[SPOILERS!] [LORE] - How souls were "infusing" bodies before Engwitans "invented" the Wheel?

[Sherab]

Ok, we know from PoE 1, that the Gods were actauly "created" by Ancient Engwitans. Now, in PoE 2 we discover that the Wheel itself (the cycle of reincarnation) was also invented by the Engwitans, and it works thanks to ancient machine located on the Ukaizo. We find out, that if Eothas will be allowed to destroy machine, souls (after vessels' death) will stuck in in-between, hence if Kith won't find a way to start the cycle by them own (or via any other game ending), there will less, and less of iving beings in the world, and Eora may finally dayout totally.

 

 

 

My question is:

 

 

 

So if Engwitans have invented the Wheel, then how souls were "infusing" newborn bodies before that happened? Was this problem overlook by our Devs, or this is a mistery, that maybe we will solve in PoE 3?

 

 

Ps. Sorry for bad English.

[uuuhhii]

engwithan build the current version

doesn't mean there wasn't an older version

few other than the gods remember the eora 2000 years ago

fewer know how the old world works

[Rosbjerg]

As I understood it, the Engwithans hijacked the natural process by creating a sort of sieve, that allowed the god constructs to collect energy from the souls passing through the Adra to the center of the world - where the actual reincarnation takes places.

 

The gods have then used this energy over time to create their realms and spheres of influence, to the point that they theorize that the natural process might've been disturbed. Which is what Eothas wants to destroy, so that we can return to the 'natural order' and gods and kith can die without 'the wheel' stealing energy from them in the process.

[uuuhhii]

As I understood it, the Engwithans hijacked the natural process by creating a sort of sieve, that allowed the god constructs to collect energy from the souls passing through the Adra to the center of the world - where the actual reincarnation takes places.

 

The gods have then used this energy over time to create their realms and spheres of influence, to the point that they theorize that the natural process might've been disturbed. Which is what Eothas wants to destroy, so that we can return to the 'natural order' and gods and kith can die without 'the wheel' stealing energy from them in the process.

if gods need engwithan wheel to absorb soul

it will be a very weird design choice for ancient engwithan

according to eothas the wheel are build for enhance kith soul with each reincarnation

but that could be only interpretation of eothas or part of its function

Edited August 26, 2018 by uuuhhii

[Harry Easter]

As I understood it, the Engwithans hijacked the natural process by creating a sort of sieve, that allowed the god constructs to collect energy from the souls passing through the Adra to the center of the world - where the actual reincarnation takes places.

 

The gods have then used this energy over time to create their realms and spheres of influence, to the point that they theorize that the natural process might've been disturbed. Which is what Eothas wants to destroy, so that we can return to the 'natural order' and gods and kith can die without 'the wheel' stealing energy from them in the process.

 

I think this is how it works and then they use the Adra to get back into this world, through ... dunno, the atmosphere? The magnetic field of Eora? Something like this. I guess it was kind of random, until the Engwithans automised it. I guess only the strongest souls could make it?

Edited August 26, 2018 by Harry Easter

[Rosbjerg]

Maybe, or maybe it simply took much longer. I'm guessing the wheel works as a sort of water mill, in that it both draws energy from the motion of souls, but also directs the stream.

[Katarack21]

"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."

--Josh Sawyer

https://jesawyer.tumblr.com/post/174058952291/so-is-the-idea-that-before-the-wheel

[Sherab]

"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."

--Josh Sawyer

 

https://jesawyer.tumblr.com/post/174058952291/so-is-the-idea-that-before-the-wheel

 

Well, I have to admit that I disagree with Josh Sawyer on this. Simply because without those explanations, people like me starts to wonder.

 

I base my observations on my in-game character's findings of course. And I've asked Berath about consequances, and he/she (I prefer she, somehow, even if the dwarf seems to be nicer ) gave me description I wrote in the original post. Of course she could lie - this wouldn't be anything new from the gods. But accepting those explenations, question "so how life could function before invention of the Wheel?" arose automathicaly in my mind. People had to be born and dieing before, obviously. So for me this creates big inconsistency.

