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I had made a thread talking about a similar topic a while back.
I don't think Starfinder was a glimmer in anyone's eye yet, so the responses I got were understandably vague. I think the closest we got to a definitive answer was that it was one Great Beyond with an infinite number of planes. Except, there are either an infinite number of LG realms, only one of which is Heaven, or there's one Heaven that constantly reskins itself depending on the observer (not sure which of those two it was ultimately supposed to be). Regardless, it was entirely a theoretical issue.
Well, now strange new worlds, new life and new civilizations are part and parcel of the game, so I feel that this topic bears repeating, as well as having additional questions added.
Does every civilization out there have the same afterlife? No matter which of a thousand thousand worlds a mortal comes from, does he go to Pharasma's Spire and then to one of the same nine destinations as someone from the Golarion star system? Or are there multiple Great Beyonds (or, more in keeping with what was suggested in the last thread, multiple afterlifes concurrent but separate within the same Great Beyond)?
No matter which is the case, it raises further questions.
Supposing that multiple civilizations result in multiple separate sets of afterlifes within the Great Beyond...
Are multiple afterlife sets aware of each other? Does Pharasma know that she's sharing her spire with whoever judges, say, Kryptonians when they die?
What determines which afterlife a mortal goes to? If a Kryptonian gets sent to the Golarion star system and later dies, does he get judged within the afterlife he's aware of (the Great Beyond and Pharasma) or the afterlife of his people? What if he becomes aware of both? Who chooses?
Supposing that everyone everywhere has the same afterlife...
What about civilizations that inherently wouldn't have the same ideas about what happens after death?
Is there room in the Great Beyond for such places as Sto-Vo-Kor and Gre'thor? Or the Divine Treasury and the Vaults of Eternal Destitution?
Do those places exist elsewhere in the Maelstrom, alongside but separate from Nirvana, Abaddon, etc.? Are they places within the realms identified by the inhabitants of the Golarion system (Gre'thor maybe being an Abyssal realm or the Divine Treasury being in Axis)?
If it's only one afterlife, why does every culture and civilization inexplicably have the same beliefs and so forth? Granted, the fact that these deities (well, in Starfinder, the new pantheon) actually exist would inform some of this, but that raises the specific question I posed in the last thread.
Whether they're still in the pantheon or not, we do know that multiple principle deities in the Great Beyond come from Golarion specifically. Why only there? Shouldn't there be other ascended deities from other worlds? Even given the Drake Equation, the sheer overwhelming number of civilizations out there means that we should still eventually see someone like Beelzespock, patron deity of logic and fascination from the planet 40 Eridani.
Maybe dead aliens encountered by Golarion planes-travelers are only seen in the same spiritual bodies that everyone in that realm has, but that doesn't explain planes-traveling aliens. Of course, maybe planes-traveling mortals from other worlds can get lost in the background from the perspective of planes-travelers from the Golarion star system (any given plane in the afterlife is, after all, infinite), but they should be aware of the higher-up principle deities from other worlds.
...
Of course, it's logistically impossible to give all the thousand separate afterlifes (or all the thousand multiple cultures' contributions to the same afterlife, whichever Starfinder ends up going with) the coverage they'd be due. Perfectly understandable, but that's an out-of-universe answer.
So I suppose the real question I'm asking in all the above rambling is what the plausible, in-universe reason will be behind the afterlife only representing what the people from the Golarion star system would be familiar with.
Abadar seems to have the Divine Treasury covered, although probably less tacky than the one DS9 fans may be familiar with (or maybe not -- would be hilarious if a non-believer -- or even a believer who somehow had their blinders suppressed -- managed to get in there and found out that the First Vault is actually mostly filled with glitzy garbage).
Can't think off the top of my head who covers the Vault of Eternal Destitution.
Gorum probably covers Sto-Vo-Kor; not sure off the top of my head who covers Gre'Thor.
If you want a real puzzle, where do REALLY WEIRD non-Humanoid life forms' souls end up? Consigning them all to the Maelstrom and the Deep Abyss seems unsatisfying . . . .
Dot.
Roleplaying in the afterlife has never been a thing, outside of real oddball things such as GhostWalk, unless someone was playing White Wolf's Wraith: The Oblivion. Or SJG's French game about Angels and Demons walking the Earth.
This goes double for Sci-Fi, which usually does not mix gods, divine magic, or the afterlife into it's mix. (Remember we're not really given any objective proof that Sto-Vo-Kor is anything more than a delusion brought up by cultural upbringing.)
