Heaven

## Description:

Heaven, or Paradise, Empyrean, etc. is the Paradise-Class Afterlife for the Catholic Church and associated Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Islam). Heaven consists of Nine (9) Heavenly Bodies, each of which is often associated with a planetary body within the antiquated geocentric astrological model of the Sol System. Heaven was created by God at the beginning of time and houses the most righteous of His mortal followers and his host of Angels.

The JPCU came into knowledge of Heaven via the Catholic Church long before the JPCU's official founding.

### Physical Description & Attributes:

According to Medieval scholars, predominantly Dante, Heaven is assorted into nine (9) Heavenly Bodies. The association between the Heavenly Bodies and the planets of the Sol System is theorized to stem from the incorrect geocentric model of the solar system; Heaven follows the geocentric model while the actual Sol System does not, leading scholars to attribute the original popularity (and Christian endorsement of) the geocentric model to a misunderstanding of the closeness of Heaven and the Material Realm spawned by the sheer power of mankind's collective belief. Heaven's size is unknown, but is theoretically around two hundred and eighty-seven billion (287,000,000,000) kilometers as a reflection of the actual Sol System.

Each of the Heavenly Bodies increases in its brightness, as do their inhabitants, as a reflection of that Body's proximity to God (the Ninth Heavenly Body). JPCU Personnel have been unable to determine the actual light levels present in Heaven, as the current understanding of the Realm places the Sun as only the fourth (4th) Body, implying that the other five (5) are brighter than even the Sun itself.

Access to Heaven is possible in a number of ways. The primary method of entrance is death whilst having been a righteous and Christian baptized person in life; those deemed worthy are brought up to Heaven (or through Purgatory after their sins are purged) after death. Living individuals can access Heaven via portals, powerful Pantheonic Magic, guidance by a divine spirit or Angel, or access through one of Heaven's adjacent/associated Realms (Purgatory, Hell, Sanguine Sea, etc.).

Weather patterns in Heaven change depending on the Heavenly Body, but the climate is said to remain the same; despite its similarity to space Heaven possesses an anomalous and "breathable atmosphere" throughout. Souls and Angels that inhabit Heaven do not have a need to breathe.

### Contained Locations of Note:

#### Moon:

According to Dante's accounts, the First Heavenly Body, that he claims was the Moon which orbits the Earth, is used in Heaven as the home of the Souls of the inconsistent, those who were righteous but still somehow abandoned their vows. Vows, according to this account, are defined as pacts between man and God, and should not be taken lightly unless keeping a vow poses a greater evil than breaking it. Like all other Heavenly Spheres, the Moon is said to glow with its own light, albeit less light than the other Bodies.

#### Mercury:

The Second Heavenly Sphere, associated with the planet Mercury, is reserved for the Souls of the ambitious; Mercury's close proximity to the Sun is said to represent this ambition in the Souls which inhabit the Sphere. According to Dante's account, Souls are sent to "Mercury" because they did good and acted righteously in life only out of a desire for fame and who were, as a result, deficient in the virtue of justice; their fame in life pales in comparison to the glory of God in Heaven just as Mercury pales in comparison to the Sun.

#### Venus:

The Third Heavenly Sphere, associated with Venus, is reserved for the Souls of great lovers who, in their righteousness and love, were deficient in temperance. Due to the Shadow of Earth casting itself partially on Venus, this Third Heavenly Body is described as open to temptation and easily corrupted by vice and love of things other than God.

#### Sun:

The Fourth Heavenly Body, associated with the Sun, is occupied by the Souls of the wise, those mortals who were prude, just, and temperate in life. This Sphere includes theologians, philosophers, and important political leaders.

#### Mars:

The Fifth Sphere is associated with the planet of Mars and is reserved for the Souls of the Crusaders, those followers of God who fought for their faith and gave their lives for God.

#### Jupiter:

The Sixth Heavenly Body, associated with Jupiter, is occupied by the Souls of righteous rulers and leaders throughout history. According to Dante's account, the Souls in this Sphere can form a psychic Hivemind with one another.

#### Saturn:

The Seventh Sphere, Saturn, is reserved for the Souls of the temperate and theologically-inclined. If Dante's account is to be believed, Saturn represents another major increase in the effects of the nearing proximity to God.

#### Fixed Stars:

The Eight Heavenly Body, the "Fixed Stars," are reserved for the Souls of the Saints and Church triumphant, those most holy and righteous clergy of the Catholic Church. The "Fixed Stars" exist in Heaven as a massive elliptical ring of Souls floating between Saturn and the final Heavenly Sphere, and were conflated with the "unmoving" stars of the night sky (as seen from Earth) in the geocentric solar model. The Virgin Mary and Apostles are located here.

#### Celestial Rose & Primum Mobile:

The Celestial Rose is a massive rose of planetary proportions, said to contain the Souls of the most righteous and worthy of God's followers (*Note: JPCU Personnel have obtained no corroborating evidence in support of this feature and believe that this is outright false; the Catholic Church also expresses uncertainty in this way*).

