Souls

Formation

  When there’s enough dyne in a region of space and the vita field is dense enough with it, there’s the possibility for souls, and therefore sentience, to develop. The other pre-requisite for souls is the development of a neural network, such as a brain. Neural networks interact with the life field by inducing a phase-change in a small portion of the field through a more advanced interaction than what occurs with complex cellular life. This causes dyne to form condensed threads called nimata, which weave themselves into a fabric. This marks the creation of a soul. Auras of high density are required, as nimata require large quantities of dyne.   It’s similar to creating a crystal from a chemical solution by inserting a smaller crystal as a nucleation point, where the field of dense dyne is the chemical solution, and the neural network is the smaller, nucleation crystal.   The soul will be linked with the neural network that created it. If the neural network that created the soul is destroyed (i.e. death) then the link is lost, but what happens to the soul isn’t clear. It’s unknown if consciousness survives. With regards to Rodinians and other Earth lifeforms in particular, it’s believed the Earth’s own compound soul re-absorbs it, and therefore the self isn't preserved in their case.   Souls themselves are believed to be a property of the planetary aura itself, and not the brain it’s linked to. Souls therefore don’t leave the planetary aura, and instead exist there in perpetuity. Their link to the brain that created them extends across all of known time and space. It’s similar to concepts of cloud computing with remote access terminals into the cloud.   Souls can be created directly within the planet’s aura, or through the link the parents themselves have with it (if they're far from the home world’s aura). It’s believed in the latter case that the neural network extracts dyne through the link the parents have with the planetary aura of the home world to create the soul (Which will always be the home planet of that species, as all ancestors will have been linked there too).   When the soul is created, it takes a small portion of the souls of the parent organisms as a “seed”. This encodes the complexity of the souls the species currently possesses, so the offspring will develop a soul of similar complexity. This is why Rodinians have complex and powerful souls whilst humans yet don’t, despite both groups being from the Earth; Rodinians pass on their spiritual complexity that has been built up over millions of years. Humans, as a fairly young species, have yet to develop that level of complexity. It needs to be built up cumulatively and passed on from generation to generation before they reach the same level as their cousins (under normal circumstances).   A soul can be considered an expression of the vita field, and therefore carries the vita field's ousia (nature). Any spiritual action that soul performs will also carry the ousia of the vita field. The encoding of an ousia into a soul is known as a hypostasis - the expression of an ousia within a spiritual entity or action. A soul can contain one or more hypostases, either from different ousia (such as the divine Theosis ousia or the eldritch Iconoclasm ousia) or different expressions of the same ousia (such as a person's own soul and a fragment of a compound, collective consciousness, both of the vita field).  

Dyne Compatibility

  Souls can’t be formed from simply any accumulation of dyne however. Life in general can only create souls from dyne that's been created by other life genetically related to it. This is what’s referred to as Dyne Compatibility. A lifeform therefore can’t use alien dyne from another planet to create its soul, and instead must use dyne from the aura around their own home planet. Dyne Compatibility also means dyne cannot be donated between planetary auras.   All souls (and all intelligent life) are therefore inextricably linked to the planet they originally evolved from, no matter where they may be in time or space. There’s no known way to break the connection or shift the creation of new souls to use a different but genetically related biosphere (such as a terraformed planet using life taken from the home planet). This makes the home planet of a species its most sacred possession: If it’s destroyed, they will lose everything.  

The Loss of Home

  If the home world should be completely destroyed then all complex life that possesses self-awareness, and which traces its ancestry back to that world, is doomed.   First, the aura of spiritual dyne around the planet will begin to evaporate. As the field density drops, all souls within begin to evaporate and disappear; losing spiritual dyne, nimata density and fractal depth, intelligence and power. This manifests first as any advanced spiritual powers disappearing, such as telepathy, Theosis and Iconoclasm. Psikinetics start to weaken.   This results in the former planet’s rapidly weakening protective aura no longer keeping demonic entities away from its complex lifeforms and their souls, and so they'll be spiritually feasted upon by these horrors.   As the process continues, psikinetics will be lost completely and the species will lose all supernatural abilities. Any supernatural intelligence they possess from their link to their soul will be lost, and they'll eventually return to the level of intellect afforded to them by their brains alone. In the final days, their consciousness will begin to vanish, causing a precipitous drop in intellect until they lose consciousness altogether and enter a permanent vegetative state similar to brain-death. The only lifeforms derived from the planet able to survive this event will be simple organisms with no self-awareness on the level of bacteria, fungi, vegetation and other simple organisms.   The Earth is the source of all Rodinian power, but is also at the same time their greatest weak spot. One well-placed relativistic strike could result in every Rodinian in existence being dead within ten years. As a result, the Earth has been ‘removed from play’ by the almighty Saint’s Sovereign – previous Rodinian Emperors, Empresses and Great House Lords and Matrons posthumously resurrected by the Earth itself to protect it from harm. No one knows where the mythical planet is, or if it’s even in the same dimension anymore, except for them.