Soul Flux: What is it? [speculative lore]

[Six]

So like a previous thread, I thought I'd lay out the facts and hear what exactly people think the new Soul Flux item is, and where it comes from.

Basic Facts:

• Endstone cooked in a kiln produces White Cobble and Ender Slag.
• Ender Slag then cooked in a stoked cauldron separates into Soul Flux and Brimstone.
• The texture looks like a white powder (similar to niter), with a shimmer like enchanted items or soul urns.
• Combining Soul Flux in a crucible with Iron, Coal Dust and a Soul Urn produces steel.

Slightly More Esoteric Facts:

• The end is made up of only Endstone and Obsidian, with lots of Endermen and the Ender Dragon.
• Endermen pick up blocks in the overworld, and teleport away (presumably to the End). Appearing in the end they are now holding Endstone, which they place down before teleporting away again (presumably back to the overworld).
• It is implied through one of the BTW canvas paintings that masses of souls / Dragon Orbs go from the overworld, filter through the Nether and then pass to the End.

If you can think of any other pertinent facts chime in, otherwise what's your speculation on the workings of all this?

[Sarudak]

I suspect it is simply some kind of binding agent for souls.

[Six]

I suspect it is simply some kind of binding agent for souls.

That seems to be the basics of what it does, but why would that be fused with sulfur and bound into the white chunks of stone that make up the end?

[Gunnerman21]

There was something about that in the btw "backstory" that was speculated on a LOT.. the endermen are actually creating their own mobtrap in the overworld by smoothing the terrain, then when mobs die somehow without us killing them, their souls are sent to the nether as a bypass for the Enderdragon to then bring them to the end using his enderman minions.. but that's only my take on it :P

I guess they must keep supplies of this soul flux in mass storage when the Enderdragon's mobtrap is complete, so they can bind the souls to the end preventing them from leaving.

[Whisp]

I'd say soul flux is the main reason for the great enchanting qualities of soulforged steel.
I mean what place is more magical in the minecraft world than the End dimension. It's a rock floating in the void with enderman teleporting in and out of there all the time. Imagining every endstone block came to existence by being teleported through the dimensions, it makes sense that some supernatural residue still exists in them.

While soul urns help fusing together the components of soul forged steel to result in that extreme hard material for armor and tools, it's the soul flux that keeps it available for the massive amount of magic that we can infuse with the infernal enchanter.

Considering the last few posts about the soul in the name: My take is that the name is due to the properties of the soul flux. Like soaps in chemistry, that are both lipophilic and hydrophilic, the soul part enables it to bind with the souls in sfs, while the flux is the part that binds the magic of enchantments.

[TheGatesofLogic]

I'd say soul flux is the main reason for the great enchanting qualities of soulforged steel.
I mean what place is more magical in the minecraft world than the End dimension. It's a rock floating in the void with enderman teleporting in and out of there all the time. Imagining every endstone block came to existence by being teleported through the dimensions, it makes sense that some supernatural residue still exists in them.

While soul urns help fusing together the components of soul forged steel to result in that extreme hard material for armor and tools, it's the soul flux that keeps it available for the massive amount of magic that we can infuse with the infernal enchanter.

Considering the last few posts about the soul in the name: My take is that the name is due to the properties of the soul flux. Like soaps in chemistry, that are both lipophilic and hydrophilic, the soul part enables it to bind with the souls in sfs, while the flux is the part that binds the magic of enchantments.

It's most likely the exact opposite actually. Flux is a mineral substance that is used in removing the impurities from metal ores, and binding metal pieces together. It would thus be that the soul flux is the catalyst necessary to bind the souls into the iron, rather than being the cause of it's magical properties it would instead be the binding agent that allows the souls to absorb magical energies while preventing the escape of these newly energetic souls from the metal 'prison' so to speak

[Whisp]

It's most likely the exact opposite actually. Flux is a mineral substance that is used in removing the impurities from metal ores, and binding metal pieces together. It would thus be that the soul flux is the catalyst necessary to bind the souls into the iron, rather than being the cause of it's magical properties it would instead be the binding agent that allows the souls to absorb magical energies while preventing the escape of these newly energetic souls from the metal 'prison' so to speak

Baah, there you go disproving my nice little theory with stupid logic. ;)
Serves me right for not looking up flux. But yeah, nice correction, I even struggled for a while trying to find a role for soul urns to play, which now fits again.

Instead of the flux, the soul part could be explained by the dimension travel. Considering there is a constant stream of souls traveling from the overworld to the nether, it's quite possible that enderman cross that stream in their travel and imbed a part of them in the blocks they are carrying.

For the flux part, maybe the enderman actively drain all the metals and other valueables from the blocks before they convert the rest into endstone. (Perhaps the end dimension or the enderdragon don't work well with it.)
This could be the origin of the the gold nuggets (and the swords) the pigmen drop. The endermen leave it in the void, because it is somehow toxic to their dimension and from there it dribbles back into other dimension, aiding in the creation of mobs.

[dawnraider]

I don't think that soul flux actually has to do anything with the magical properties of steel, that comes from the souls. The nether acts as a sort of buffer zone, where the souls wait to be consumed, then they travel through into the end. They then bind to the end stone, containing soul flux, where they are then consumed by the dragon. The brimstone helps to bind the soul flux to the white stone in the form of ender slag.

[Niyu]

Wasn't it the other way around? Endeman bring blocks and souls to the end when teleporting, creating the endstone. The enderdragon consume the souls and whatever is left from them goes to the nether as corrupted, consumed souls that travel to the overworld by the nether portals.

Flux is also a term for describing the flow of something through a surface, so maybe is the form the souls adapt when atached to the whitestone. The souls flux has the enchanted effect, as the other items containing souls. So when making steel you use a small amount of live souls to control the corrupted souls in the urn.

[ThePowerofTower]

They might be trying to build a new world seed -- perhaps something that can so potently bind souls that the resulting density can then be erupted into a new universe for themselves, and they are trying to use the nether as storage, but kind of don't care about the demonic heat that results from the rapid soul-moving through there. Soul Flux is probably a mixture of the stuff in Overworld stone that makes it grey, whatever those minerals are, and when those stones are remade into End Stone, those patches are concentrated into potent pockets of soul flux. Or maybe I'm thinking of everything in terms of density. O_0