Revival by Nelis

[Ertxiem]

I would like to start a discussion about how Nelis (the Shadowling Queen form TRPG2) is able to revive our fallen comrades.
It might be interesting to think about what should be different from what Luca is able to do in TSoG.

To begin with, here are some things that I think it should be taken into account:
1. How long is that person dead;
2. What is the state of the body;
3. The way the person died;
4. Characteristics of the soul of different races.

1. Let's assume that every person of every race has a soul. If a person is dead for too long, the soul may drift away from the body (while staying in this World or going to Heaven, Hell, or somewhere else). If this is true, what does it mean too long? Is it 1 hour, 1 day, 1 week, 1 month, 1 year, or ...?

2. Is the body (in particular the more important organs) in good shape or is the body completely destroyed? Perhaps the soul stays longer near a well preserved body. And the way the body is, is related to how easy would be to restart or reconstruct it.

3. Did the person died of old age, or a long lasting disease? Was that person expecting to die. Or did the person committed suicide or wanted to die? I'm thinking again about the connection between the soul and the body.

4. Since the races have different lifespans, does that means that the soul is more connected to their bodies? Is it easy for Nelis to revive a shadowling than a human? After all, Nelis knows way much better how a shadowling works.

So, what are your opinions about all this?

[SmartyPants]

I believe that Queen Nelis revives people the same way Luca does. Being a powerful enough psy to use multiple elements, Nelis should be able to learn Soul Suck. To get Soul Charges, she would have to kill someone with Soul Suck. If she depends on her supply of Soul Charges to resurrect the dead, then that would explain why the Queen "won't raise the dead for just anyone." She also requires the corpse of the fallen in order to revive them.  If a body is completly destroyed or it can't be recovered, the person in unable to revived.


The second part of my theory may sound a bit far fetched. Nelis uses the Soul Charges on herself to live forever. As the Shadowling Queen, she tries to stay in a constant state of war, so that she has a constant supply of prisoner whom she can Soul Suck.

[KZ]

I believe that Queen Nelis revives people the same way Luca does. Being a powerful enough psy to use multiple elements, Nelis should be able to learn Soul Suck. To get Soul Charges, she would have to kill someone with Soul Suck. If she depends on her supply of Soul Charges to resurrect the dead, then that would explain why the Queen "won't raise the dead for just anyone." She also requires the corpse of the fallen in order to revive them.  If a body is completly destroyed or it can't be recovered, the person in unable to revived.

I completely disagree on both counts, especially in light of what I've written in my last posts in the Noctus still alive? thread with regards to the need for the body for the person to be revived.  The fact that Nelis "won't raise the dead just for anyone" indicates more that she can't be asked to waste her time for those who are not important for her plans.  The fact that Gen. Darkeye cannot die (again, speculation, including suicide, on the first page of the Noctus thread) and that fate itself, rather than Nelis, revive the Main, indicates that there is much more to it than just a body or lack thereof. Look at the attacks that kill teammates: sometimes they get killed by a Mind Blast, and that leaves essentially no marks on the body, or they can be burned by Fire Breath or sliced up by Spin Saw, yet all can be revived, though in some cases the bodies are mutilated or lost (Nelis can revive teammates who were lost over water in Lake Alto battles- and given that a lot of them die mid-battle, no teammate has time to go and collect the bodies, especially if only the Main remains alive). Then again, fate revives the Main, even if he's killed right in front of Tastidian by Flavin or Vagrant.

For the way Nelis revives beings, I think that her method is very different to the one used by Luca- she doesn't need a soul charge (ie a walking stick) for her to perform the act, as she is a very very poweful Psy, whilst Luca is not that powerful, but, rather, can perform such tasks due to her nature of being a spirit, whilst Nelis was very much a living being (hence, Luca even operates from a/via a different plane, since she isn't fully in the material plane, like Nelis was).

For the points mentioned by Ertxiem:

1). Estimating the time taken for the Main and the teammates to reach HQ after each battle (and taking into account that teammates could've died in the first battle, without the Main returning to Somnus), guesstimating distances from the map, I'd say that at least several days can pass and Nelis can revive beings (that applies to all races which were represented by the teammates). Potentially, the time can be greater, but that's the minimum time.