I don't have any proof of this being done, but it would seem kind of a missed opportunity if you didn't get some afterlife RP in PlaneScape.
I kind of think it's the other way around. It's not that the other places don't exist... they just aren't really detailed because they're less relevant to a given game. You can't develop EVERYTHING, so you develop what's most likely to come up. Also because of the way the afterlife system works in Pathfinder, and that personal identity isn't always a thing...
I get that. It's just that even when Pathfinder wasn't space-focused, it was still begging the question. And now Starfinder will be space-focused, so it needs an in-universe answer even more. The idea of deities and afterlife realms being dependent on the planes-traveler is a plenty serviceable in-universe explanation. But if that's what Paizo ultimately goes with, I think something to that effect needs to actually be said in the Starfinder Core Rulebook.
Well, the outer planes are infinite is size right? Couldn't it be possible that all the LG afterlives are in the same place, just massively spread out just like the planets in the material plane?
I know this doesn't answer all your questions but it would at least mean we're still dealing with roughly the same number of afterlives, as opposed to millions of different planes.
Looks like the "Races" table for reincarnate definitely needs updating for Starfinder.
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Years later, I still think my original answer from that older thread is pretty good:
This actually comes up in The Redemption Engine as well. (Aliens and the planes in one of my novels? Shocking, I know.)
Another way to think about this is that Heaven and the other planes are sort of "instanced," to borrow an MMO term. Heaven isn't just a place--it's also a concept, and thus its physics are malleable and naturally accommodate the observer. In order for humanoid (or alien) brains to comprehend it, it has to sort of squish itself down into a shape we can perceive and understand. So is the mountain so huge you could never reach the top, or is it something you could walk up in a day? The answer is to both questions is yes. Similarly, the lawful good realm we call Heaven accommodates all creatures and societies that need it, but must therefore take shapes as varied as all the cultures of the universe. So Heaven is at once the Heaven of Golarion and ALSO all other Heavens put together.
As Jacobs said, so far, all of our setting material has detailed the "Golarion" interpretation of Heaven, but that's only because alternate versions aren't really as useful for our game. (And also because detailing and mapping alternate versions of a near-infinite realm is a sucker's game.) If you want to include a different version, such as from the real world or another game system--go for it! Our assumption is that all of those exist as user-specific aspects of the same intangible, unclassifiable concept-realm.
Confused yet? If so, don't worry. As has often been said, whether or not you believe in this interpretation of Heaven... it believes in you. :D
*Seriously considering visiting Heaven - or any of the celestial realms, really - to see what happens*
Well, as long as they don't explode...
Years later, I still think my original answer from that older thread is pretty good:
This actually comes up in The Redemption Engine as well. (Aliens and the planes in one of my novels? Shocking, I know.)
Another way to think about this is that Heaven and the other planes are sort of "instanced," to borrow an MMO term. Heaven isn't just a place--it's also a concept, and thus its physics are malleable and naturally accommodate the observer. In order for humanoid (or alien) brains to comprehend it, it has to sort of squish itself down into a shape we can perceive and understand. So is the mountain so huge you could never reach the top, or is it something you could walk up in a day? The answer is to both questions is yes. Similarly, the lawful good realm we call Heaven accommodates all creatures and societies that need it, but must therefore take shapes as varied as all the cultures of the universe. So Heaven is at once the Heaven of Golarion and ALSO all other Heavens put together.
As Jacobs said, so far, all of our setting material has detailed the "Golarion" interpretation of Heaven, but that's only because alternate versions aren't really as useful for our game. (And also because detailing and mapping alternate versions of a near-infinite realm is a sucker's game.) If you want to include a different version, such as from the real world or another game system--go for it! Our assumption is that all of those exist as user-specific aspects of the same intangible, unclassifiable concept-realm.
Confused yet? If so, don't worry. As has often been said, whether or not you believe in this interpretation of Heaven... it believes in you. :D
Question: isn't this not the same thing as James's answer, though?
I think I understand James 's response in the other thread as saying that the Great Beyond is so big that even when a LG realm such as Heaven is larger than the universe, it is still hilariously puny compared to the Great Beyond. Ergo, there are an infinite number of LG realms, sitting alongside but separate from each other.
Your answer, on the other hand, seems to be that it's just one Heaven that continually reskins itself according to the observer.
Those seem to be mutually exclusive.
To put it another way, which interpretation of Heaven believes in me? The one that sits alongside its brethren, each believing in their own source culture, or the one that instances itself for all?
