Well, from my Nish experiments I can say that the soul is definitely not tied to the body, but reanimated corpses which are complete enough that they would show up as "Nish Shamelorbam, Zombie Miner" or whatever can't be reanimated while the Ghostly Nish or un-undead Nish has been brought back to life.
Having the skeletons and mangled corpses sitting in a reanimating portion of the map for looooooooong periods of time results in nothing, because the zombie Nish can't exist while the soul is claimed, sadly.
I didn't try to chop her hair or hands off before reanimating... yet
DF hacking a body back to life isnt quite the same as sciencing it. Or rather DFHack/=/interactions. I think we're confusing a soul attribute for a soul. There is no such thing as a whole, inseparable soul in DF. You have attributes . . .
Here, because Id just as soon we get past these misconceptions:
-Zombie names are just that,name. afaik.
-The soul isnt one complete piece you can mail about. Its a collection of data that is interchangeable. dwarves are data, Data with a name. You can even change the name. Real meta . . .
-The UB retains the faction info. Why,idk. Most likely because it is the most vital piece, the cornerstone, of all bodies,
Flags the body part as being able to wear upper body clothing like coats, breastplates etc. If an upper body is chopped off, the creature dies. Multiple upperbody parts aren't redundant. All default creatures with bodies have the upperbody as the root of the body tree, making it impossible to chop off.
-No other body part is as necessary, with the Lower body coming close. The head is literally only important because of the brain. If you didnt have the brain nobody would die from having it chopped off. Except by the obvious blood loss and perhaps the spine, but the spine is also a distinct, moddable part.
-None of this information is particularly new, its just not organized for easy access. Why, idk.
And to settle this, here is an adventure Im playing. I gave dwarves two interactions, a revive and necromancy interaction, shown here
[INTERACTION:REVIVE]
[I_TARGET:A:CORPSE]
[IT_LOCATION:CONTEXT_ITEM]
[IT_AFFECTED_CLASS:GENERAL_POISON]
[IT_REQUIRES:FIT_FOR_RESURRECTION]
[IT_FORBIDDEN:NOT_LIVING]
[IT_MANUAL_INPUT:corpse]
[I_EFFECT:RESURRECT]
[IE_TARGET:A]
[IE_IMMEDIATE]
[INTERACTION:NECROMANCY]
[I_TARGET:A:CORPSE]
[IT_LOCATION:CONTEXT_ITEM]
[IT_AFFECTED_CLASS:GENERAL_POISON]
[IT_REQUIRES:FIT_FOR_ANIMATION]
[IT_FORBIDDEN:NOT_LIVING]
[IT_MANUAL_INPUT:corpse and body parts]
[I_EFFECT:ANIMATE]
[IE_TARGET:A]
[IE_IMMEDIATE]
[IE_ARENA_NAME:corpse]
[SYNDROME]
and here
[CAN_DO_INTERACTION:REVIVE]
[CDI:ADV_NAME:Spit]
[CDI:USAGE_HINT:NEGATIVE_SOCIAL_RESPONSE]
[CDI:USAGE_HINT:TORMENT]
[CDI:BP_REQUIRED:BY_CATEGORY:MOUTH]
[CDI:MATERIAL:LOCAL_CREATURE_MAT:SPIT:LIQUID_GLOB]
[CDI:VERB:spit:spits:NA]
[CDI:TARGET:C:LINE_OF_SIGHT]
[CDI:TARGET_RANGE:C:15]
[CDI:MAX_TARGET_NUMBER:C:1]
[CDI:WAIT_PERIOD:30]
[CAN_DO_INTERACTION:NECROMANCY]
[CDI:ADV_NAME:Spit]
[CDI:USAGE_HINT:NEGATIVE_SOCIAL_RESPONSE]
[CDI:USAGE_HINT:TORMENT]
[CDI:BP_REQUIRED:BY_CATEGORY:MOUTH]
[CDI:MATERIAL:LOCAL_CREATURE_MAT:SPIT:LIQUID_GLOB]
[CDI:VERB:spit:spits:NA]
[CDI:TARGET:C:LINE_OF_SIGHT]
[CDI:TARGET_RANGE:C:15]
[CDI:MAX_TARGET_NUMBER:C:1]
[CDI:WAIT_PERIOD:30]
As you can see, its just the spit interaction with a new id stapled on.
This world is a standard gen, stopped when I got tired of waiting on it. And I start killing.
Here is the save:
http://dffd.wimbli.com/file.php?id=9971There is no such thing as an intact, inseparable soul in DF, nor is it impossible to raise a zombie with the same name as a living dwarf. That headless dwarf will die again soon, but for this instance is alive and well.