build a machine to speak with the Gods, which in turn destroyed and bring Ukaizo to the ground. 

The question is, was that the same machine as the Wheel of Berath, or was that the same construct Thaos use to create the Hollowborn. 

The king did specify that the Outlander said it will let them speak with Gods, this would indicate that the idea of Gods were there even before the Engwithans construct this machine. 

 

And how did they choose what Gods they want to make? I mean Skaen, Wael, Ondra. Are they the manifestation of Engwithan ideology of Gods? Because at first, I thought the Engwithans are the gods, They use the machine to extract souls and use this energy to create or transcend themselves into Gods, much like the Ancient in Original Sins 2. 

Actually in D:OS2 they are not God, they are simply highly advanced sentient being which somehow then create the world in their images, as in the creation of Human, Elf, Dwarf and many other races. 

This reminds me of the theorem of that ' Any extra-terrestrial sentient being with advanced enough technology is indistinguishable from God ' 

Which then makes me wonder about Bekarna's research on Stars and the power of stars. 

 

It is very convoluted for me at this point and I am confusing myself with so many theories and facts right now. 

My current idea is, the Engwithan was not from Eora or maybe from Eora but different land (the Outlander), they then somehow 'tricked' the Huana, since they are somehow less technologically advanced (as seen in some wall drawing how the Engwithan used the Huana as basically source of soul). 

If that so, then how come the modern Huana has covenant with the Ngati, I mean they watershaping ability comes from Ngati, so is this pre- or post Engwithan, or could it be that Huana themselves are genetically able to manipulate water and the Engwithan somehow exploited this. Since it looks like Ukaizo knew about watershaping even before the Engwithan came (as evidence shown how the ruin of Kingdom is much manipulated by water). 

 

Could it be that the Gods are more like an organic AI being, used by the Engwithan to assert dominance over soul, much like what the Animancer are now doing, soul manipulation. This means, before the Engwithan's Gods, then existed an array of 'silence' Old Gods that just doesnt truly interfere much with the live of Kiths. 

This would explain the Od Nua statue and intention, since he knew that Adra has the property like a magnet to soul. 

[uuuhhii]

poe lore are relatively much easier to understand then dnd

the important thing is to remember there are many missing piece about the lore

don't try to fit all known piece together because there are many pieces missing between them

[Wormerine]

I recently played and finished the game with the DLC. During Beast of Winter, in the Sunken Kingdom, the King talked about how Ukaizo was before the Engwithan came, a vast expansive Empire in the Deafire, with many Kiths from far away land come and acknowledge him.

And then the Engwithans (I assume) came and offer to build a machine to speak with the Gods, which in turn destroyed and bring Ukaizo to the ground. 

The question is, was that the same machine as the Wheel of Berath, or was that the same construct Thaos use to create the Hollowborn. 

The king did specify that the Outlander said it will let them speak with Gods, this would indicate that the idea of Gods were there even before the Engwithans construct this machine. 

 

And how did they choose what Gods they want to make? I mean Skaen, Wael, Ondra. Are they the manifestation of Engwithan ideology of Gods?

Trying to figure out the details can be frustrating as there are few reliable sources of information.

 

Engwithan's created the Wheel in Ukaizo, which allows Gods to be sustained but it didn't create them. It is safe to assume that Gods were created before Engwith manipulated the Wheel to feed them. I believe that the machine which brought ruin to Ukaizo was the one which caused the unnatural Storms. As we learned from Poko Kohara when adra is overflowed with essence it escaped causing aggressive storms. While the Wheel isn't responsible for storms, another machine (which Watcher turns off) used this concentration of essence to protect the machines (and bring the ruin to Ukaizo once the work was completed). 

 

I am curious at what point did Gods walk on Eora as titans? Some of their bodies can be found in Ukaizo? Were they walking on Earth after being created, consuming souls by some other means (ala Eothas), and when they decided to give up bodies they moved to the Beyond and needed to modify the Wheel to be sustained, therefore Ukaizo and the machine and God's bodies hidden with it?