[house2fly]

If that question arose in your mind automatically surely the answer "there must have been a natural process which the Engwithans tapped into or took control of by some artificial means" couldn't have been far behind

Edited August 27, 2018 by house2fly

[Sherab]

If that question arose in your mind automatically surely the answer "there must have been a natural process which the Engwithans tapped into or took control of by some artificial means" couldn't have been far behind

 

Well, yes, I tought about this. But this is only guessing. And if so, why then Engwithans needed to create the Wheel? Ok, here answer is propably simple - they wanted to regulate the process, to be able to "steal" portions of souls to sustain existance of the gods. But point is, why then destruction of the Wheel brings up so devastating consequances (well, is it really devastating it is propably a matter of perspective, but I assume you know what I mean )? If the Ukaizo was used only to control and direct otherwise natural process, there wouldn't be much of problem, right? Ok, there would be, but just for the gods. But if Berath speaks true, destruction of the Wheel will stop reincarnation all together. Hence, there was no natural reincarnation process before, or it was destroyed prior or by creation of the Wheel. But we do not recive any info about this from the game. And since our hero is about to decide about the Wheel's fate, I think this shouldn't stay a mistery for the player.

Edited August 27, 2018 by Sherab

[Metaturtle]

I like to think the wheel is like the internet that everyone has thought of as commonplace so that if some massive Eothas thing decides to knock out the main server on Eora, it's going to cause some massive chaos until kith can reimplement it in some way.  The gods creating the wheel (internet) probably had circumstances where they thought the current system could be improved on (snail mail/56k) after they had the means to do so, but by now in this point of the story they lost their way of why they wanted to improve as elaborated by whistle blowing Eothas in Ashen Maw.   That's one hell of an allegory if I saw one lol.  As for the point of origin, who knows where in the universal timeline the current Eora is in since something could have predated the Engwithians.   Then again there is Rymgrand's ending where the current gods probably did mess up the system so bad that it's irreversible to get back to if completely destroyed.

Edited August 28, 2018 by Metaturtle

[Sherab]

Interesting comparison to "internet"

 

 

Yeah, I'm preety sure, that there should be some natural system predating Engwithans' "improvement". There had to be. My problem is, that this is not explained in anyway in the lore. But if we can make safe assumption, that there was indeed natural proccess of reincarnation, or any other mechanism with have been "infusing" bodies with souls, then what happened to this mechanism? Why destruction of the Wheel seems to stop reincarnation completely?

 

 

Of course we could left this in the area of mistery, as a kind of a puzzle to be solved in the future by the Kith. But taking into account, that in-game enviroenement we have access to direct sources (the gods), this approach is hard to justify from my standpoint. Ok - most of the gods are more than ready to lie about many things, but propably Eothas can be trusted in this matter.

 

 

And it seems, Eothas indeed would be able to give us those info, but those sequences were cut-off, as Josh Sawyer explained in the link posted by Katarack21.

 

Best wishes!

[uuuhhii]

 

Interesting comparison to "internet"

 

 

Yeah, I'm preety sure, that there should be some natural system predating Engwithans' "improvement". There had to be. My problem is, that this is not explained in anyway in the lore. But if we can make safe assumption, that there was indeed natural proccess of reincarnation, or any other mechanism with have been "infusing" bodies with souls, then what happened to this mechanism? Why destruction of the Wheel seems to stop reincarnation completely?

 

 

Of course we could left this in the area of mistery, as a kind of a puzzle to be solved in the future by the Kith. But taking into account, that in-game enviroenement we have access to direct sources (the gods), this approach is hard to justify from my standpoint. Ok - most of the gods are more than ready to lie about many things, but propably Eothas can be trusted in this matter.

