Well, you can soul trap someone you resurrect...so I don't think you actually trap their "soul", for me it just seems that you trap the bodies magical energy. Heck you can soul trap a Skeleton..
Granted that's just me.

In my people dark magic practice, resurrecting dead bodies is by using spirit/ghost/demon or whatever in English into that dead body. And so these spirit/ghost/demon manipulating the dead body make it into look like living, and can move. It is like possession but on the dead.

So logically, Soul Trap can trap undead "soul" because it trap the spirit/ghost/demon possessing it, the same like Detect Life detecting it. The dead body is dead, but the spirit/ghost/demon possess it is alive.

Exactly what I was trying to say in the post above yours. This says it better.

For creatures it's just the Magicka or some other type of arcane "energy"

For sentient beings it might be something more. So the ethics of trapping sentients is more questionable.

Can you soul trap a dwemer construct? Most people would not consider them to have souls, being steam-powered machines.

*looks them up in the wiki*

In Morrowind only one Spider Centurion has a soul, and that is part of a quest. None of the other Dwemer machines have them.
In Skyrim... the wiki does not say. I tried looking in the construction set, but I do not see anything in the actor windows about souls.

If I remember correctly the Dwemer Machines in Skyrim are powered by soul gems, been a long time since I played Morrowind so I don't know if they also have Soul gems, however I don't recall if the Soul gems come already filled.
And that brings the question, what exactly are soul gems? I know that you can mine for them in Skyrim, and I did read a bit if you handle a soul gem to much piece of your "soul" gets svcked in.
Unless all this studying for the finals is making me go crazy? xD

They drop soul gems in Skyrim, but I do not think they power them. You can see steam coming out of the Spheres and Centurions, so I think it is still steam that powers them. The soul gems they drop can be empty or filled. It seems random which they are.

I also understand that in Skyrim you cannot trap the souls of creatures you summon, like you could in Oblivion. I guess the devs realized people were exploiting that loophole to fill unlimited soul gems.

Ahh that makes sense. I'm sure I went over this in school but since then my science learning has been much more human focused so I can't remember. Thanks for the link it makes interesting reading.


That's a good point, uesp doesn't say what they are, just what they do and how powerful they are.
My opinion: either some kind of rock/mineral that is then infused with some form of magic to allow it to store souls, or it's already infused with magic and thus a mysteriously powerful gem