Destroying golems and killing innocents

[hugo.4705]

It's a thing that worry me for a quite long time now. But haven't you noticed that some golems speaks and some other, not at all? I will speak mostly of Mark I and Mark II but maybe the ones used by a random asura re maybe concerned too. It all start within the Asuran Personnal story, Monkey Wrench step. In that instance, we meet a female golemancer, that I will call here "Soulancer" you will see later why. That instance is part of the path where you have to save Doxa, which is trapped into a golem. (Two solutions: extract her; or fuse Kazz with another golem to be with her). In the instance, there is two object, you will never see again in the game: Soul Cell Generator and the Fusion Device.

Here start the creepy thing, so you basically have a soul extractor and a device to fuse it with a golem or whatever I guess. Here arrive my soulancer:Here, she literally killed those two innocents and took their souls.Then, she injects them into golems. Note: They are soundless: This will be important.

If you don't save Doxa and put Kazz into a golem too, they will progressively melt with the golem, becoming one entity. But my guess, is that later, that consciousness will totally disappear.They have an asura voice, then their voice become robotized, but after a long time, I think they couldn't speak anymore just like the golems that Soulancer created.In some other instances or even around the open world, there are Inquest and Non-Inquest that simply speak like golem and using minus/dash symbols. But some aren't speaking at all.The asura that stayed a long time within the Soul Cell Generator are called "Deranged Citizen"; can't really affirm that the process destroy your brain, but I think you have to be dead to allow someone to steal your soul. Those pods are everywhere, but it doesn't necessarily mean they are all just for soul-extracting.

So could it be possible, that all those Inquest golems we destroy around are just Innocent souls? I don't think they have forgotten the project since Blish has been created. Plus, there is the strange golem in Kourna (Research vault Alpha), it literally scream with an asura voice. Again, I wonder if they haven't simply fused another guy with a golem again.It make me think, but if it's true, I find it kinda cool that those golems are in fact not really golems.

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

You're correct, there are several open-world events (including in the area where that story takes place, I think), where you have to destroy golems that are confirmed to have had souls bound to them, although its always said to be failed transfers except for Doxa, Kazz and Blish.

So maybe they've refined the process some over the seven years since we first entered Tyria, but powering golems with souls has always been one of the Inquest's major projects and definitely not something they've given up on.

However, those people are already dead. Its no different than killing Orrians.

SPOILERS FOR LS2 & LS3

Golems are also known to be powered by life force, as you can see in LS2 with the Caithe & Faolain instance of stealthily invading the same exact facility. In this case they were powered by Sylvari life force, however if you play Necromancer you'll see by the Soul Reaping line that in Tyria ""life force" and "soul" seem to be synonymous, which we also see (possibly?) with Belinda becoming one with Marjory's sword.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Soul_Battery

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

Not all or even the common golem are likely using souls as a power source. But it is a well establish fact that the Inquest love to use souls and life force as a power source for golems. Seems to make them more intelligent or something.

@"Hannelore.8153" said:however if you play Necromancer you'll see by the Soul Reaping line that in Tyria ""life force" and "soul" seem to be synonymous, which we also see (possibly?) with Belinda becoming one with Marjory's sword.

It's not entirely synonymous, but they are highly related. A disembodied soul - aka ghosts - won't have any life force to them, for example. It'd probably be more accurate to call life force the force that connects souls to their living bodies, perhaps?

To source, The Judge during The Departing states this about the Commander's soul and resurrection:

The Judge: It is too late. No life remains in your body. Unless...The Judge: When Balthazar left, a fearsome beast, the Eater of Souls, rose to prey on the waning life energy of the spirits here.Nenah: That's got to be the screams I've heard in the distance.The Judge: If you were to defeat the beast and claim its power, that life energy might be strong enough to reanimate your body.

Life force / life energy is that which allows one to live, and be resurrected. One can steal it from others (as necros are known to do), and one can use their own life force to empower skills such as Koro Sagewind does at two occasions - the first made her blind for a week, the second time killed her. There are guardians who do the same in Sea of Sorrows, pouring life force into their barriers to sustain them longer, and eventually dropping dead.

Recently departed do have life force, but it seems that given enough time their life force will fade away, or it simply isn't strong enough to really utilize (at least, the life force of one soul isn't).

[Dawdler.8521]

Only a very small subset of golems still use souls for driving their AI engine. The extraction is tedious when trying to mass produce.

Modern golems use the Inquest patented Quaggancom AI chipset. You'd be amazed at what their brains can do when free of constraints. The waste material is fully integrated and 100% recycled into the production plants power systems so its eco-friendly too.

[hugo.4705]

There is also Oola golems, I understood she shattered her life force through several golems to power them; through you can see her ghost (soul?) running around the lab. I guess I have many wrong but, the golems only require life force, and not the soul? Kinda lost with that one.

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

@hugo.4705I don't think Oola used her soul to power any of her golems. She does possess the largest golem, but that's as far as it seems to go, beyond learning she can use souls to power golems. It's possible she used other creatures' souls to power those golems, but I don't think this is proven.

[kumiponi.6047]

Quoting Snaff:

The mind is a powerful and fragile quantity in the world equation and the Eternal Alchemy. It can move mountains or it can be shattered like glass.My research has found a thread between magic and the mind. The two are linked. Where there is one, there must also be the other. The igniter is belief.

I gather from this that powering the golems this way is powerful but a fragile process and therefore possibly doomed to fail, eventually.