Cloning and soul-splitting

Not sure if this has been discussed before, but a strange idea just crossed my mind. When an important Dark Eldar personality dies, it takes only one living cell to regenerate the entire body. It is a long and painful process for the regeneree, but common practice.

Now, what would happen if multiple parts of the same body would be regenerated at the same time? Say, put the head in one sarcophagus, and a foot in another, a splinter of bone, a drop of blood and a mere cell all in their own sarcophagus respectively. Would we then have five identical Archons? Would the soul be split between them?

Going even further: who says an enemy fraction couldn't regenerate the rival Archon? It's always about saving the body and taking the dead with you, but imagine an Archon killed by an assassin of a rivalling Kabal. The body would be left there to be regenerated by the parent Kabal. The attacking one, however, would have left with a small amount of blood or tissue. Both fractions now regenerate the Archon.
What happens?

This is a cool idea that I have also toyed with in the past (I also have a lengthy plan in the future for a tale about a cloned Archon). The only issue with this that has ever come to mind is what if the soul can only regenerate fully in one place? If so then you are left wit many pieces of semi-developed Archon only good for making balloons out of.

I like to put the Futurama spin on cloning like how they did with the time duplicates. You could potentially clone somebody and have two of them, but the clone is doomed as the split soul seeks to be whole again.

That's my view. I am somewhat infatuated with this idea, though, and I always have been!

Cheers - Cavash.

Since the regeneration is possible due to the Dark Eldar soul clinging to the physical remains for some tiem after death, I'd quess it depends on how that works. Does the soul attach itself to the biggest chunk of the body if it was blown to pieces? Or to a specific part is all pieces are the same size? Or is it clinging to all parts at the same time but can only regenerate one (so if you put the head in one sarcofagus and hand in the other, the Archon's soul gets to decided whether he want to regenerate from a head or a hand?)? If you take the red paste left after the Archon failed his shadowfield save againt a battlecannon and split it into two equally sized buckets, does the soul only go to one bucket?

I believe answering this would require additional information about the exact behaviou of DE souls.

SPOILERS on path of the outcast

Spoiler:

more knowledge needs to be gained o ndark eldar souls and the methods in bringin them back i think

I would incline to agree with Cavash in that the soul would probably inevitably try to make itself whole again after a time being split. I would think with Dark Eldar technosorcery it would be possible to split a soul to different fragments, but I'd think it would indeed be a split - there wouldn't be two identical Archons, instead there'd be one with, say, half of his combat skills and there'd be the other with the other half.

In any case, this would definitely be an excruciating experience for the Eldar involved.

the cloning aspect's something I really like with the new fluff, my own kabal, the archon keeps pre-grown clones of herself on standby, and has something like EvE online, where her soul is just transmitted to the next one on death.

I just figured with the reguar cloning, all the torture and suffering the Haemonculi cause when they're growing a new archon, also replenishes whatever's left of the soul, so maybe if you have a split soul, hit both up with enough agony, they grow into two new identicle ones or something

I don't think any sane high-ranking Archon would want two prfectly functional of him running around, though. More competition, and this guy knows everything about you too!

Codex: Dark Eldar
pp. 12, The Eternal Cycle

"Most Dark Eldar warriors, including each Kabal's ruling elite, will at some point enter into a terrible pact with the Haemonculi that lurk beneath the core. The pact states that the Haemonculi will regenerate the warrior's body should he die, and in exchange, the seeker will leave the Haemonculi a permanent portion of his soul."

Clearly, souls are divisible and a Dark Eldar can reanimated successfully despite missing large portions of their soul. It can also be inferred that the average pact will on offset this hypothetical bad luck, if that is actually an issue. What could be a larger concern is the degeneration of the subject through soul division. Given how impressive the statline/exploits of a typical Archon, we could infer that the loss of physical/mental faculties is minimal.

I do not see why it would be impossible to treat Dark Eldar like Sea Stars.

Siticus the Ancient wrote:

I don't think any sane high-ranking Archon would want two prfectly functional of him running around, though. More competition, and this guy knows everything about you too!

Think of it as a contingency plan. If things go really, really bad then you can re-animate. Also, most Archons seem to be totally crazy--I can imagine an especially narcissistic Archon forming a Kabal made out of clones. Alpha Legion, eat your heart out!


On a side note, I never understood why Dark Eldar do not use spirit stones. Given what we know from Path series, Dark Eldar are certainly capable of acquiring spirit stones and often use them for trading purposes with other Eldar. Do spirit stones somehow interfere with the re-animation process?

The Dark Eldar do use devices quite similar to spirt stones in function. They call them soul traps (the only difference is that they work on any soul nearby instead of just the owner). To a Dark Eldar being trapped forever in an unfeeling half-life inside the spirit stone would be just as bad as being devoured by Daemons. Not to mention what happens if another Dark Eldar finds said spirit stone.