The Primum Mobile is a smaller ring of nine (9) concentric circles which God himself moves; each of the nine (9) circles is home to a particular rank of Angels. At its center sits the Empyrean, a vast region of space where God resides among several other entities; it is here that Empyrean Steel is forged by God and his most faithful servants from God's divine willpower. According to Dante's account, God appears as three (3) rings that each occupy the same space, representing the Holy Trinity (*Note: No corroborating evidence has been found as to this description; a likelier explanation is that God appears according to the individual's perceptions of him and not in a single, objective form*).

## History:

Heaven was created by God alongside the Material Realm at an unknown point in time near the beginning of the K2 Universe *(Note: Retroactive editing of the time-space continuum as a result of massive scale belief by sentient humanoids renders attempts at dating Heaven's creation useless*). There, he made the Angels. He then made Earth and everything in it, and he found it to be good. God, in all his insatiable bloodlust, created and destroyed untold numbers of Universes alongside his Angelic companion, [REDACTED]. Eventually, Satan approached God in protest of God's actions and [REDACTED]'s influence, sparking the creation of the Sanguine Sea and the downfall of [REDACTED].

### Heavenly Civil War:

After God banished [REDACTED] to the Sanguine Sea and watched as [REDACTED] corrupted the newly-formed Lilith, God was arguing with Satan. Satan had grown jealous of Jesus and had been vying for more power and attention in response, feeling bolstered by his success against [REDACTED]. As punishment for his pride, God created Hell and attempted to seal Satan away there, to no avail. In response, Satan used his increasing power to lift the inhibitions of Angels' free will, giving them the choice to join him in overthrowing God; over a third of God's Angels rose up in defiance of Satan's punishment, sparking a civil war in Heaven that concluded a short while later with Satan's defeat. The Angels that sided with Satan were cast into Hell and mutated into Demons, the Angels that sided with God were allowed to stay in Heaven, and those Angels that remained neutral in the conflict were banished to the Material Realm, Earth specifically, where they would intermingle with humans and form the Giants and other Pagan gods.

### War for the Solar System:

As belief in Judaism and early Christianity surged, mankind began affecting Heaven on a physical and metaphysical level. As mankind had been given limited insight into K2's cosmology, their meager technological understanding led mankind to misinterpret the geocentric model as accurate to the Material Realm instead of accurate to Heaven. As a result, this accidental combining of concepts fused Heaven with the Material Realm; the Nine (9) Heavenly Spheres became real, and were actually located on the planets with which they were associated. With the fabric of reality so thin, nigh-nonexistent, many strange and supernatural occurrences were allowed to occur freely; the practice of Magic surged in popularity and frequency, Demons ran rampant across the world, Spirits and Undead spawned from the deceased at random, Beastmen and Lycanthropes developed as random mutations across the world, and Vampires ran amuck. Despite the fact that mankind had pushed the Giants and Elves and other humanoid races far away from their expanding civilizations, Magic was still very present in day-to-day life.

However, this fusing of Heaven and the Material Realm provided a single benefit: it kept Earth safe from extraterrestrial horrors. For millennia prior, Earth had been subjected to countless visitations, invasions, incursions, and messages from alien races, groups, and entities; few such visitors came in peace, and many sought to abuse the tribal and unintelligent local human inhabitants for their resources and worship. Prior to the Middle Ages, Earth had attracted many such strange and eldritch creatures from beyond the limits of the Sol System, but now the solar system had an army of dedicated space-based defenders: God and his Angels. The divine forces fought against the Mi-Go, the Dardarian Dominion, and all the other invading alien forces with all their might, turning the edge of the solar system into a massive graveyard of dead Angels and obliterated alien spacecraft. This barrier was not impenetrable, however, and the forces of Heaven could not harm or directly impact the horrors and alien creatures that had already landed and made their home on Earth.

As science and technology among mankind developed, however, Heaven's presence in the Material Realm continued to fade. When the geocentric model fell out of popularity entirely, Heaven returned to its rightful place as a separate Realm in the K2 Universe. While a positive event orchestrated by the Great Martyrs and Heaven as a means of ensuring defined organization within the Realms of the Universe, this repairing of the Realms' boundaries placed Earth at risk of alien invasion once more...

### Death of God:

In 2035 CE, Heaven suffered its second (2nd) greatest loss: God, Jesus, Mary, the Apostles, and an untold number of Souls and Angels were all killed, beaten in combat by Database, a Champion of the Great Martyrs sent to punish God for his hubris and disobedience. According to the Great Martyrs, God had grown too comfortable in his seat as the leader of K2's Earth-based religions, and was beginning to push back against the Martyrs' authority; in response, they had him killed as an example to the other deities of K2. Following God's death, Heaven became too weak to properly function and, after the Demon Princes of Hell slew Satan on his throne in the City of Dis, fell to Demonic invasion a few years afterwards.