Arcanum Discussion *spoilers abound*

So, for those of you who have finished the game, and heard out Kerghan's plot to extinguish all life on Arcanum, I was wondering what you guys would think of this: Did Kerghan intend to destroy ONLY the sentient (Human, ogre, orc, dwarf, etc...) life-forms of Arcanum, or did he mean ALL LIVING THINGS, including mice, squirrels, gorillas, and what have you. The two are very different in that one is an attack on all intelligent life, for any subjective reasons that may have occurred to Kerghan (possibly a disillusioned state of mind due to spending so many years in The Void) while the other assumes life in itself is an abomination, and must be destroyed.

Kerghan calls the living realm a 'glitch' (at least I think he uses this word, it's been a long time) and claims that death is a normality. This line of reasoning seems to point to the idea that he wanted to destroy all life, including the non-sentient.

Then again, in the ending where you side with Kerghan and you are left alone in a dead world, 'waiting for your time to come', it is hard to believe that the PC would not be able to find random rats walking around, for example if he were to explore the sewers of Tarant.

And again, going with the argument that Kerghan was simply disillusioned with the world, I see no reason as to why he would have anything against the non-sentient forms of life, whom had nothing to do with his banishment.

Even if unintelligent forms of life were spared, how long would they survive in a war-ravaged and dying world?

What do you guys think about all of this?

 

Definitely all forms of life. Every single animal, plant, fungus and bacteria.

I never found it hard to believe. Why did you?

Kerghan's plan was more than a simple disappointment with the world or a form of revenge against sentient being. He thought, no, he knew - better than any other person in the world - that life is pain, while death is tranquillity and that souls, without any choice, are constantly being pulled out of that tranquillity and forced to live - therefore suffer - again and again and again. He wanted to end that cycle, end the pain once and for all.

Here, I see two reasons why he would kill every single life form, sentient or not:

1) If I recall correctly, it is never stated in a game whether every single life form has a soul (such a belief is present in elven philosophy, but it's only a belief, while there is no hard in-game proof for or against) or are they exclusive to sentient beings. If the first, they deserve to rest in tranquillity rather than be forced to suffer. If the latter, perhaps non-existence is better than the forced pain. Also if they don't have souls, here comes the second reason:

2) Evolution. It happens in Arcanum, it's in the manual, it's in the in-game books, it's a fact. As long as there are simple life forms, there is a chance that given enough time, they will evolve into sentient beings and "earn" themselves the privilege of having a soul, which again means pulling souls from the tranquillity and forcing them to live, to suffer. No, the only way Kerghan's plan would work is to kill every single life form and - to be sure - destroy the world in a way that no life form could come into being in it ever again.

 

True, but that could very well be a game limitation. Conjure Spirit works on all humanoids, including kites, but a humanoid soul floating over a dead rat would look quite stupid. Creating rat-shaped soul sprites just so one could float over a dead rat - just in case someone would ever want to cast the spell on a rat, dog or a spider - would be even stupider, especially since casting Conjure Spirit doesn't make any sense when we're unable to talk with the summoned soul. A lot of pointless work, it would be.

 

Kerghan's diary mentioned rising a rabbit with the power of its soul, didn't it?

 

If by rabbit you mean mountain lion then yes.