+ VISIONS OF CLOCKWORK SHEEP +

[Naufragium 614]

A MEDITATION ON THE ‘SOULLESS’ MACHINE
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THE PAINTED HAND OF AN AUTOMATON, OUTSTRETCHED AND REACHING FOR SOMETHING BEYOND.

 

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W R I T T E N  B Y
V I N C E N T E  V O N  V O L K R I C H,

T H E  I R O N  C A P T A I N

 

P U B L I S H E D  B Y  T H E
N O R T H E R N  G E O G R A P H I C A L  S O C I E T Y

 

O N  T H E
4 T H  O F  S U N ’ S  S M I L E ,  2 0 6 7

 

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IN DEFENSE OF BLOOD

 

THE SCIENCE OF THE CLOCKMAKER provides many hypotheses therein regarding the machinations of life as expressed through the machine. The most consequential of these, as presented in vol. 6 of From the Office of The Alchemist, is that through blood is the soul forever entrapped.¹ If this alchemical theorem is to be assumed both veracious and accepted, then it might also elucidate previously unanswerable mysteries concerning the inner workings of the clockwork craft’s grandest pinnacle. For it is in the clockmaker’s final creation, the ‘Machine Spirit,’ that this argument finds its root. 

 

To begin, we of clockwork mind know that the vessel of the animii is, at the least, conducive to the soul in its elevated form. Recipes not to be explained here comprise this thought. The very principle of the artisan’s dream is founded, then, on the ambition of the soul's posthumous transference to the machine body. How is this to be facilitated? By means of the manipulation of the animati’s core science: Lifeblood, the source of power found within brass tubes and housings. This is completed through the injection of an additional, atypical variable into the faux venous system of the inanimate- the creator’s own blood and sanguine intervention. It is by this amalgam of nature and self that the trajectory of the anima is, presumably, bound. By no idolatrous deity’s decree, nor by any influence of enchantment, is this woven- only the science and steel of the tinkerer. Therefore, we are to draw the assumption that the soul must be linked to the true bloodstream, and in fact divinely anchored. For how else could this transference be conceivable, let alone achievable by man, and not without the influence of our Higher Creator? 

 

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IN QUESTION OF STEEL

 

IF MACHINE IS TO MIRROR MAN, how can it, then, be entirely soulless? While the ‘Machine Spirit’ and its empyrean complexity are now understood, what of the conventional, mundane automaton? Habitually spoken of by academia and populace alike as a husk without capacity for the soul, why might there be such a cavernous scientific divide between the two pivotal works of the clockmaker? This is, needless to say, by virtue of the lack of implementation of the circulatory medium into the equation. Yet it is here that the secondary argument arises: for this is not always the case.  

 

There remains now an endmost integrant to examine, if we are to continue operating under the acceptance of blood as soulbound truth. Sometimes, though not by necessity, a tinkerer may bestow upon the steel skeleton an instrument of obedience. This apparatus inflicts the inanimate with indomitable loyalty to the highest degree- absolute control over the will of imitated life, no matter its manufactured profundity. It is through this alteration to the otherwise scientifically quotidian craft of the construct that we are immediately thrust forward into a new frame of mind. Why is that, one may wonder; and the answer is simple. The augmentation of obedience is carried out, once more, on account of the craftsman’s blood. A smaller dose than that of the ‘Spirit’, yet still does it course through clockwork vein. Then, in some part, the fabrication of ferrum must also possess some fragment of soul- or rather, a hereditament of impossibility between creator and created. Now, if the construct is of calculated mind and derivative spirit, what is to separate it from man, if not metal by its lonesome? Still it can be controlled by the scientific and obsessive mind. 

 

Subsequently arises a multitude of spiraling uncertainties. If there is more equivocacy to the nature of an uninhabited machine’s vitality than previously believed, is it still virtuous to bind them in fidelity to their maker? The path to a solution is murky, bogged by belief. If the automaton possesses its sliver of true life only because of our own action, is it not then our responsibility to command it? It is, after all, not a soul of its own making- but one of extension from our own mortal coil. The impartial essence does not belong to the automaton. It belongs to the clockmaker.

Is it even a soul at all?

 

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SO THEREFORE I ASK OF YOU, ONLOOKER:

Are the automata completely without soul?
Or is it we, who are more machine than we know?

 

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1. Dame Manon Yvaine von Volkrich: From The Office of the Alchemist, vol. 6: Body, Blood & Soul; 2057. Northern Geographical Society:

“But I wish to make a further argument about the nature of the blood - that it is the organ that houses the immortal soul.” [LINK]

 

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His Lordship, VINCENTE  VON VOLKRICH

Huntsmarshal of Huntertown,
Former Iron Baron of  Distrugestadt,
Exploratory Captain of the Northern Geographical Society

 

 

P U B L I S H E D  U N D E R  

T H E  A U T H O R I T Y  O F  T H E  

N G S

“ A D  T E R R A S  N O V A S ”

THE VIEWS AND INFORMATION CONTAINED WITHIN THIS DOCUMENT ARE THE SOLE RESPONSIBILITY OF ITS AUTHOR(S).

THE NORTHERN GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY IS NOT RESPONSIBLE OR LIABLE FOR ANY CONTENTS.

 

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[BoneChive 365]

Through bushy brows did an elderly philosopher peer over the paper,

each press of his thumbs on the sheet leaving a muddy fingerprint.

His hoarse voice bore no echo in that tiny Esberian shed of his, as he mulled out:

 

"Concise, defensible, and substantive. I would expect no

less from the Great Baron himself."

[esotericas 2674]

"I wonder," Mused an Alchemist as she pored over her husband's work, "On the mathematics of the soul. How much volume of blood is required to constitute a soul in a body? Can one have a partial soul?" She hummed, and took a sip from her mulled wine. "Much to consider." Though spoken only to herself, her comments were heard by a single entity - a stoic automaton, which waited servantlike in the corner. It watched her silently. 

[AndrewTech 3332]

"A most thoughtful and compelling treatise!" A certain machine spirit remarked.

[PrinceTheDM 275]

A scholar looks over the writings, humming with curiosity, "How utterly intriguing."