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Author Topic: Elysium  (Read 3562 times)

Offline Abomine

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Elysium
« on: July 04, 2014, 03:55:16 AM »
This isn't quite a 'story' per se, but it's a fictional world that came up with one day after pondering the idea of Impressive Title servers / FeralHeart, and trying to go even further with the idea of a virtual world full of humans as animal avatars. I tried to make an rp out of it, but it died quickly, I'm afraid. I'm thinking of making a story out of this, but I'm not sure where to go from here.

It's kind of long, just to warn y'all.


"Thousands of years ago, when the universe was young, Humans were a wise and peaceful people who used their ecologically sound, superior technology (far superior to our world's current technology) to live in harmony with their planet, using their homeworld's natural resources with wisdom and restraint.

'But Humankind was not always this way. They were once a divided and warlike race, squabbling and waging war over their planet's quickly diminishing supply of fossil fuel. Near global disaster finally brought them to their senses and so began their long, arduous ascent to a state of prosperity and peace. Earth's world leaders, ashamed of their people's savage past and eager to start the human race anew with a 'clean slate', had all records of Mankind's violent history destroyed. History books, documentaries, and religious texts were burned, and in a few generations, Mankind's unsavory past was soon forgotten.

'This was the Human race's ultimate downfall. Their peace and prosperity were relatively short-lived, and because their past had been forgotten, history began to repeat itself. Ancient nuclear wars began anew, and only a small handful of humans survived this new holocaust.

'These surviving humans set about rebuilding their destroyed empire, and as a safeguard in case of failure, they created a computer program out of their surviving technology called Elysium, so that all humans who have died, even 2 million years ago or two seconds ago, could be reincarnated into the virtual world of Elysium as Souls, taking on the forms of different animals according to their personalities as humans.

'Elysium was built to be a final paradise for the Human race, a place free of sorrow, anger, and war, but the program was tainted by human nature. A human's capacity for cruelty combined with an animal's capacity for violence is a dangerous concoction...

Facts/Rules of Elysium:

Elysium is the idealized human vision of the Natural World, filled with snow-capped mountains, forests, jungles, lakes, oceans, and frozen tundras. As a reminder of the humans who created this world, various mysterious ruins are scattered throughout Elysium. The average Soul, not having any memories/knowledge of its past life or of humans in general, merely accepts these ruins as part of the scenery, but those few Souls who still retain memories of their lives as humans may feel inexplicable emotions of fear, anger, or sadness in the presence of a ruin. Their human memories may also become more vivid if they are within close range of a ruin.

Souls have no physical need to eat or drink, but may do so and cause no harm to their person. Elysium is rich with many species of edible fruits, vegetables, grasses, leaves, and nuts.

Souls cannot become sick, but they are mortal and can die of old age, just like animals in our world. Their lifespans are accurate to their species, for example: a mouse's lifespan, when in good care and free of illness, may reach up to three years. An elephant under the same conditions can live up to 80 years. When Souls die due to natural causes, their bodies do not 'decay' in the traditional sense, but rather 'fade' or 'melt' into the ground like snow or dew.
When Souls die of natural causes and their bodies 'fade', they are reincarnated, either as a different species of animal, or as the same animal species, but born in a different family.

Souls can fall in love, mate, and produce fertile offspring. Even Souls who are different animals (for example, a gibbon and an iguana), can mate and produce fertile offspring, because they were both human, and because they are digital Souls instead of physical flesh-and-blood creatures, the earthly laws of procreation and anatomy do not apply. They also do not 'mate' in the same way that real animals of our world 'mate'. A special ceremony takes place, and the female becomes pregnant the next day. There is no sex in Elysium. Young born of an inter-species coupling tend to take after the female (for example, if the gibbon was a female and the iguana a male, the young would be baby gibbons, perhaps with iguana coloration and markings). However, hybrid young sometimes occur.

All babies born in Elysium are either reincarnated Souls or reincarnated humans. There are no exceptions to this rule.

Souls feel physical pain and they bleed, just like real animals of our world. If one Soul kills another out of self-defense, the killed Soul melts into the ground, just like a Soul that died of natural causes. If one Soul kills another out of vengeance, bloodlust, jealousy, or for any other 'impure/unjust' reason, different rules apply. If the Soul was killed for such reasons, the corpse of the Soul must be eaten down to the skeleton within 24 hours of the kill, or the corpse of the Soul will become a Wraith.

A Wraith is a toxic, foul-smelling demon that is an amplification and twisted caricature of all the flaws and negative emotions of the Soul that it used to be. For example, a Soul that was timid and/or had a low self esteem may make a sadistic, power-hungry, self-hating bully of a Wraith. A Soul that was selfish or greedy may become a corpulent, ravenous, gelatinous blob Wraith that devours everything in its path. Like Souls, Wraiths can be killed, but they must be killed as quickly as possible, for the hatred and wickedness of a Wraith will fester and boil, increasing it's power and causing the Wraith to become stronger. If a Soul sustains an injury from a Wraith, the wound must be treated within 24 hours or the injured Soul will become a Wraith as well.

When a Wraith is killed, it becomes a Soul again and is reincarnated just like any other normal Soul.

Eating the Soul's corpse as soon as it is killed is obviously the best course of action to prevent the spawning of Wraiths, but it is by no means the easiest or least painful. By eating the corpse, one sees and lives every memory and feels every emotion, good and bad, that the deceased has ever experienced, as a human or as a Soul. It is an excruciating ordeal, and some corpse-eaters even go mad from this process, but it allows the Soul to be reincarnated normally without ever having to become a Wraith.

This is why special corpse-eaters called Scavengers are sometimes employed to to deal with this issue. Scavengers are considered special because they are often of hardened minds and hardened hearts, more fit to deal with corpse-eating without being traumatized. They can also be called upon to slay Wraiths. Scavengers are treated equally with reverence and fear.

While the original creators of the program have been dead for thousands of years, they live on in Elysium as the Three Deities: Fabled Hare, Sacred Crow, and Ancient Turtle. They are rarely seen by the average Soul, and only on occasion by shamans or important religious figures, usually appearing in dreams. When appearing before the average Soul, they will typically take on a form that the Soul is comfortable with, usually their animal forms (though they can appear as any creature that they like, being shape-shifters). They rarely appear in God-Form, but when they do, they are said to look like ethereal bipedal apes; tail-less, hairless, and of a luminous blue-white glow. Images in their godly likenesses sometimes appear on the walls of the ruins.

Many theologian Souls, curious about the origins of their world (and most of them not possessing any recollection of their human pasts), dedicate their lives to the study of these ruins, leading to many heated disputes between religious groups and political leaders, such as to how to go about such studies, whether or not such study is sacrilegious, and whether or not revelations about the origins of Elysium would save, or destroy, their fragile world.

What would these theologians discover if they were to breach the veil of death separating Elysium from the Waking World that created it? Would they discover Humans as a race of gods reborn like the phoenix from the ashes, or a desolate wasteland as a terrible testament to the rise and fall of Mankind?

--------------------

The hills are aliiiiiiive with the sound of uzis...

Offline Husky

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Re: Elysium
« Reply #1 on: July 04, 2014, 05:30:05 AM »
Damn that was good.
You should totally make a story out of it omg.

Offline Abomine

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Re: Elysium
« Reply #2 on: July 05, 2014, 06:32:18 AM »
I'm glad you like it. I'm still trying to find a way to make it a story. I sometimes use my characters and send them off to go exploring and behave in-character (and rp, if I can find anybody who's interested) to try and get inspiration.

The hills are aliiiiiiive with the sound of uzis...