 

 

And it seems, Eothas indeed would be able to give us those info, but those sequences were cut-off, as Josh Sawyer explained in the link posted by Katarack21.

 

Best wishes!

 

of course the game doesn't give all the setting about soul

that's the point

animancy is the thing writers try get to be the core of story

[Sherab]

Hmmm... I agree that the essence, souls and souls' energy, are core, basic "units" in PoE's universum.

 

 

But I treat animancy rather as a sign of times, so to speak - first try to understand "phenomenom" in "scientiffic" way. And while the fate of animancy was an important part of the first PoE's plot, I've never consideret it to be the core of PoE 1, or Deadfire's story as such - even if indeed intended by writers.

 

 

Anyway, I don't mind some misteries and the fact that not everything is explained to us. But in this case I simply have an impression of inconsistency and inconsequancy. And this is why I think the situation before creation of the Wheel should be explained in main plot of Deadfire.

 

 

Perhaps I simply belong to minority of those who have that feeling "Ok, something is wrong here..."

 

Best whishes!

[uuuhhii]

animancy are the core setting pushing the story

even though most player doesn't care a bunch of scientist use adra and copper build something looks like torture chair in asylum

magic are always much more interesting

writer keep animancy intentionally vague and inconclusive because animancer study still rudimentary and not because they didn't make up the specific setting yet

there will always clearly be missing piece of puzzle because the exposition will be endless and probably the last part of the poe series

things are very confusing even in the ending of poe1

not much of a surprise they choose to cut off the part eothas will talk about eora 2000 years ago for 10 minute

[Tick]

Your English is fine!

 

If I remember right, Josh explained that the explanation on how this works was cut from the game for editing reasons and the issue didn't come up until the game was released for the public.

 

From what I understand, the wheel already existed but was altered by the Engwithins in a way that can't just be undone.

 

Alex Scokel explained in a thread on here :

Reincarnation existed prior to the gods. It was a natural process. The Engwithans made a device to manage that process. Eothas smashed it.

 

The smashing of the device does NOT however, necessarily result in the natural process resuming as it did previously.

 

For example (and it's only an example - not a direct allegory for how the Wheel functions), let's say someone dams a river, creating a lake, but regulates that lake by allowing some of the water through the dam (for, say, hydroelectric power). Someone breaking the machinery that allows that regulation would not undam the river.

Edited August 29, 2018 by Tick

[house2fly]

We want less exposition, not more! What the soul cycle was like before the Wheel isn't really important, clearly something was going on and we can speculate about what it was on forums, but what's important is that the Engwithans took it over and breaking the Wheel won't put things back the way they were, which is mentioned in the game.

 

That said I wouldn't mind more characters in-game speculating about it, like conversations with party members and whatnot, because it feels like something characters in the setting would realistically be talking about

[Sherab]

Thank you for your comments, guys. I really do appreciate them.

 

 

animancy are the core setting pushing the story

even though most player doesn't care a bunch of scientist use adra and copper build something looks like torture chair in asylum

magic are always much more interesting

writer keep animancy intentionally vague and inconclusive because animancer study still rudimentary and not because they didn't make up the specific setting yet

there will always clearly be missing piece of puzzle because the exposition will be endless and probably the last part of the poe series

things are very confusing even in the ending of poe1

not much of a surprise they choose to cut off the part eothas will talk about eora 2000 years ago for 10 minute

 

 

I can't say, and I don't know what was the intention of the writers. I only say that from my personal perspective, while playing the game, I haven't found much of a focus on animancy, aside maybe of Eothas' notion, that maybe animancers will find solution for the problem of ceasation of reincarnation.

 

I think I understand now, however, what you mean in reliance to PoE 1. If we treat creation of the gods as a big act of animancy, and similary we treat that way what Ledden Key was doing with Engwithans machines in Dyrwood, than yes - main plot of PoE 1 was indeed largely connected to animancy.

