The Wheel.. did I miss something? (Ending spoilers)

[Trogdor]

Alright, so big man Eothas destroys the machine that keeps the reincarnation process going. Why is this such a big deal? If the Wheel was constructed by Kith at one time, there must be a "natural" process that predates it. The Wheels only function seems to be to siphon off  a bit of soul energy for every cycle, keeping the gods alive.

 

However, the game multiple times avoids this rather obvious solution to the problem, so what gives? Did I miss something? Is the Wheel truly ancient, predating the Engwithans? In the quest where you grab Bekarna's research there are hints to the stars being a source of arcane energy, and the Circle seem to see some great significance in this.

Edited June 9, 2018 by Trogdor

[Yria]

 No, you didn't miss anything, there is just not enough info to answer those questions with certainty.

 

You might want to check this thread, there are some theories here: https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/98322-ending-spoilers-the-ending-of-deadfire-and-what-it-means-for-the-lore/

[Wormerine]

Bekarna’s research prepares for the reveal of the Wheel being in Deadfire. It is possible we will learn a bit more about it the 3 expansions, if it will continue this story thread. There is confusion regarding how life worked before the wheel was created by Engwith and what destrying of the wheel means for the future.

[Not Hypebringer]

Just another proof that Engwithan were aliens.

BRB, gonna do Bekarna's quest, skipped it in first playthrough.

[Wormerine]

Just another proof that Engwithan were aliens.

 

BRB, gonna do Bekarna's quest, skipped it in first playthrough.

It's more of a foreshadowing, rather than the explenation. Certainly the hook, from which 3rd expansion will continue.

[Karkarov]

The game ignores it because no one living in the game world has ever lived under any other system.  People are afraid of change, and this change is a pretty big one.  I agree however, if you take a step back and look at it from the big picture, clearly... the world will go on.  Probably without Watchers, awakened peoples, or gods though.

[Lokithecat]

You can allow (or support) Eothas in his rampage, the world doesn't end or anything after, the 'credits?' still talk about the future, and repercussions of your choices.

[wRAR]

You can allow (or support) Eothas in his rampage, the world doesn't end or anything after, the 'credits?' still talk about the future, and repercussions of your choices.

Sure, the world doesn't end immediately, but we don't know if the kith succeed in fixing the reincarnation problem in time.

[Fardragon]

 

You can allow (or support) Eothas in his rampage, the world doesn't end or anything after, the 'credits?' still talk about the future, and repercussions of your choices.

Sure, the world doesn't end immediately, but we don't know if the kith succeed in fixing the reincarnation problem in time.

 

 

But is there a problem at all? Presumably before the construction of the wheel, kith died and kith where born, and they all had souls.

[wRAR]

But is there a problem at all? Presumably before the construction of the wheel, kith died and kith where born, and they all had souls.

 

Not again.

Presumably the old system was broken when creating the current system.

Do you think the gods don't know about the old system?

[AndreaColombo]

The gods aren’t omniscient, to the best of my understanding. They don’t necessarily know how it worked before they were created; they weren’t there to witness it, after all, and I doubt the Engwithans were eager to let them know.

 

Unless, of course, the gods retained memories from all the souls that went into creating them. In that case, they must know something—but what? Did every Engwithan know everything about reincarnation in detail? It is more likely that most people knew it existed, but no details. Some people would know the gist of it, others would hold false beliefs or information, others still would know everything or so. How would a god with all these conflicting notions pick the truth and see through falsehood?

Edited June 10, 2018 by AndreaColombo

[Balbanes]

Agree, there's no indication the gods would know about pre-Engwithan life.  I further note that the gods aren't terribly bright-- while they have access to additional info by virtual of their long existences, they aren't any better than kith at deduction or problem solving.  IIRC, Berath suggests that the gods are actually *worse* at decision making, since they are all required to obey their assigned roles.  Thus even if the best course of actions involves not betraying anyone, Skaen gonna Skaen.

 

Also, query why Eothas didn't pull this stunt earlier.  Perhaps he couldn't, and his death freed him from his programming, Agent Smith-style?

Edited June 12, 2018 by Balbanes

[wRAR]

Also, query why Eothas didn't pull this stunt earlier.  Perhaps he couldn't, and his death freed him from his programming, Agent Smith-style?

He tried to do this without breaking the Wheel. He got killed as the result.