Nomic wrote:

The Dark Eldar do use devices quite similar to spirt stones in function. They call them soul traps (the only difference is that they work on any soul nearby instead of just the owner). To a Dark Eldar being trapped forever in an unfeeling half-life inside the spirit stone would be just as bad as being devoured by Daemons. Not to mention what happens if another Dark Eldar finds said spirit stone.

It seems to me that Soul Traps and spirit stones are functionally quite different from each other. From the wargear section of C:DE, it's easier to describe a soul trap as a sort of external power source that lets the user "overcharge". It is unclear to me whether the soul trap can actually hold the personality/experiences/mind of the victim in the way that Way/Spirit Stones can.

What I do not understand is this: Why is it that a Dark Eldar, whose soul is utterly unprotected Slaanesh is able to re-animate through sheer will power alone? This can apparently be done years after the fact. Wouldn't it be easier to somehow re-attach a whole soul to a new body than knit a battered body and soul back together?

From a utility perspective, if there is no difference between getting tortured and eaten by She Who Thirsts and being stuck in a Spirit Stone indefinitely then the choice is pretty obvious if you could somehow re-attach an encased spirit into a new body, then there would be no reason not to. Shouldn't Dark Eldar be able to do this given how much more difficult calling back a soul from Slaanesh would be; and, if so, why is it that the Dark Eldar do not use Way/Spirit Stones? It would make certainly make battlefield recovery and Crone World expeditions easier.

If an archon had his soul split and came back as more then one person would it be possible or the clones to be focused on different parts of his personality. For example one could be an expert manipulater and another could be someone who fights with brute force, while another fights with finese.

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and in exchange, the seeker will leave the Haemonculi a permanent portion of his soul.

This could be completely metaphorical. The Haemonculus may not actually be keeping part of his soul, but no matter where he goes he will always be at the debt and mercy of the fleshcrafter. It's pretty much just ownership, and coul be percieved that way. It is possible that a part of their soul could be taken by the Haemie, though.

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On a side note, I never understood why Dark Eldar do not use spirit stones.

Spirit Stones are made to be plugged into the Infinty Circuit, and it is unlikely that the DE have anything like the Infinity Circuit for a couple of reasons.
1: The Infinity Circuit houses the souls of millions, if not more CWE. The Infinity Circuit is closely guarded and maintained by small creatures named Warp Spiders (Which the Aspect Warriors get their names from) and other CWE guardians.
This is a massive circuit filled with souls. To a DE it would be pointless to protect this when you could just split it open and claim the glory for yourself. In Commorragh you cannot trust anybody, so I doubt that they would want to put the safekeep of their soul in the hands of another DE or any other creature of Commorragh due to their selfish, backstabbing nature.

2: Dark Eldar do not have the need for an Infinity Circuit like the CWE. They do not need or care about the souls of others so it is better to let the soul of a potential foe perish rather than preserve it for the lying face of a false ally.

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It seems to me that Soul Traps and spirit stones are functionally quite different from each other.

I completely agree with this. Soul Traps are extremely rare items that are used to steal away the essence of another creature so that it can be fed upon later.

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What I do not understand is this: Why is it that a Dark Eldar, whose soul is utterly unprotected Slaanesh is able to re-animate through sheer will power alone? This can apparently be done years after the fact. Wouldn't it be easier to somehow re-attach a whole soul to a new body than knit a battered body and soul back together?

Theoretically, yes. We, however, do not know how this process actually happens. There could be a supernatural connection between the physical body and the soul, meaning that any other soul gets fed upon. So, you couldn't put somebody else's soul into your body to bring you back, your soul must remain to feast upon it so that your soul can regenerate itself.
All we have is speculation on the matter, really.

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If an archon had his soul split and came back as more then one person would it be possible or the clones to be focused on different parts of his personality. For example one could be an expert manipulater and another could be someone who fights with brute force, while another fights with finese.

It is possible, and it would certainly be interesting if a story were to be written about it.
... Mind if I pinch your idea?

Not at all be my guest.

This actually is something that I've written into the background story of my Kabal's version of Lelith Hesperax.

It needs fleshing out a bit, but the Kabal is essentially the surviving members of the Dark Eldar force that was fighting the Thousand Suns in the Webway in 579.M31 when it collapsed, sealing them into a pocket dimension in the Webway.

In my lore, Lelith was involved in the fight and when she was sealed away, her Haemunculi pact kicked in and a clone of her was revived.

Having finally returned, she's upset about the "Upstart" and is out to slay her clone and regain her rightful place.

How do we know that Haemunculy actually brings back the bearer with its soul intact and not just create same body with a purpose of its own? And the true identity just perishes in the clutches of She Who Thirst?

Maybe that is just a trick how Haemunculy want to place their flesh puppets amongst all power weilding Commoragh structures...

What if its all just a lie...and better not die and torture some more slaves...

Ressurection they say....eternal life they say...never heard of Vect dying.

The dark eldar don't really know that.

It's like the movie "The Prestige" I imagine...