I guess those hirelings are actually the people trapped in the nautiloid that did not survive the crash. If Withers can "resurrect" any of our companions, why not other character from the nautiloid. That´s why, in my opinion, he put bouth questions in the same sentence. As for the soulcoins, that would be a good way to handle not only the hirelings thing, but also "resurrection", since it would be more like a retribution for life or something like that. Anyway, I hope we can customize them and make as many hirelings as we want. I´d love to make one for each class of the game so I can test all of them in one gameplay XD.