2). Given that, as noted in this post above, some of the bodies are lost or highly mutilated, whilst others are completely undamaged (think of a teammated getting damage solely through Mind Blast), Nelis can revive all, without exception, which makes me think that the resurrection process is linked to the soul and that all beings have a soul (judging from Luca's ability to use Soul Suck on all enemies, unless they have mental immunity).

3). It looks like this is important: from my thoughts in the Noctus thread, it would seem that Gen. Darkeye couldn't simply commit suicide in order to get saved from the advancing Spriggats and more conventional means had to be used. Possibly, if a person dies willingly, then their soul is transported to the "other plane" so fast that Nelis cannot retrieve it back, but if a person is killed, the soul doesn't quite feel at peace and lingers a bit more in this world (and, if the will is strong enough to stay in the material plane, then the result is the soul taking on a spirit form), then Nelis is able to re-call it back.

4). Very difficult to call that one: either way, even if one soul is easier to revive than another, it looks like the power required to do that was negligent with respect to Nelis' Psy powers, hence she could revive beings of different races almost at will.

[Ertxiem]

I agree that Nelis is way more powerful than Luca. And the fact that Nelis is alive while Luca isn't is another reason to believe that their revival isn't equal. And I picked some ideas around here to start the discussion (in particular from the Noctus still alive? thread).

1. I also think that it's likely that Nelis can revive someone dead for about a week. Perhaps going up to a month may be reasonable.

2. The state of the body (or even its presence) don't seem to make much of a difference. So it may be possible that the revival consist of building an entirely new body. As opposed to fixing the dead body, more in line with the way I imagine Luca reviving a team mate.

3. I also think that the person must be killed against his will and without being prepared to die.

4. This is a tricky one, but it may not be crucial to build a theory. I'll think about it later.

And I remembered three new points to address:

5. What factors may facilitate or impede the revival? Perhaps distance and surrounding materials (dying in a forest or in the lake or in the caves) have a role. Can the attempts of revival by Nelis be deflected by a powerful psy? Can orbs affect revival? And what about resonance crystals (or some other type of crystals).

6. Where does the revived appears? Near Nelis or can she place him somewhere else?

7. What does the revived remembers?

I'd like to hear some (made up) theories about how the revival works. I'll think about it and I'll try to post something more soon.

[CraigStern]

Does fate revive the main character? Or does it rewind time to give him a chance at a different outcome?

[Ertxiem]

I was not thinking specifically about the main character.
Perhaps in the case of the main character, the one responsible for rewinding the time is Malignus (the Spriggat)...

[Zhampir]

That's interesting... I never thought of having an actual in game reason for having saved games. hmm

[Presentiment]

Does fate revive the main character? Or does it rewind time to give him a chance at a different outcome?

What I thought about your 'fate' death screen was just that there is a set future, so any actions killing the Hero did not actually happen and your goal is to get from Point A to Point B timewise.

[KZ]

Interesting point about fate, I never thought of it as a time-reversal technique, but that makes a lot more sense than fate simply "reviving" the character.

5). Not sure about distance- that just might be a factor, since all we know is that each time a teammate dies, someone remains alive after the battle (sole exception being the Main). At the same time, the lack of a need for a body (can't recover corpses mid-battle over water, for instance, and we don't know what happens to Shadowling bodies when they die- do they simply expand and burst, and dissapear in a puff of smoke?) seems to indicate the lack for a need to have close proximity to resurrect a being.

6). Well, all the revived ones are found at HQ, which is not where Nelis is, and since the Main doesn't bump into them walking from the Palace (another point- no fleshling is allowed inside the palace, and several of the teammates are fleshlings), I'd assume she can place the bodies at will, but then again- is there a distance limit? Since otherwise she can kill off a platoon of Shadolwings, then resurrect them at an enemy base- and since she doesn't resort to such tactics, I think that distance on resurrecting the body just might be an issue.

7). I think we can very positively answer yes to that one, since the revived characters all remember who they are, who the Main is and who the rest of the teammates are, they don't forget any of the skills they learn and they retain the same personality. Thus, methinks they remember all up to the point of death, and then after they get resurrected (but not the time spent in-between, since that would affect them pretty significantly, and surely they'd mention it?).

