Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-26006155-20190403163405/@comment-26006155-20190416211956

Ambassador, if you're actually making the case that human souls don't generate Determination, you've never saved the game even once when you're been playing Undertale, and have never seen the meme phrase "You're filled with Determination".

Where does it come from? Who can say. But somehow, there was more there than there was before. And this only seems to happen with humans.

Alphys is telling us her version of events based on what she's observed. And like every other character in Undertale, there are things she doesn't know.

She's basing all of her scientific conclusions on what seems to be a safe and highly probable situation: That all the Fallen Down monsters delivered to her lab were perfectly normal specimens that were following the normal patterns of monsters dying of old age.

Even though I've listed the inconsistencies with this assumption, like Shyren's sister being too young to die of old age.

I don't think Alphys even knows that Undyne HAS Determination.

Alphys seemed to genuinely believe during her hurried confessions to Undyne on their date that the seagrass was just something she used to make ice cream.

Even though Undyne doesn't consider The Pink Stuff ice cream at all.

So I don't think Alphys is even aware that Undyne exists as a potential Control Group about how Determination should normally affect monsters. Or that, as someone who probably also eats the stuff, that Alphys herself is probably a Determination-infused monster too.

We never get to fight Alphys, or see her die. So we have no way to tell what would happen if we did.

You're referring to Lab Entry #5: ''I've done it. Using the blueprints, I've extracted it from the human SOULs. I believe this is what gives their SOULs the strength to persist after death. The will to keep living... The resolve to change fate. Let's call this power... "Determination."''

Note that Alphys gets her design for the DE machine from blueprints she found. Notes left in that lab by the previous royal scientist: Gaster.

Also note that Determination is defined as "the strength to persist after death". You don't have to have Determination to live.. but if you have it, you might be able to avoid dying. And the Near Death state is when it seems to kick in.

So all the Undertale monsters who don't have Determination are at no risk of spontaniously ceasing to exist, contrary to your assertions earlier.