[spoilers] The Fleshless

[Hanekem]

I was thinking towards the end and the Discussion with the Black Guardian and his "the High Ones can't directly affect the world" line.

Then what *are* the fleshless? According to the Guardian they are copies of living humans, idealized copies, made by the high ones and, due to that, the High Ones know how to manipulate them.

But there is still the fact that the High Ones seem capable of making a simulation of life, self aware even and independent of them (apparently)

So they Can Affect the world in quite a direct fashion, though the question is how the fleshless are made and maintained AND how did the cycle came to be in the first place (quest for immortality?) and how it all ties together.

[MyLongestJourney]

There are certainly many unanswered questions left to the player when the game ends.Maybe one day SureAi will give us the answers until then we can only speculate.

Personally I have been combing Nehrim wiki for lore info that would shed light to the identity of the Aged Man.I think he is a fleshless from a previous cycle that took the flee-to-a-place-unaffected by the cleansing-with his beloved option.They both shared the dream of making a new better mankind but after many failures,the Aged Man gave up and resolved to be just an observer until he decided to give our hero a chance by handing him/her the word of the dead.

The only hole I see in this theory is that the Black Guardian has not heard of another Prophet who escaped death in the hands of the Emperor per the cycle rules.Everything else fits.The Aged Man is immortal,he calls himself a fleshless eye,he keeps his beloved suspended in a preserving tank to keep her alive (obviously she is not immortal) with the magic of the Quranian Mentalists mentioned by Jespar (deep sleep) and when she is woken briefly by the player,mentions that she still believes in their dream (to break the cycle I believe).

Obviously the only direct power the High ones have is to make the emissaries and influence them with dreams.But they can not built the Beacon themselves.Somebody else has to do it for them.

[Makesin]

Well, the Aged Man could predate the Black Guardian (after all, the Black Guardian says that he learnt about the Cycle during his life, which means that there were Cleansings before his cycle as well). The question then is, though, why doesn't he mention the Aged Man at all, but maybe the reason is simply that the Prophet didn't ask (after all, he mentions the Veiled Woman only after the Prophet talks about her).

And I have to agree here with Hanekem, the fact that the High Ones can create "life" is quite a powerful tool for someone who, according to the Black Guardian, is powerless. That in itself could a plot hole, a sign that the Black Guardian is not all-knowing or a proof that the Prophet, Fleshless or not, is not created by the High Ones. Hard to say which one it is though.

[Glycerin]

I always thought fleshless was just another term for ghost. Like ghosts they have died but returned to the world. It also seems they must have some sort of unfinished business. Tealor wants to die a hero, as he thinks he deserves. The main character wants to be someone important, to be able to change things instead of being powerless, as he was before.
I assume Coarek and Yuslan are fleshless/emissaries, as well. What drives them would be simple revenge in Yuslan's case or to make the cleansing happen, no matter what, in Coarek's.
I guess these unfullfilled desires are what makes them susceptible for the High Ones' manipulations. They use them to drive their emissaries on, or they stop might otherwise and give some thought about what they are actually doing by constructing the beacon. I am not so sure if the High Ones really create the fleshless ones, or if ghosts occur "naturally" (it is a fantasy setting, after all).

[Caleb8980]

Then what *are* the fleshless? According to the Guardian they are copies of living humans, idealized copies, made by the high ones and, due to that, the High Ones know how to manipulate them.

But there is still the fact that the High Ones seem capable of making a simulation of life, self aware even and independent of them (apparently)

But you as the player are the best example how this is a power with 2 sides - while the High Ones can copy dead people there need to be some requirements before they can do so; and these are rather restrictive.

Also they need to manipulate the copied person in the same way as normal humans, they cannot directly control them.

And as I said above - this means that the Fleshless people can just as easily use the Beacon to destroy them - it is a gamble in which the High Ones maximize their chances of victory due the special condition Fleshless people have.

Obviously the only direct power the High ones have is to make the emissaries and influence them with dreams.But they can not built the Beacon themselves.Somebody else has to do it for them.

This plays into my point above - it does not matter that the High Ones can make emissaries, the emissaries just make their aim more accessible, but they alone are a far shot from a happening Cleansing

Another point:

emissaries and influence them with dreams.

Are Coarek and the Nehrimese Mages in the Sun Temple emissaries?


