Anacites: Do you even soul, bro?

[hobblinharry]

So I just read through the Aballon entry in Pact Worlds, as well as the Anacite entries in both Alien Archives. I really love the lore of these guys but one question has plagued me. Do they have souls?

Gameplay-wise, it would seem not, as all of their NPC entries list them as unliving. They are not listed as being "constructed" like Androids or as having a "healing circuit" like SROs. This would lead one to believe that they do not in fact have souls.

However, those are all just gameplay mechanics. What matters here is the lore. Anacites are very advanced creatures who were even capable of creating their own god (Epoch). They are interested in their own creation and run the Church of Triune, and treat the ancient cities of the First Ones as holy sites.

From the lore of SROs and Androids we know that souls are attracted to complex machines. Well, anacites are incredibly complex machines, so it would stand to reason they would be advanced enough to attract souls as well, but nothing says that they do.

So, given that gameplay wise they do not seem to have souls, and in the lore they are not said to have souls, the big question here is, why don't they?

[Super Zero]

What do you mean “gameplay wise”? Being unliving has nothing to do with souls, just that it’s not a biologically living thing.

Trees are living but not people (which is what a soul is). SROs are an example of people with souls that aren’t living. Anacites would seem to be the same, although the text doesn’t say do explicitly—it certainly doesn’t say they don’t.

[Master Han Del of the Web]

If memory serves, yes they do. Most sufficiently complex AIs do. It’s actually kind of an issue in setting.

[kaid]

Master Han Del of the Web wrote:

If memory serves, yes they do. Most sufficiently complex AIs do. It’s actually kind of an issue in setting.

It seems like in setting if you are sentient you get assigned a soul. Even the undead I think have them but pharsasma is pissed because their undeath keeps their souls from traveling to their final destinations the way they are supposed to.

[Metaphysician]

Yeah, the "unliving" trait just means you are a construct or an undead, which is to say, lacking in biology. Now, anything that has the Mindless trait, in comparison, probably does lack a soul ( or if it has a soul, its not at all in control of said entity ).

[hobblinharry]

Necrovites have souls because they are kept in their space phylacteries (I forget the actual name at the moment). It is my understanding hat corpsefolk don’t have souls though, but maybe they do?

Anyway back to anacites, it seems the general opinion is that they have souls, or at least should have souls which I agree with based on the narrative reasoning that some of the other constructs have souls. However it is never confirmed (nor denied) anywhere in the current published material which is why I wanted to have this discussion. I wonder if anyone from the dev team could chime in, or if it’s one of those things where it’s not worth commenting on until there’s a need to comment on it, and for now it’s up to the gm of their game

[Owen K. C. Stephens]

My personal assumption is that anything that is sapient and sentient has a soul.
There is, therefore a huge difference between mindless undead and those that can plan and act and think on their own, as well as between a ships' artificial personality (which is just super-Siri with tens of millions of responses and logarithms for using them to *seem* sapient), and androids, SROs, and anacites.
That's not canonized in the rules, but it's my default.

[Pantshandshake]

Maybe we all just *seem* sapient.

Oh god.

We're the Anacites. It's been us this whole time.

[hobblinharry]

Pantshandshake wrote:

Maybe we all just *seem* sapient.

Oh god.

We're the Anacites. It's been us this whole time.

Yeah no kidding. Now we are actually in the Starmatrix running a simulation of how society would progress if everyone just suddenly forgot everything one day :P

[Metaphysician]

hobblinharry wrote:

Pantshandshake wrote:

Maybe we all just *seem* sapient.

Oh god.

We're the Anacites. It's been us this whole time.

Yeah no kidding. Now we are actually in the Starmatrix running a simulation of how society would progress if everyone just suddenly forgot everything one day :P

Whose to say the simulations don't also have souls? *eg*

( And yes, in my game, this is a real worry that pops up when people try to run elaborate computer simulations. . . )

[Opsylum]

Huh. Chris Simms just confirmed Anacites don’t have souls on Starfinder Wednesday (as per Distant Worlds), with a qualifier: maybe they got souls during the Gap. So the debate continues.

[Chris Sims]

Opsylum wrote:

Huh. Chris Simms just confirmed Anacites don’t have souls on Starfinder Wednesday (as per Distant Worlds), with a qualifier: maybe they got souls during the Gap. So the debate continues.

Yep, Pathfinder Distant Worlds (page 7) says anacites lack souls. That said, I think it's a point that could even be an in-galaxy debate.