So like I said above, while it was fine as a hypothetical in the last thread when it didn't matter so much, now that Starfinder will be begging the question more, shouldn't this be hashed out? And if so, which way?
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I think I understand James 's response in the other thread as saying that the Great Beyond is so big that even when a LG realm such as Heaven is larger than the universe, it is still hilariously puny compared to the Great Beyond. Ergo, there are an infinite number of LG realms, sitting alongside but separate from each other.
Your answer, on the other hand, seems to be that it's just one Heaven that continually reskins itself according to the observer.
Those seem to be mutually exclusive.
Serious question: how could you tell the difference?
Serious question: how could you tell the difference?I think I understand James 's response in the other thread as saying that the Great Beyond is so big that even when a LG realm such as Heaven is larger than the universe, it is still hilariously puny compared to the Great Beyond. Ergo, there are an infinite number of LG realms, sitting alongside but separate from each other.
Your answer, on the other hand, seems to be that it's just one Heaven that continually reskins itself according to the observer.
Those seem to be mutually exclusive.
By being a space traveler who's been exposed to enough different cultures to have multiple views of Heaven.
Mr. Sutter's explanation easily accommodates such a person. Say you have Kal-Ul, originally from Krypton, who was born and raised in the Golarion mindset, but later does enough space-traveling to become familiar with not only his own people's idea of Heaven, but Heaven according to other cultures as well. Whether dying or merely planes-traveling, if he goes to Heaven, it will be the same Heaven as everyone else up there, but reskinned to accommodate his view of what it would look like (and it wouldn't matter whether his view of Heaven remained solely the Golarion view, or a hybrid of it and the Kryptonian view, or a hybrid of everything he's ever encountered). Which means that if the love of his life, the Pathfinder Society field agent Lois Lard, were to die, he could planes-travel to Heaven and, even if his view of Heaven was influenced by more cultures than hers, he'd still be able to find her up there. It's just that she would see him standing next to an Absalom cafe, and he'd see her as floating among asteroids between two warm suns or some such.
Mr. Jacob's view paints a different picture. The Golarion Heaven is one universe-sized speck on the Great Beyond, the Kryptonian Heaven is another, the Tamaranian Heaven another, etc. They would be separate places, populated by the members of the culture that has the worldview that corresponds to that Heaven, but no others. So if Lois Lard were to be dead in this scenario, he wouldn't be able to just planes-travel to any given Heaven to see her, he'd have to find the specific one she went to. And it still begs the question of where he'd end up if/when he died. Kryptonian Heaven? Golarion Heaven? Some weird amalgam Heaven specifically created for the rare beings that have traveled his specific travels and have his view of what Heaven would actually be? I mean, sure, the Great Beyond is big enough that, theoretically, every single individual on every single world at every time from Creation to the End could have his own specific universe-sized Heaven, but considering that some of them are known to be populated by multiple people, ending up in one with a population of just you would be pretty noticeable.
If these places were only visitable upon death, it wouldn't matter. However, because these places can be observed by living people who can compare notes when they get back, I think it's kind of important to hash out just what those notes would be.
The Outer Planes are as much ideas as places. XD It's entirely possible that they're both, and it's still pretty hard to know if there's a difference if it adjusts itself based on the viewer...
I feel like this thread needs more uses of the word "quantum".
My belief is that aliens have souls like everyone else, they'd just see everyone in say, Heaven, as a member of their species. If a kasatha went to another plane after they died, they'd see all the humanoid outsiders and petitioners as kasatha as opposed to humans.
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*clears throat*
Ahem:
quantum
Muwahahahaha! ...And that's probably the best answer we're going to get for quite some time. ^^
It seems to me it would be a bit like a virtual reality wonderland.
Say a society has developed virtual reality, and everyone has access to their own VR world that overlays the "real" world.
They all still interact.
In your version you are shooting a rocket launcher, where in their world you are casting fireball. The systems integrate the interaction between the two and negotiate the outcome before providing that stimulus to both parties.
You might buy something from someone in your "gold pieces" but they receive their "credits".
Of course this would leave some interesting cases that would be great adventure fodder:
What happens when the systems agree in a conflict and the result is player a gets locked out?
What happens when hackers start to learn how to force negotiations? Is there a "police force"(/investigative troubleshooter team) that cleans up errors in the interactions?
What happens when you get "unplugged" -- is there a universal norm? How does your reality get picked? Can you jump realities?
NSFWRomantically Apocalyptic is a dystopian example of this sort of world. NSFW!