What exactly is a Lost Soul?

What exactly are the Lost Souls? What is their origin? We first encounter a Lost Soul when DoomGuy finds a person crying "help me", whose head then explodes and a Lost Soul flies out of it. Was the person possessed by a Demon, or was it simply the person's "soul" escaping or becoming evil? Soon after, there are Lost Souls everywhere, and very few (if any) more people with exploded heads. Their cybernetics also are a little mysterious; if they come from humans, why do they have cybernetics? Of course, it's also possible the first Lost Soul encounter was simply a one-time case in which a Lost Soul "entered" a person.

I wager that Hell is on a tight budget.

Because they cannot afford to zombify all of the personnel on Mars, they elect only to make use of males as they have greater muscle mass and perform basic physical functions to the greatest degree. This seems at first a very poor way to alleviate financial difficulty what with 98% of the available humans being men, but as you have no doubt observed: all Lost Souls are female and there are many of them, a fact which comfortably disregards this statistic.

The amount of energy required to animate a skull is far less than is required for an entire body. The process is rather instantaneous, therefore, but because it does not require the brain in order to maintain functioning the victim is entirely aware of her skull trying to wrench itself free of the spine right up to the moment where the nerval chords are severed.

Imps that are skilled in dentistry and osteology are then relegated to the task of catching Lost Souls and fixing them with biomechanical implants -- partly because it empowers their military functioning but also because it gives them a cute whistling noise when idling down a hallway. Keeps the moral up.

Pain Elementals east corpses and digest all but the skull, which they spit out at the opportune moment. 'nuff said.

It's like a soul, but it's lost.

Marnetmar said:

It's like a soul, but it's lost.

Doesn't explain why they are horned and have flames though.

Avoozl said:

Doesn't explain why they are horned and have flames though.

That's The Forgotten, the better looking variation. Lost Souls are just human heads with little jet engines to keep them airborn. It bugs me that they're not really "souls" or demonic.

I think it's simply a case of Hell using psychological warfare to try and defeat its enemies mentally. It could have just sent a thousand zombies and Imps after everyone, but maybe not all humans are afraid of the undead and large insectoids.

It's a skull on fire. 'Nuff said.

EDIT: oh, wrong forum.

PRIMEVAL said:

That's The Forgotten, the better looking variation.

I sort of disagree. I was always fond of the design of Lost Soul à la Doom 3.

@st.alfonzo: If you look closely though, you'll see that Dr. Chasar's head is still firmly attached to her body after the Soul escapes. Okay, half of it is missing, but it's still on her shoulders.

That and she's the only woman in the entire facility.

The entire theme of Doom 3 (and most of the entire sci-fi horror genre) is basically: "Dear God, what has science unleashed!" You get these pandoric, malevolent forces co-opting and making twisted forms of our most prideful attempts at technology. Metaphorically turning our tower of Babel into a giant cannon then firing it at us.

I'll let this insightful comic about sci-fi tropes by Dresden Codak play me out.

Slightly unrelated: I always thought that the Lost Souls in Doom 3 looked like John Carmack.

DoomUK said:

I sort of disagree. I was always fond of the design of Lost Soul à la Doom 3.

Me too, I always liked the creepy floating girl head and I think it fits the concept of a lost soul better than a horned devil skull.

schwerpunk said:

Slightly unrelated: I always thought that the Lost Souls in Doom 3 looked like John Carmack.

So you are saying John Carmack looks like a girl?
Pepole tend to see John Carmack in everything. There is an easteregg severed head in Quake 3 Arena that is not John Carmack's head, but most people think it's him.

Tetzlaff said:

Pepole tend to see John Carmack in everything. There is an easteregg severed head in Quake 3 Arena that is not John Carmack's head, but most people think it's him.

It's not? Huh... Next you're going to tell me that Dopefish isn't the spitting image of Tom Hall! /sarcasm

Tetzlaff said:

So you are saying John Carmack looks like a girl?

I don't know if I'd go that far, but he does have very gentle features. Like, with a little makeup, I'm sure he would make a convincing cross-dresser.

I'm not comfortable with this topic anymore... >_>;;

Well you are probably right, but let's stop talking about this...

Haha, pepole.

I always thought of Lost Souls as lanterns burped out by Pain Elementals. Maybe the pain elemental eats zombies and makes their skulls into lost souls.

geo said:

I always thought of Lost Souls as lanterns burped out by Pain Elementals. Maybe the pain elemental eats zombies and makes their skulls into lost souls.

Thats a pretty neat idea.