TL;DR: At first it may seem that the power to copy humans is very strong, but its use is often a brinkmanship. Also this power alone does not cause a Cleansing.

[Makesin]

I doubt they are ghosts, as they are able to have a physical contact with the world (I mean, the Prophet can have sex with either of the companions, I doubt it can get more physical than that), so they're more than mere projections.

Also, yes, I am quite certain that Taranor Coarek was a Fleshless one too, he is quite different from the man we know from Nehrim (as Taranor in Nehrim didn't exactly care about all the anti-religious nonsense of the Order, and suddenly he becomes a zealous atheist?), not sure about Yuslan though. That is, he clearly could be one, we just don't know much about him to make that assumption.

Maybe the meaning behind the Black Guardian's words is that the High Ones can't force anything to happen in the world. So they create the Fleshless Ones, but even then they can't actually control them directly (insert random ME joke: "Assuming direct control", sorry, couldn't resist) and must retort to manipulation. The result is ultimately the same as if they did everything themselves, but that in itself is actually a part of the manipulation. It must look like the High Ones cause the Cleansing, so that the humans can cause it in their fight against the High Ones..

Still, it bothers me that the High Ones can create the Fleshless Ones. Why do they have that power? And why only this particular power?

EDIT (After Caleb's post): Coarek seems himself as an Emissary, Tealor agrees with his view, the High Ones say that the only Emissary is the Prophet and the Black Guardian only mentions the Prophet and Tealor. But I think Coarek is.

[Hanekem]

Then what *are* the fleshless? According to the Guardian they are copies of living humans, idealized copies, made by the high ones and, due to that, the High Ones know how to manipulate them.

But there is still the fact that the High Ones seem capable of making a simulation of life, self aware even and independent of them (apparently)

But you as the player are the best example how this is a power with 2 sides - while the High Ones can copy dead people there need to be some requirements before they can do so; and these are rather restrictive.

Also they need to manipulate the copied person in the same way as normal humans, they cannot directly control them.

And as I said above - this means that the Fleshless people can just as easily use the Beacon to destroy them - it is a gamble in which the High Ones maximize their chances of victory due the special condition Fleshless people have.

That is, assuming the Black Guardian was not only Honest, but basing his words on Facts and not assumptions and that is an unknown.
First we need to consider that the guardian is probably insane. He Witnessed a large number of cycles impotently, encased in his Goliath
Second, that his end game is to be free, he made that perfectly clear

Obviously the only direct power the High ones have is to make the emissaries and influence them with dreams.But they can not built the Beacon themselves.Somebody else has to do it for them.

This plays into my point above - it does not matter that the High Ones can make emissaries, the emissaries just make their aim more accessible, but they alone are a far shot from a happening Cleansing

Another point:

emissaries and influence them with dreams.

Are Coarek and the Nehrimese Mages in the Sun Temple emissaries?


TL;DR: At first it may seem that the power to copy humans is very strong, but its use is often a brinkmanship. Also this power alone does not cause a Cleansing.

Certainly, and it all comes down to one question: Why?

See, they replay the cycle, risk annihilation (or at least access to the world) for the Creation of a new High One.
That seems rather strange, the creation of another one? of possible competition?

There could be something more important going on backstage, sure we have the Black Guardian's test theory, but he has like zero evidence or at least he conveys as much

Still, this is why I found the game awesome, there are gaps in the answers, we don't get all the truth and what we have is... debatable how truth it is.

It adds to the themes behind the game, to leave us with uncertainty, wondering what exactly is going on, and why the Veiled woman intervened this time and why not before. is it related to Neherim? is something else going on?

[Glycerin]

I doubt they are ghosts, as they are able to have a physical contact with the world (I mean, the Prophet can have sex with either of the companions, I doubt it can get more physical than that), so they're more than mere projections.

The fleshless ones appear to be human in every respect, which includes physical contact. But the term "fleshless" itself implies they are immaterial in some way. If just the flesh was missing, we would have walking skeletons, and i doubt the emissaries that kind of undead (though there is an enemy type called Fleshless Lost One).

Maybe the meaning behind the Black Guardian's words is that the High Ones can't force anything to happen in the world. So they create the Fleshless Ones, but even then they can't actually control them directly (insert random ME joke: "Assuming direct control", sorry, couldn't resist) and must retort to manipulation. The result is ultimately the same as if they did everything themselves, but that in itself is actually a part of the manipulation. It must look like the High Ones cause the Cleansing, so that the humans can cause it in their fight against the High Ones..