[Seroster01]

The questions about the wheel have been asked before on these forums, and someone brought up a bit from Sawyer that basically said "We have all the answers to this and in the original script it was explained in the final Eothas dialogue. But then we felt like that was too long/too much of an info dump so we cut out all the parts you're asking questions about".

 

May be added back in later? May be filled in during the xpacs? Who knows?

[mirwir]

Maybe. Im not sure about this. But Eothas found a way to end the "rich getting richer and poor getting poorer " thing... no matter your religion :/ ? Am I way off?

[mirwir]

anyway that big giant adra statue hasnt the slightest idea of what being a mortal kith is. how can u decide what is more important for us kith, when he doesnt even know what loosing a loved one means. im siding with Eder. if Berath will lend me her power i will use it to fight him for all the destruction he has caused, to all the people of Cad Nua trapped inside him and all the sacrificed people he thought were trivial in comparison to his Greater Cause and to all those stuck in the inbetween.

[AndreaColombo]

Isn’t Eothas trying to stop the gods from feeding off kith souls? Though that would kind of run counter what Rymrgand wants, and Rymrgand kind of agrees with Eothas so... not sure what to think.

[MaxQuest]

anyway that big giant adra statue hasnt the slightest idea of what being a mortal kith is.

Iirc there was a dialog where Eothas referred to himself as Engwithan.

Thus I was under impression that he was once mortal. That engwithans have chosen 11 between them. And these chosen ones have ascended when the rest has given their soul essense.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

Isn’t Eothas trying to stop the gods from feeding off kith souls? Though that would kind of run counter what Rymrgand wants, and Rymrgand kind of agrees with Eothas so... not sure what to think.

Eothas wants to reveal the gods for what they are and let kith rebuild the wheel without their interference, Rymrgand wants the wheel destroyed and the world to end. Rymrgand supports Eothas in that he believes/hopes kith won't be able to fix the wheel and a slow death is the future for Eora instead of Kith managing to get **** right.

[mirwir]

i like when games have deep philosophy.

 

it is an amazing story. a God, named Eothas, heading to destroy the wheel of reincarnation in the lost city of Ukaizo for the purpose of evolving kith beyond what they thought they were capable of, or atleast "Speeding up the process" of evolving kith. Eothas is certain that animancers are close to unearthing the science behind what the Engwithans achieved back in their time such as creating the wheel and by breaking the wheel he is certain that kith will be capable of much more.

 

well imagine living in that time. knowing that you cannot be reborn if you do not find out a way to build the wheel again. no doubt all kith will set their priorities straight. power, money, and land will no longer hold any value. all kith will unite under one sole direction, and that is a "Future". and this will cause a huge leap in every aspect in kith life, from science, animancy, politics, economics. one thing Eothas had in mind is that he will put an end to poverty sooner. and there will be no more of "rich getting richer, poor getting poorer", all the troubles and worries that kith had and dreaded upon a day to day basis will be a thing of the past. So the obvious thing is that, Eothas Believes that the only way for Kith to reach this state, they have to do so by themselves knowing that relying on Gods will do them no good whatsoever. They have to find out by themselves that what they are capable of is beyond their wildest dreams.

 

All watchers will be busy as hell working with animancers on their experiments and machines, collecting data as they reach one breakthrough after another. since the time they have is very limited. infact limited only to those generations who are alive.

 

i mean i hope we dont end up like the golden colored people in the golden colored city in the beginning of Guardians of the Galaxy 2. Eothas imagines that kith will become so advanced that everybody will be knowledgeable in sciences, animancy, arcana. and animancy can be used to teleport people from one place to another. saving fossil fuels reducing pollution...

 

My view in all this is alot different from that of the big giant adra statues. Eothas hasnt the slightest idea of what being a mortal kith is. how can he decide what is more important for us kith, when he doesnt even know what loosing a loved one means. if Berath will lend me her power i will use it to fight him for all the souls he is using from the adra pillars to move that giant statue, for the animancers he sacrificed in port maje and every other being on his way to Hasango which he blames me for, for all those stuck in the inbetween, and more importantly for all the people of Caed Nua whose lives he ruined.

 

and about the wheel. the way i think about it is. where did life come from. how did life start on earth? Bill Nye proved that some living organisms can live in a small commet and survive the journey in space and even the impact on earth. so that means maybe life came from another planet? and before that planet was it also another planet? the same question goes for the wheel.

 

i just finished the game .

[thelee]

I could be wrong, but the "natural process" that existed before the wheel was what rymrgand wanted, which was life to slowly snuff as nothing got replenished. At least, rymrgand was the one god who seemed pretty-OK with eothas's plan in one of your council-of-the-gods meeting.

