{Shimmerverse} Souls and the Afterlife

The Soul. The Afterlife. Both are aspects of life and death itself when looking at the old scriptures of ancient religious scholars. They were the best 'guess' the ancestors of all sapients on Equis had. There were many discussions, arguments, and even conflicts over these ideas and how they are applied to the self and the world around them.

Do sapients have souls? Do non-sapients have souls? What is a soul? What happens when we die?

There were many claims about this and many old religions described exactly what they thought they were.

However, due the emergence of 'True' gods, this discussion was, for the most part, put to rest. Added with the procession of magical and scientific understanding, we have been able to understand what is a soul.

What we consider a ‘soul’ is nothing more then life energy. This life energy pervades every living thing. Scientists and magical students can use energy readings to determine the energy output of every living thing. This energy is non-thinking and isn’t alive in any sense of the term. Living beings are simply using this energy to keep themselves alive. Most of these energies come from the Realm of Life, while there are some exceptions to this of course.

This energy is maintained by the body through eating and slumber. It’s used when one is exerting their body through training or the simple act of living. Once a form ceases to live, this energy leaves the body and is usually cultivated by spectres of death or the gods themselves.

This leads to the concept of the afterlife. While the ‘soul’ in some manner or form has been confirmed, a conscious afterlife has not. To the contrary, it has been proved to be a false claim more often than not made by theocracies.

The actual happenstance is that consciousness ends with death. While the energy itself can take in information from the deceased, it’s coherence will swiftly decay. Which is why if one wishes to save a dead being or recreate a body of sorts for them, they have a short window of between an hour to twenty-hours to do so, depending on the individuals and species.

Keeping a conscious soul intact isn’t so well practiced and is only done is certain aspects, such as keeping certain individuals alive for reasons of country importance or another.

The receding soul energy is then taken/finds its way to Tartarus where it is watched over by underworld deities. While the energies themselves are not conscious, it is still possible to take and discern memories and information wherever possible. Though much can be lost over time. The usage of soul energy is strictly prohibited and is seen as an evil act that will, in most cases, earn the death penalty.

There are of course ghosts and other such creatures that are technically living after death, but these are special cases more often than not created by outside forces or in certain areas.

A conscious afterlife by many ponies is seen as abhorrent as a majority believe that death is the final being and that eternity afterwards would be maddening. There are sometimes references to afterlives by some ponies, but it is mostly just customary and products of ancient belief systems that have eroded over time.

Again, in certain circumstances, it has been recorded that souls can linger around family members for some time but these are incredibly rare cases as said before, under certain circumstances. A majority of which because of said families high magic or other realm usage.

Valkyrie and some other beings will quickly take the best of the fallen warriors and store them in the city of Valhalla where they can be called upon to live again, stored by the gods in ways that keep them from deteriorating, and fight once more.

So in final conclusion, soul energy is for the most part not living itself and the consciousness of it quickly deteriorates after death. There are methods and circumstances that can circumvent this, but they are few and far in between, partially because of the difficulties and partially because many choose not to.