 

Hence I need to clarify, that when I was writing about animancy, I was rather thinking about "modern" science, and not about ancient Engwithans' animancy. And what is funny, while we do recive (in PoE 1) some info about good things, that animancy can do - mainly from dialoges, at the same time during gameplay we rather see only negative examples (animancers shown as selfish necromancers, mostly) - and this is a little bit dissapointing. But I diverge from the topic

 

 

 

We want less exposition, not more! What the soul cycle was like before the Wheel isn't really important, clearly something was going on and we can speculate about what it was on forums, but what's important is that the Engwithans took it over and breaking the Wheel won't put things back the way they were, which is mentioned in the game.

That said I wouldn't mind more characters in-game speculating about it, like conversations with party members and whatnot, because it feels like something characters in the setting would realistically be talking about

 

 

As I said, I have nothing against a little bit of mistery. More often, than not, such misteries makes lore more interesting and involving. But in this particular case, having whole knowledge from the first part of the game, I had that feeling of incosistency and inconsequancy I mentiones before. Hence I really would appreciate if Eothas would be talking for 10 minutes about Eora from 2000 years ago.

 

But maybe this is just me.

 

Again, best wishes, and thanks for discussion!

[Prince of Lies]

The smashing of the device does NOT however, necessarily result in the natural process resuming as it did previously.

 

*Takes a hit of whiteleaf*

 

Wake up sheeple, this is what they want you to think, maaaan. 

[Walter.Richards]

Another option is ... souls did not originally reincarnate on Eora.  They were moving on to somewhere else.

But the Engwithans believed reincarnating their souls on Eora would allow their civilization to advance faster, so they invented the Wheel.

Redirecting the flow of souls as we have redirected rivers to harness their power.

(I mean, if you retain knowledge of past lives it's a shortcut to learning - thus a shortcut to advancing civilization)

 

In this theory, destroying the Wheel would allow the "river" to resume it's natural flow.

It would also mean that souls either are created "spontaneously" ... or the "river" eventually flows back to Eora.

[Verde]

No one's quite sure. Not even Obsidian

[Sherab]

Another option is ... souls did not originally reincarnate on Eora.  They were moving on to somewhere else.

But the Engwithans believed reincarnating their souls on Eora would allow their civilization to advance faster, so they invented the Wheel.

Redirecting the flow of souls as we have redirected rivers to harness their power.

(I mean, if you retain knowledge of past lives it's a shortcut to learning - thus a shortcut to advancing civilization)

 

In this theory, destroying the Wheel would allow the "river" to resume it's natural flow.

It would also mean that souls either are created "spontaneously" ... or the "river" eventually flows back to Eora.

 

I find some problems with those concepts.

 

If souls were "born" out of nothing, spontaneously, before the invention of the Wheel, this still do not explain, then, why destruction of the Wheel will cause slow, but ultimatly total day-out of Eora's life (if Kith won't find solution to the problem). And this is what the gods claim - at least Berath seems to claim so, and Eothas do not negates this in anyway. I don't mean that it couldn't be this way. But we still lacking explanation why this "natural" process have been destroyed in one way or another along the creation of the Wheel. And again, I don't think we need here some straight-forward asnwer - it can be a little misterious subject, but problem is that game's plot, or it's lore give no single clue to assume, that prior to the Wheel world functioned in anyway different than it does now.

 

Ok, we do assume, that world was functioning somehow different, because we know from first PoE (and from some notions in Deadfire too), that the gods were actualy created by ancient Engwithans, same as the Wheel. Hence, this had to happened to at some "point" in hisory. But following the main plot of Deadfire, I had impression (but maybe this is only me) like there was not any "before", like the Wheel was always there, and now suddenly it will become destroyed. And yes, from perspective of commonfolk it is like that, propably, but our hero, the Watcher, knows about true nature of the Gods, and the Wheel.