 

EDIT: oops got ninja'd by KaineParker. this is what I get for leaving a tab open for more than an hour before looking at it.

Edited June 13, 2018 by thelee

[AndreaColombo]

It kind of bears the question of why it is Eothas, rather than Rymrgand, who goes out of his way to destroy the Wheel—and why Rymrgand doesn't lend a hand to be a tag along. Eothas is placing a risky bet on kith (and from what we see in both games when we meet animancers, they don't really seem to be close to a Wheel-grade breakthrough; in fact, they strike me as quite far from the level of advancement Engwith had reached); Rymrgand could have simply gone on a rampage and destroyed the Wheel at any time, possibly before kith could gather any noticeable expertise in the field of post-Engwith animancy.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

I could be wrong, but the "natural process" that existed before the wheel was what rymrgand wanted, which was life to slowly snuff as nothing got replenished. At least, rymrgand was the one god who seemed pretty-OK with eothas's plan in one of your council-of-the-gods meeting.

 

EDIT: oops got ninja'd by KaineParker. this is what I get for leaving a tab open for more than an hour before looking at it.

The reincarnation cycle existed before, the alteration to it allowed gods to feed off of soul fragments from the cycle or even caused them or something. Rymrgand hopes the cycle will eventually result in the death of everything due to souls being broken down to nothing, and later hopes that Eothas will inadvertently speed the process up by smashing the wheel or go ahead and outright destroy the wheel.

It kind of bears the question of why it is Eothas, rather than Rymrgand, who goes out of his way to destroy the Wheel—and why Rymrgand doesn't lend a hand to be a tag along. Eothas is placing a risky bet on kith (and from what we see in both games when we meet animancers, they don't really seem to be close to a Wheel-grade breakthrough; in fact, they strike me as quite far from the level of advancement Engwith had reached); Rymrgand could have simply gone on a rampage and destroyed the Wheel at any time, possibly before kith could gather any noticeable expertise in the field of post-Engwith animancy.

The gods no longer have their bodies and Eothas had to hijack the giant statue to smash the wheel, I assume that Rymrgard either couldn't take over the statue without the other gods noticing and stopping him(iirc they thought Eothas was dead) or wanted **** to slowly decompose instead of end rapidly. It makes sense that Eothas would be the one to destroy the gods work, given that he's the god of redemption and rebirth and that the breaking of the wheel allows that.

[MaxQuest]

Guys, I'd like to make a minor recap in order to check that I understood the whole stuff about "The Wheel" right.

(!) So please correct me if something's wrong:

 

1. [The Wheel] - at the most basic level is the process of reincarnation.

2. [The Wheel] - existed before Engwithans. Sources are:

- Iovara who told about their animancers discovering no gods only the wheel in perpetual motion

- Thaos: "a world where there was only the Wheel, grinding without end and without mercy, slowly turning souls to dust"

- Common sense? Engwithans were not immortal but raised as a civilization, so perhaps healthy people were actually being born.

3. Engwithans created gods.

4. Engwithans altered [The Wheel]. I.e. they added a few [modifications] over the base functionality. We can refer to this modified version as [Engwithan Wheel]

5. [The Wheel] can be [destroyed]. This *ucks-up the process of reincarnation completely. And it cannot be rebuilt. The *uck-up can manifest in two ways:

a). according to Berath: souls can no longer go from [iN BETWEEN] to [THE BEYOND]. This means that after awhile, once there are no souls left in [THE BEYOND] all newborns will be hollowborns. Insects, birds, animals, kith, everyone will eventually die, without new blood coming to the world of Eora.

b). alongside with previous point, the process of soul going from [THE BEYOND] to a newborn in Eora, could be defective as well, because [The Wheel] - the reincarnation is destroyed. In this case hollowborn effect would become apparent immediately.

6. [The Wheel] can be [broken]. This removes all [modifications]. It also makes [The Wheel] inoperative.

- inoperative, because otherwise it would be referred in ingame dialogues as "to fix / to restore the wheel" but not "to break the wheel".

- while [The Wheel] is [broken], souls do not move from [iN BETWEEN] to [THE BEYOND]. But hollowborn effect won't be immediate, at least not until there are no souls left in [THE BEYOND]

The good news are: it can be fixed/rebuilt to the original pre-engwithan state.

