could Soulmancers be guiding Desmond Bradford's experiments?

[Grazzik]

What if one of the reasons the Coalition States has lasted this long is that like the Vanguard there might be a segment of the demon population subtly protecting the CS from the shadows so that Bradford's experiments at Lone Star can continue and produce promising new "soul cattle" for demons to kidnap and continue to breed in Hades?

Interesting idea... but what if it was a failed experiment that Bradford capitalized on? Failed as in clones have PPE, but no useable souls! This could be akin to artificial gemstones being useless for magic. Artificial life could also be useless for soulmancy. The repercussions could be numerous - does Bradford's failure constitute a breach of demonic contract? does the CS consider clone warriors more effective in the fight against the demonic since their souls can't be used and start to reconsider human cloning? are the demonic sponsors even still interested? if not, could their involvement be used by CS enemies for propaganda? were the backers even demons or deevils - perhaps someone/something else with a different soulmancy-oriented agenda? would such a feature/bug of clone souls have an impact on social issues raised in WB8 Japan re fast grown bodies for cyborgs, i.e. could retrofitted cyborgs in clone bodies be unable to learn magic?

A interesting idea indeed.

[Nekira Sudacne]

It occurred to me that since Soulmancy is fueled by souls, if you wanted to have a high supply of souls, you would want to breed a minion race with a high rate of birth, short gestation periods, and short maturation periods. You would push them to reproduce as much as possible, and after the adults have finished rearing their progeny to adulthood, you could then use the grandparents to fuel soulmancy.

If it were a naturally short-lived race, their sacrifice would not even deprive them of any of their lifespan.

In the Palladium world, you had races naturally suited to this like goblins/orcs/ratlings or even the three canine ones (Kankoran / Coyle / Wolfen) who breed much faster than humans/elves/dwarves and are naturally suitable "soul farms".

If we look at the maturation/litter/lifespan that Desmond Bradford has produced in the Psi-Hound though - he has gone a step beyond those races in creating a perfect 'product' if the Soulmancers of Hades (or Dyval) wanted to breed up a population of them to use as a reliable and accessible source of souls.

Even better than the Psi-Hounds though are the Mutant Rats he produced - they breed even faster with an even shorter lifespan - plus they are less loyal to each other or protective of humans so they'd be easier to corral than psi-hounds.

This could of course just be a massive coincidence - but is it possible that some demon decades ago might have realized the potential that genetic engineering offered for creating these slaves races for the demons to use?

What if one of the reasons the Coalition States has lasted this long is that like the Vanguard there might be a segment of the demon population subtly protecting the CS from the shadows so that Bradford's experiments at Lone Star can continue and produce promising new "soul cattle" for demons to kidnap and continue to breed in Hades?

I doubt that Soulmancers are "behind" the experiment, given that detecting and getting rid of demonic influence is the one thing that the Coalition States are specifically really good at doing. Plus it makes their evil a lot more interesting and dramatic if it's entirely their own ideas rather than demonic influence.

I also doubt that they'd want to use a race that specifically and naturally freaks out in their presence and has an instinctive drive to kill them. Makes them hard to control.

But more to the point, Soulmancers already have the ideal race in Gargoyles. Gargoyles lay 3d6 eggs every 10 months, and naturally congregate in flocks numbering in the millions, and as minor supernatural beings their souls are more powerful, and despite such fast breeding cycles, they are very long lived, meaning there's no "Use them or lose them" pressure.

Soulmancers generally have no need to go hunting for an ideal race, they already have them, and have been using them for mellenia.

((The bit in DB 10: Hades about Gargoyles reincarnating in Hades like demons was a mistake, the author has admited, their souls do not reincarnate)

[Grazzik]

Failed as in clones have PPE, but no useable souls! This could be akin to artificial gemstones being useless for magic. Artificial life could also be useless for soulmancy.

We def need to know this as I'm sure many psi-hound souls would've been harvested during the soulmancers...

Trying to remember in that Nxla story (Soulharvest in WB12 psyscape) if one of the Psi-Hounds got Xombified. I figure if Nxla can steal your soul and make you a Xombie then Soulmancers should be able to use your soul for other stuff.

Unfortunately, Checkers bolted when ordered to run and is unaccounted for.