 

We don't know exactly what it takes to create the Gods - the closes glipse we got (and the most reliable) is Thaos' memory were a large amound of Engwith were sacrificed to create Woedica. We have seen powerful individuals become an aspect of a God (Faces of the Hunt) and it is possible that certain individual soul was used as a blueprint for a God. This book would suggest that Skaen had a mortal precursor, however those series of books also provide history which is false/didn't happen yet. 

https://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/The_History_of_Eora,_Volume_X:_The_Man_Who_Would_Be_Skaen

[Baraz]

I am a a bit late in the conversation, but I believe I found the answer...

(v2) In a late-game conversation with Woedica (via the Burning Book), she utterly admitted that reincarnation existed before some Engwithans made the Wheel and before they made themselves gods (sacrificing all of Ukaizo to do so).  [It is fact that the gods did not exist really before, contrary to what some said here: it is explained in many stories in both PoE1 and 2 that the gods were only folklore and myth before some Engwithans made themselves real gods. But, as others mention, there may have been exceptions, some minor deities, as souls may sometimes have continued beyond death.]  She states that the Engwithan machine was added in the way of the natural Wheel, which allowed the gods to "improve" reincarnation, improve people, and the entire thing was their plan to try and engineer a better world. 

The gods generally claim that destroying the machine destroys the Wheel, which will destroy reincarnation and ultimately life, and folks believe it, but it seems *might* be a lie to a certain extent.  It is not surprising that the gods make this false claim ; they might even believe it after Wael's many editions of history. 

I get the impression that Woedica was stoically just telling me the truth; she is in conflict with the other gods, does not really follow their plans anymore and explicitly explains that she no longer believes in kith or the notion of improving things without her taking total control. 

It makes sense that reincarnation, or just the cycle of life energy (without clear reincarnation), existed before and will continue. 

Woedica'a explaination helped me decide.  I don't think Eothas intends to utterly destroy life on the long run.

[ EDIT: from what I can see, this dialogue with Woedica was added later in the game (v5, so probably in 2019).
I edited my answer to correction the confusion between the machine and the wheel that predated it. ]

( nb: I read the whole thread now and I see some name the same lore. I mostly add Woedica's dialogue as a source, which I think is probably the true bit.  Others here though explain that the Engwithan machine, when broken or still partly there, screws up the whole natural soul "travelling".  But... Eothas explains all that, at least in the current version of the ending.)

Edited March 2, 2020 by Baraz

[omgFIREBALLS]

I think you're misinterpreting that. The Engwithans didn't make a new Wheel, they modified the existing one to allow the gods to feed off it. Eothas intends to break the only Wheel there is.

This is both my impression and what to me seems the general consensus.

Do you actually have a quote to the effect of Woedica saying the Engwithans created a new, separate Wheel?

[Baraz]

2 hours ago, omgFIREBALLS said:

I think you're misinterpreting that. The Engwithans didn't make a new Wheel, they modified the existing one to allow the gods to feed off it. Eothas intends to break the only Wheel there is.

This is both my impression and what to me seems the general consensus.

Do you actually have a quote to the effect of Woedica saying the Engwithans created a new, separate Wheel?

You are right : my interpretation was not really off, but my wording very much so.  You are correct: the Engwithan *machine* was added inside the natural cycle called The Wheel.  It even obstructs the natural cycle and Eothas believes mortals will find a way (wow, way to play with our souls!). 

[Kaylon]

The Wheel was called the cycle of reincarnation. In PoE2 it turns out that engwithians built a machine in Ukaizo which helped regulating the cycle of reincarnation (which always existed) and also allowed gods to receive souls. The destruction of this machine means the gods won't be able to receive souls anymore, losing their power and influence over mortals (that's what Eothas wants). The problem is the Wheel was heavily affected by the machine and can't return to the initial state without help. For that reason the mortals will have to find new ways to restore the flow of rebirth  or they will also disappear.