User blog:Holokami/Afterlife

Even in the Lumiverse, there is an afterlife. Although compared to the afterlife most envision, the afterlife of the Lumiverse is somewhat simple.

Types of Life
Before we understand the afterlife, we need to understand life. There are many forms of life in the Lumiverse that must first be understood:
 * Purely-Spiritual: Entities made purely life-force, spiritual force, and astral energies. These entities exist only in the Spiritual Realm, and are called basic spirits, although they sometimes float free of that realm and into other planes and realms. These spirit drift around the spirit realm for possibly eternity until they are "born" into a biological entity, giving it life, or possibly even a psychena.
 * Purely-Psionic: Entities made purely of psionic energy. These entities, otherwise known as "psychena" are birthed only in psychena, and can only be birthed by psychena. Although there have been cases of "self-assembled psychena", like Penelope.
 * Spirit-Psionic Hybrid: Entities formed from life-force, spiritual force, astral energies and psychic energy. Entities like these are typically the spirits of Astrala- spirits with minds, or psychena with souls/spirits. Although there are some that are just basic spirits with psychic energy thrown in the mix.
 * Spirit-Biological Hybrid: Biological entities infused with only life-force, spiritual force, and astral energies. Biological beings of pure instinct, single-cell life-forms, flora, and other "non-sentient" or purely instinctive life are great examples of this.
 * Psionic-Biological Hybrid: Biological entities infused with only psionic energy. There have yet to be any beings of this kind found.
 * Spirit-Psionic-Biological: Biological entities infused with life-force, spiritual force, astral energies and psychic energy. The most common life in the universe, humans, ae'ani, birds, insects, e.t.c.. Beings like this possess both minds and souls.

Start of Life
Now we know the types of life, how do they start? There are many ways, so let's look:
 * Purely-Spiritual: These entities are born at the heart of the spirit realm from pure life-force/spiritual force/astral energies.
 * Purely-Psionic: These entities are created in Psychena by Queen Filicia. They can be created by other psychena as well.
 * Spirit-Psionic Hybrid: There are three ways this occurs:
 * A basic spirit travels out of the spirit realm and begins gathering psychic energies, until eventually a mind is created within their spirit.
 * They are born from currently existing spirits of Astrala.
 * When a psychena is born, a basic spirit from the spirit realm is "born" into that psychena. This is incredibly rare, and can only happen outside of Psychena.
 * Spirit-Biological Hybrid: When a biological body is conceived, a basic spirit from the spirit realm is "born" into that body. It latches onto it as its new home, and gives it life, and becoming inseparable from it, it becomes it and grows and changes with it. This being isn't complex enough to develop a mind however. (Note: Basic spirits are blank canvases. They don't possess any personality, e.t.c. of their own, and only develop this as the being they become a part of develops those traits.)
 * Psionic-Biological Hybrid: When a biological being is complex enough to develop a mind, but for some reason, no basic spirit is born into it.
 * Spirit-Psionic-Biological: When a biological body is conceived, a basic spirit from the spirit realm is "born" into that body. It latches onto it as its new home, and gives it life, and becoming inseparable from it, it becomes it and grows and changes with it. This being is complex enough to develop a mind however. (Note: Basic spirits are blank canvases. They don't possess any personality, e.t.c. of their own, and only develop this as the being they become a part of develops those traits.)

Death
Death takes many forms depending on he type of being.
 * Purely-Spiritual: These entities do not die until all their life-force, e.t.c., has been absorbed back into the spirit realm, for another basic spirit to be born again, or they have been destroyed.
 * Purely-Psionic: These entities do not die unless they are destroyed.
 * Spirit-Psionic Hybrid: These entities either die of old age, as their life-force, e.t.c. fades away over time, or they are destroyed.
 * Spirit-Biological Hybrid: These entities can die in a number of ways: when their life-force fades away, their body and spirit are separated, their biological body dies, or they're destroyed.
 * Nearly all biological bodies will not last nearly nearly long enough to see a spirit death, but when it happens, the body will immediately die, as the beings spirit does.
 * When the body and spirit are separated, the body will die due to the loss of a major part of it, and the spirit will drift back into the spirit realm.
 * When the body of this being dies, the spirit will lose its latch to that being, and drift back into the spirit realm.
 * If the spirit, or body, or both are destroyed.
 * Psionic-Biological Hybrid: These entities can die in two ways:
 * When the body dies, the mind will just fade into psychic energy.
 * When he mind, or body, or both are destroyed.
 * Spirit-Psionic-Biological: This is the most complex death of them all. This being can die in all the same ways as the Spirit-Biological and Psionic-Biological beings. However, two things can happen after this:
 * The spirit immediately loses its latch to the body, and the connection between the mind and spirit isn't strong enough to maintain itself after a biological death, and the mind just fades away into psionic energy, leaving the spirit to drift back into the spirit realm.
 * The spirit immediately loses its latch to the body, and the connection between the mind and spirit is strong, allowing the being to remain "alive" after a biological death. However, parts of the mind may be lost during this death. However, that being now becomes a Spirit-Psionic hybrid, or a "ghost".

Afterlife
Now we can finally look at the two distinct forms of afterlife:

Return to the Spirit Realm:
When the spirit of being loses its latch a body, and the mind fades, it drifts back to the spirit realm as a basic spirit, retaining nothing of the being it was, except maybe a bit of emotion energy. That spirit then drifts around the spirit realm for thousands of years or more, unable to be "born" again, as it slowly fades back into life-force, e.t.c..

"Reincarnation"
On some very, very rare occasions, a basic spirit that returned from a being that died might be "reborn" into a new being, carrying with it trace emotions from the being it just came from. Those trace emotions might then amplify as the being grows, and thus can almost replicate the being they were before.

Becoming a Ghost
When a Spirit-Psionic-Biological being dies, and their spirit and mind have a strong enough connection to each other, they can survive the biological death of the body, and remain alive. However, parts of the mind may be lost during this transition, or the "new" being might take a long time to wake up again.