Another interesting point, what about animals of beings which are not really sentient (Flint can express emotion, since that is stated in the ending of TRPG2, if Helena dies)? Can they be resurrcted? Do they have a soul (I'm thinking Tikki here)? This brings about another question? Is there a set of beings which can be resurrected by Nelis, but not by Luca?

[Zhampir]

"Health" is determined by a characters Psy Defense, the mental resistances of the mind. When a character reaches 0 "health" it means they no longer have any mental defenses, so basically the body should go into a coma. So, the body shouldn't actually be destroyed, just the mind (it helps me to think of the Matrix, where only a mental projection is harmed)

There are problems when applying my following ideas to Luca so I'm just going to focus on Nelis and say that Luca is just different.

I think Nelis' revival techniques can only work in a specified location, such as the city of Somnus. Maybe there is something in Somnus, something that amplifies her power allowing her to revive those within her city.

What has always puzzled me is, why doesn't she just revive her warriors when you attack? When you attack the citizens they are instantly revived.

that's all I have to say for now... because I can't actually formulate a way (even a ridiculously all most impossible one like with my Ramblings) for all of these details to work out..

[KZ]

Well, that is the description from TRPG1, but as CraigStern noted later, the concepts have been altered slightly (about the mental resistances of the mind). Also, even if a person falls into a coma, if it happens over Lake Alto, they still drown, as there is nothing to support them. Also, if the person falls into a coma, why would they need Nelis to revive them? Surely there are many talented medics, Psys, who could get the person back onto his/her feet in no time (this especially applies to a Psy instiution like the Psy Academy, where satff, most likely, have extensively studies maldictions and treatments for them using the Gift as the means to cure them).

I think that the only reason Nelis revived the teammates in HQ, was because that is the gathering place for the Main and his team; I am sure she revived others as well, including civilan cases, and most likely revived them in Somnus of whereabouts, since she is located in Somnus, and given my argument above, her ability to create a body to inhabit, falls off relatively rapidly with distance.

The question about warrior revival has also been on my mind. I think that she can only revive one person at a time, and even if for her powers its not a very big deal, it still reqiures forcus from her- otherwise she could revive beings in batch-mode and there would be no need to apply for revival - which brings me to another point- methinks revival requires some time to be performed, hence with her ability to revive only one being at-a-time, and the process taking some minutes, she simply had no time to start resurrecting her slain protectors and instead resorted to other, more rudamentary techniques, like animating telekinetically ancient armor to fight the intruders, then going after them herself.

[Zhampir]

Ok, so the body is destroyed and Nelis creates the body, how do you explain Dorgon's revival?

[KZ]

Same as Flint's: if she knows the "soul", she can revive the body along with it. As long as the being can be classed as "sentient" or "aware", and Dorgon is quite close to the latter definition (at least, a highly advanced and interactive computer, which can evolve, since he learns a new attack technique), I think there won't be much of a problem for Nelis to revive him. The assumption here being, of course, is that Nelis can locate the departed soul/imprint of the being in the other plane (or lingering in this plane) and through the said impression, resurrect the being to its full capacity.

[Ertxiem]

I don't have much time to comment on the above posts. I'll do it later if possible...

I have another thing to think about:
9. Can Nelis revive anyone or only the ones that she was in contact with? I was thinking that Nelis might need to "record" a mental impression before the person dies, in order for her to be able to reach for the soul and revive that person. And for that to happen, that person might need to be some time near Somnus at the service of the shadowlings. Or perhaps Tastidian reported to Nelis that a certain person (or golem) was preforming valuable tasks to her service.

[KZ]

9). That's a very interesting point, but I suspect that Nelis never met any of the teammates of the Main, especially when they died far away, like on Lake Alto, etc, hence what she needed is the person to die unwillingly, so that their spirit/soul remains partially bound to this plane for some time before dpearting, and she can find the soul and re-build the body. If the person dies willingly, then there is no reason for the impression/soul to stay in this plane, and it very quickly leaves it, so that Nelis has no "memory/impression" to work from.