Afterlife

The afterlife is a massive superstructure built and subsequently abandoned by unknown beings. It is the setting for the events of Vickers’s War.

At an unknown point in time, the Afterlife was constructed and abandoned. No records of the original inhabitants exist in the first writings of any species, human or otherwise. The vast majority of the original structure is made of Black Stone, a hard opaque material with a green-blue tint. Much of the structure has been covered by flora, of which approximately half of which can be found on Earth. Fauna has a similar variety, although some appear to be part of the structure itself, and guard certain areas which are left undisturbed by the denizens living nearby.

There are 100 known floors of the Afterlife, with lower floors being larger. Subfloors exist between floors, such as Subfloor 88B. Some floors have collapsed or broken, and so the exact layout of the Afterlife is difficult to map. Tunnels, ramp, and elevators are common methods of transportation to and from different floors. Although most people live on a floor, some live outside the Afterlife, such as in the Dead Sands, where communities live on platforms hanging from the edge.

Several features of the Afterlife are still recognizeable and even partly functional. These include but are not limited to:

Aqueducts and canals (floor 99)

Transportation system (floor 97)

Heating/cooling (floor 75)

Fuel pipelines (floors 98-95)

Data storage devices (floor 76)

Storage center (floor 10)

Transportation to and from Earth (floor 0)

Humans from Earth arrive in the Afterlife from either floor 0 or 98, although some appear in other floors. These are known as the fallen. Most fallen have no recollection of how they arrived. The early fallen believed that they had died and been sent to hell. As a result they named this place the Afterlife. Some believe that floor 1 is heaven due to its good conditions, and lower floors are hell due to their worse conditions. This idea is enforced by the Everempire, who believe that they as heaven deserve rightful lordship over the entirety of the Afterlife.

With the exception of the top levels, the Afterlife is seen as a dangerous place. Many layers have environmental hazards such as extreme heat or cold, hazardous materials, dangerous creatures, and lawlessness from bandits and pirates. While the Everempire claims itself to be the government of the Afterlife, there is no one established governing body and there are few areas in the Afterlife with some form of nationship. Despite this perception, life in the Afterlife is slowly improving as the denizens band together into communities and form groups such as the Unity, Republic, Galant Republic, and Revolution. Major leaps in technology are helped by the discovery initiative and Autonomous Collective, groups dedicated to improving life for all.

Most floors in the lower levels do not see sunlight, and are either dark or illuminated by artificial lighting. Stars are not seen by most except at the highest levels. Some claim that they have peered outside the Afterlife and seen other structures in the distance, believed to be other superstructures. These rumours are unconfirmed. Nobody to date has made it to another Afterlife.