7. Having [The Wheel] restored to it's initial state, and with enough knowledge [kith+gods] technically can modify it again, be it in the same way as engwithans did, or some other, new way.

 

---

[Engwithan Wheel] (aka [The Wheel] plus engwithan modifications) works as follows:

- mortal X dies

- his soul gets to [iN BETWEEN] and (usually) passes the judgment of the gods

- soul loses (usually) a small part of it, for the gods to feast

- the remaining part is passing to [THE BEYOND]

- soul gets into a newborn being Y.

- unless awaken, Y doesn't have the memories of X, but it's almost the same soul

 

Important notes:

- souls can get weaker or fracture. Be it from soul-twin phenomena; or if gods have taken too much 'tribute'; or if their soul essence was drawn by shadows, pwgras and alike.

- when beings with heavily fractured souls die and their remaining soul cannot re-enter the circle of rebirth: their souls are left in this world and are manifested as shadows. They crave for more essence and try to draw it from the people when they are asleep, or try to get it from souls that are no longer tied to a physical body but haven't yet left for [iN BETWEEN]. That's why there is the need for shepherds/reapers like Xoti.

- beings can consume other souls, adding their essence to their own. Judging by Maerwald and Gift from the Machine it looks like efficiency of such consumption is pretty low though; unless it is your soul-twin.

- not confirmed by lore but souls seem to be able to grow stronger during their mortal lives. They are defined as "essence of individual's consciousness, memory, and personality". And memories, challenges and hardships it had to endure seem to add to it's essence. This also seems to be in line with Zahua and Galawain view. Character level is also tied to the gain of [experience], although it's a game mechanic not lore thing.

- because gods chip a bit of the soul on every reincarnation, the whole process is subject to entropy. And unless souls grow stronger, the collective soul essence is going to diminish over time.

 

Eothas dislikes that:

- gods chip from souls of the mortals

- gods keep their true nature in secret

- gods don't do anything really worthy for kith and Eora

 

Eothas by default wants:

- to break [The Wheel]. I.e. strip it from modifications made by engwithans; or in other words change it from [Engwithan Wheel] to [Default Wheel]. But unfortunately it will get broken in the process.

- broken [The Wheel] will require an effort to fix. And he was hoping that gods will reveal their true nature to the kith, and they will all cooperate. Because the alternative is death to all living, gods included.

- ideally kith should decide by themselves if they want to worship the gods, and if they want (while waiting for rebirth) to give a part of their soul essence to their patron deity. And deities would have to behave worthy of such sacrifices.

 

 

[Default Wheel] (aka [The Wheel] before engwithan modifications):

- we know little about how reincarnation worked before.

- what we know is that gods didn't chip/fed on souls in the [iN BETWEEN].

 

---

And lastly there is a hypothesis about adra pillars:

- after engwithan modifications: when mortals die their souls go into the closest adra pillar which is connected to the machine at Ukaizo which serves as a single entry point to [iN BETWEEN]. Having all souls to pass through this "gate" make it easier for gods to inspect/judge/chip on them.

- before engwithan modifications: without the Ukaizo Machine, every adra pillar is the entry into [iN BETWEEN].

Edited June 14, 2018 by MaxQuest

[Daggerknight]

Just finished the game. I'm not a huge fan of the ending forcing you to either way allow the wheel to be broken, given that that was the impetus for the whole campaign. 

What I do like, however, is the clearly cyclical state of the world the plot implies.

 

Back in Pillars 1, we learn that the Engwithans, at the height of their power, were master animancers, among other things. They got so powerful in just about every imaginable walk of life that one day, when they said "Hey, lets look for god!", it was  a perfectly viable thing to do. 

 

Only, they didn't find god. We're told that they found either god(s) was dead, or left a long while ago, which drew their attention to the need to "fix" the cycle of life. 

 

Interestingly, fast forward several millennium later, we are in a world where animancy is on the rise. Perhaps not super advanced, but definitely catching up.  The gods notice this. Somme are afraid of where it might go, some shrug indifferently, and some want to encourage it. Eothas in particularly wants to see it thrive and see Kith arise to the responsability of running their own world without the current cast of gods, up to and including destroying the current machines of soul control. Which is going to lead to  a dark age in which the gods weaken, possibly die or simply go away, not being needed any longer. Which might lead to a time when Animancy is at its zenith, but so far removed from these events that the mere memory of the gods or what transpired in Deadfire is long forgotten. In turn, Kith ask the same question the Engwithins did, and learn that the gods are gone. And so the cycle repeats itself.