I also doubt that they'd want to use a race that specifically and naturally freaks out in their presence and has an instinctive drive to kill them. Makes them hard to control.

another reason the Mutant Rat works out better than the Psi-Hound since they don't have the same supernatural detection abilities

So I wouldn't think demons were behind Psi-Hound experimentation but possibly could've nudged Bradford to think about Mutant Rant experimentation (maybe due to demonic knowledge of Ratling usefulness?) and maybe have influenced Bradford to be "merciful" and allow the rats (like Magali) to persist in the sewers instead of annihilating them.

Interesting note from WB 12 re soul harvesting, psychics are immune to the ritual performed by Harvesters, though not when attacked directly by Nxla. So, IF the same immunity to the ritual also applied to garden variety soulmancy rituals, the the mutant rat would be the better option given only 25% are psychic.

But more to the point, Soulmancers already have the ideal race in Gargoyles.
Gargoyles lay 3d6 eggs every 10 months, and naturally congregate in flocks numbering in the millions, and as minor supernatural beings their souls are more powerful, and despite such fast breeding cycles, they are very long lived, meaning there's no "Use them or lose them" pressure.

You have a good point about the breeding cycle exceeding even the Mutant Rats (though I'm not sure how long it takes for a Gargoyle to reach adulthood?)

Their MDC and MD-inflicting however makes managing them more difficult than a Mutant Rat (who are SDC and easy to corral) even if you avoid the flying Gargoyles and stick to the landbound Gurgoyles there are possible complications.

Again, IF the psychic immunity does apply to soulmancy, then Gurgoyles/Gargoyles would not be an option given their natural psychic abilities.

[Nekira Sudacne]

Psychics do not have any kind of immunity to or even resistance to Soulmancy. Rather, Nxla's non-soulmancy related powers are not very effective against Psychics.

[Nekira Sudacne]

I have no idea what you assume, but nothing gives Splurgorth or generic AIs deific powers in canon. Some AIs have them, not all, and nothing indicates Splurgorth do

[killgore444]

What if one of the reasons the Coalition States has lasted this long is that like the Vanguard there might be a segment of the demon population subtly protecting the CS from the shadows so that Bradford's experiments at Lone Star can continue and produce promising new "soul cattle" for demons to kidnap and continue to breed in Hades?

A interesting idea indeed.

It is.
It's close to something I've had, on some level, as part of any Rifts game I've run since WB3:England came out.
Not the science experiment on souls of course, but demons (or in this case Demon in the singular) messing around and influencing CS leadership.

Back story is that on some obscure modern world, a Succubus has been summoned, and as part of it's duty/reason for being there, it is forced to pretend to be a student at college. One of the classes it actually gets interested in is psychology; all the better to help spread chaos and misery.

Not sure if this is the place for it, but long story short, it ended up permanently spending the ISP to have Alter Aura up constantly and had infiltrated CS:Chi-town from when the Emperor's father was just another new cadet at the military academy. It's the one that convinced his father to launch his war against the Federation of Magic. It's the one that convinced Joey that magic was evil and he should get rid of all the magic users and turn them into scapegoats. It was a report from its class at the academy that Erin Tarn quotes in her write up of him about what Hitler got right and mistakes he made (all ideas It put into his head). It has been responsible for an astounding amount of chaos and death in N. America, and is nearly completely to blame for how screwed up the CS is.

All because one idiot summoner gave her a chance to learn the mortal skill of F...ing with peoples heads.
Note, It specialized in Child psychology (to help all those little darlings achieve their TRUE potential) and Military psychology (to help train new recruits and officers on the REALITIES of war and Veterans deal with atrocities that were committed and figure out who is REALLY TO BLAME for them).

What do you think?
The hardest part was figuring out how It would remain undetected for all those years, but once I saw something about permanently spending ISP/PPE to create permanent effects (in one of those old and forgotten Web-Rings that used to propagate across the internet), I went with Alter Aura. And It was there and established before the first Dogboy was created.
It hasn't been completely successful, the CS has embraced psionics (though It has convinced the Emperor that they can't actually be trusted), as well as Dogboys and Psi-Stalkers. There are after all, agents of other powers in play.