 

I'm not sure do you really understand my concern (and I don't blaim you )?

 

Eothas informs us he is going to stop a cycle of reincarnation, and he is going to do so by destruction of ancient Engwithan machine, with is actualy responsible for creation and sustainance of the Wheel. So my impression was - "Oh! Ok... So reincarnation is artificial, same as the gods are... But wait! Doesn't this mean that reincarnation had to start at some point in history? So how this was working before this point? After all, Engwithans were living beings. And they were living among many other cultures. All those Kith, but also animals, monsters, etc., had to have souls - because, as we know from the lore, without souls there is no consciousness at all. So there had to be some other, natural mechanism of infusing bodies with souls."

 

Ok, so far so good. But... the las thing is only a reasonable assumption - educated guess. In the game we have no option even to ask such questions, not to say about reciving even some vauge answers.

 

And when we go further with the main plot, we find out that after destruction of the Wheel, the souls will simply stuck in the "In-between" - not able to move-on into the Beyond (sorry if I use wrong terms - I play localised version of the game) nor into mortal plane.

 

Then I thought: "But, but... but why?!" "There had to be that natural process predating the Wheel, right? What happened to it? Why souls will stuck in the In-between (and why this is so big drama, actualy - like the mortals' life was really so pleasant )?"

 

 

And to be honest, this is not even that much about the lack of answers. My feel of incosesuqancy is more due to the fact, that all involved - the Watcher, Eothas, or other gods, seems to not see the problem at all. They behave like unaware mortals - like the Wheel was always there.

[Daggerknight]

My theory: its a cycle. 

 

Pillars of Eternity 1 suggests that there might have been gods before the Engwithans, but that either they had left long ago or outright died by the time that civilization started seriously looking.  If that is so, it could have been a similar situation to what now falls over Eora. In other words: 

 

1) God(s) create the world as we know it. 

2) The races start becoming advanced while the god(s) become uncertain about their power or whether they should in fact be in the way of progress at all. That or they actively want their creations to "ascend" to the mastery of the universe like them, and so they take a back seat, increasingly as the mortal world reaches higher and higher. 

3) By the time the mortal world has attained true mastery over the soul and reality, the god(s) have left the world, content that their creations can  manage things without them.The kids are all grown up, so they can now leave in peace (and make sure their snarkier kin don't try to retake power). 

4) The mortals meanwhile, forgot much about the gods, and after having spent so long with the gods staying out of their affairs, now try to find evidence of them. Finding nothing, they freak out and decide to make gods. 
5) Gods are born. The cycle begins anew. 

 

That cycle seems present by the time of the Pillars arc. To wit: 

 

1) Engwithans become masters of the soul at the height of their power. By that time, we can guess they are already an old civilization, and that the world had other cultures (the Huana being among them). However, by that time its clear the gods before them had pretty much stopped managing the world and just let its inhabitants take over. Realizing this, the Engwithans decide to use their power to ascend for the good of the world. 

2) Thousands of years later, the gods themselves are starting to be corrupted by their own power and arrogance. Some of them even realize this while noting that the mortals can possibly manage themselves. Eothas takes point in trying to ensure that this comes to pass. 

3) Eothas pretty much forces the mortals down a road to master their own souls. This will likely lead to a tumultuous age in which some gods fight to retain their power, while others allow evolution to run its course. This will either end in an age of darkness in which Woedicca keeps kith under her thumb, or a new age in which kith take control and, because they don't need the gods, eventually forget about them entirely. 
4) Ages pass once more, and the days when Eothas walked are little more than faded legends. Philosophers wonder once more about who made who and who guides who....  

 

On the note of a cycle in which mortals become gods; if this is in fact where Obsidian is going with the plot, it actually does have roots in real world beliefs, albeit in a different way. Eastern philosophies emphasize attaining spiritual enlightenment till you effectively become one with (or simply become) god. In a bit of an odd way perhaps, the notion of entire races evolving past their mortality makes sense in that context. just on a less individual level. 