There is also the theory, that the High Ones are no seperate entities at all, but a representation of the collective subconsciousness of mankind. This may sound a bit far-fetched at the first, but Tealor mentions that something like a collective subconsciousness might exist when he speaks about the emissaries and their roles.
In that case the High ones would be no outer threat. They cannot interfere directly because they are a part of people's minds. Mankind itself would cause its own destruction due to its flawed nature. That is also why they "allow" the possibility to recognize the beacon for what it is and stop the cleansing. If people (or the emissaries in their place) were able to reflect on their actions, a cleansing would be unnecessary because they would have overcome their flaws.

[Makesin]

That is, assuming the Black Guardian was not only Honest, but basing his words on Facts and not assumptions and that is an unknown.
First we need to consider that the guardian is probably insane. He Witnessed a large number of cycles impotently, encased in his Goliath
Second, that his end game is to be free, he made that perfectly clear



Certainly, and it all comes down to one question: Why?

See, they replay the cycle, risk annihilation (or at least access to the world) for the Creation of a new High One.
That seems rather strange, the creation of another one? of possible competition?

There could be something more important going on backstage, sure we have the Black Guardian's test theory, but he has like zero evidence or at least he conveys as much

It seems a bit strange to, on the one hand, disregard the Black Guardian as a valid source of information and then talk about the emissaries, when he was the only one to give us a coherent answer on what the emissaries are. And not only that, his theory checks with the evidence.

The 3 people claiming to be emissaries (Tealor, Coarek and the Prophet) are all obviously changed from their past (Yuslan could be as well, we just don't know anything about him prior to the story of Enderal). Tealor went from a broken and semi-crazed prisoner to a charismatic leader of his nation, Coarek went from a somewhat cynical fighter against oppresssion to a zealot and the Prophet goes from a powerless nobody to the most talented mage/warrior/thief/whatever of Enderal in the manner of days. And I am willing to believe the Black Guardian simply from the narrative point of view: it is dangerous to believe only one side of the story, but in this case, this is the only story we are given. So, basically, if we refuse the Black Guardian's explanation of what the Fleshless Ones are, we are left with nothing at all, which is of course a valid theory in the real life, but not exactly working in a narrative.

As for the Black Guardian himself, yes, his one main desire is to be freed from his prison and to escape to the Starling City, but that doesn't make him a full liar or a fully insane person. He tells two known lies (that the Prophet's companion is dead and that the button will kill him), both of which are directly connected to his desire, and one known truth (that the Beacon will cause the Cleansing), which is tied to his secondary desire, to end the Cycle.

His other claims are that the emissaries are dead (unknown whether it's true or not, but there is a lot of circumstantial evidence to support this claim), that the emissaries are created by the High Ones (unknown without any evidence) and that the High Ones are otherwise powerless in this world (obviously contradictory to the previous claim, but evidenced by the fact that the High Ones do absolutely nothing throughout the whole story apart of mocking the emissaries). My belief is that in neither of those cases, however, does the Black Guardian have any need to lie to the Prophet. He only knowingly lies to make the Prophet push the button (the lie about the death of the companion is, I believe, supposed to make the Prophet feel closer to death, feel sympathy to the Black Guardian and also be shocked in order not to question his lie about the button), but there's no need to lie about either of the 3 claim presented earlier.

In fact, I would go as far as to say that the Black Guardian himself didn't think about the button and being released until the Prophet asks what to do. After all, if the Guardian wished to do that, he could have done it without all the exposure, especially if he knew that the companion was in fact alive. So that leads me to the conclusion that he doesn't lie about the High Ones, at least not intentionally. Now, he could of course be crazy and unaware of the facts, but the fact that he has observed the Cycle for countless times leads me to believe that he has indeed noticed the patterns in a way no other observer could, simply because no other observer observed it for so many times.

[Casper]

usually in situations like this, i basically take everything i'm told, and arrange it in some kind of order (usually chronologically), then i cut away all the self serving statements and rely heavily on the statements of neutral parties, then just metaphorically slice right down the middle, that's usually as close to the truth i can get, at least in situations where there is a lot of ambiguity... i just can't figure out how to do that in the case of this game, as i suppose we don't have enough solid information, or sources to compare.