Second World

The Second World is the hypothetical life-after-life purported to follow expiration, and belief in it is among the most widespread in Zadol. This belief exists in some form in nearly every culture, though accounts of its nature vary. The central claim is that a kangu or tixi who expires does not remain in Zadol as a stretched-thin, unconscious being, but passes into a second life that is usually believed to last one life-cycle.

Although no evidence for the second world exists, belief in it remains widespread, shaping end-of-life customs, ethics, and attitudes toward expiration across much of the World Union, despite its official discouragement by the Qenza under the state-atheist doctrine of equalism.

Core belief

As a result of the First Convergence, the kanguya and their descendants cannot be killed by injury and can heal from any wound. A kangu may live for approximately 720 life-cycles before expiring, and a tixi for approximately 72. For many, expiration is an unavoidable event that cannot be hastened or delayed. The Second World is understood as expiration's counterpart: a life that can end, in a body that does not regenerate.

Most traditions share three beliefs: expiration marks a transition into the Second World rather than the end of an individual's existence; the second life is short, roughly one life-cycle, and mortal; and the person remembers little or nothing of their first life. Other aspects of the Second World vary among traditions.

Major interpretations

Judgment

In the judgment tradition, the second life is understood as a form of reckoning. A person's conduct during their first life, extending over centuries or millennia, determines the character of their second life. Traditions differ on the nature of this judgement, which may be attributed to a deity, ancestors or universal physical laws. In some versions, the second life offers peace as a reward or serves as correction for harm committed during the first life. This view is common in regions with a strong tradition of written moral law. Because those subject to judgement have lived for such extended periods, the tradition places particular emphasis on conduct in later life and on whether an individual can fundamentally change.

Cyclic change

The cyclical view holds that the second life, sometimes called the next life, resembles the first and leads into subsequent lives, potentially without end. According to this view, individuals live as kangu or tixi in each successive world. Some cyclical traditions instead regard the second life as an interval before an eventual return to the first world.

Pre-Convergence return

A smaller body of belief ties the Second World to the First Convergence. In this view, the Second World is the world before the Convergence, and the second life is a brief return to the condition of the former human race that the Convergence destroyed. Expiration, in which a person's energy is released as light, is interpreted as a miniature version of the Convergence, and the individual returns to the state in which humans existed before the Convergence.

Annihilation

The annihilation view holds that the second life is the final stage of existence or that the Second World is a state of total entropy. According to this interpretation, the person ceases to exist when the second life ends. Adherents regard this prospect as consoling: an individual who has lived for hundreds of life-cycles is granted one finite, irreplaceable life before the end of existence. They argue that only in a mortal life do choices carry real weight.