[Sherab]

Interesting theory.

 

 

On the note of a cycle in which mortals become gods; if this is in fact where Obsidian is going with the plot, it actually does have roots in real world beliefs, albeit in a different way. Eastern philosophies emphasize attaining spiritual enlightenment till you effectively become one with (or simply become) god. In a bit of an odd way perhaps, the notion of entire races evolving past their mortality makes sense in that context. just on a less individual level. 

 

 

Actualy, I'm a buddhist IRL. This is propably why I don't see the destruction of the Wheel as such a big drama. Perhaps even quite contrary. Anyway, what you are describing fits some Hinduistic believes, I suppose. In "traditional" Buddhism, so to speak, gods are just another form of sentient beings - they are not considered creators, or "demiurgs". And, keeping things simple, with good enough karma, anyone can become a god. But while they live for eons, gods are mortal too, and after all, they do experience of suffering, hence becoming a god is not seen as something ultimate. Only true Enlightment - recognition of minds nature can free one from suffering. And this have nothing to do with godhood. To be clear - this is just to give some other example of far-eastern approach to divines.

 

 

Anyway... While your theory is very interesting, the game's lore give us no single clue about this. Quite contrary - it rather suggest, that there never was any real god or gods. But Engwithans, insteed of seeing a freedom in this, they rather became terrified. I would say, they were "limited", because they assumed that the Kith are capable only of chaos, mischief and destruction when left without divine leadership. Hence, in no presence of real ones, they've created their own gods. By the way, I don't know why they've created also such entities as Skaen, but... whatever....

[Daggerknight]

Interesting theory.

 

 

On the note of a cycle in which mortals become gods; if this is in fact where Obsidian is going with the plot, it actually does have roots in real world beliefs, albeit in a different way. Eastern philosophies emphasize attaining spiritual enlightenment till you effectively become one with (or simply become) god. In a bit of an odd way perhaps, the notion of entire races evolving past their mortality makes sense in that context. just on a less individual level. 

 

 

Actualy, I'm a buddhist IRL. This is propably why I don't see the destruction of the Wheel as such a big drama. Perhaps even quite contrary. Anyway, what you are describing fits some Hinduistic believes, I suppose. In "traditional" Buddhism, so to speak, gods are just another form of sentient beings - they are not considered creators, or "demiurgs". And, keeping things simple, with good enough karma, anyone can become a god. But while they live for eons, gods are mortal too, and after all, they do experience of suffering, hence becoming a god is not seen as something ultimate. Only true Enlightment - recognition of minds nature can free one from suffering. And this have nothing to do with godhood. To be clear - this is just to give some other example of far-eastern approach to divines.

 

 

Anyway... While your theory is very interesting, the game's lore give us no single clue about this. Quite contrary - it rather suggest, that there never was any real god or gods. But Engwithans, insteed of seeing a freedom in this, they rather became terrified. I would say, they were "limited", because they assumed that the Kith are capable only of chaos, mischief and destruction when left without divine leadership. Hence, in no presence of real ones, they've created their own gods. By the way, I don't know why they've created also such entities as Skaen, but... whatever....

 

Close to Hindu yes, being from that background myself I suppose I should have clarified "some eastern philosophies".  Anyhow, I mostly thought of that cyclical notion because I distinctly recall that in Pillars 1, the explanation was that the Engwithans concluded that either the gods simply didn't exist, or that they had left long ago. There wasn't much conclusive stuff on what really was the guess. Either way, just guessing that it is history repeating itself in all likely hood. 

 

As for Skaen; well, Skaen has a history of coming out of Woedica's mischief, who in turn is an example of the gods starting to succumb to corruption in many ways. My guess is that Eothas is mostly interested in handing the reigns over because a) Kith need to grow up  and b) he doesn't have faith in his kins good intentions any longer.