Excerpts from the Rand McNally Atlas (Hades Edition)

​

Geography: Hades is roughly divided into two major areas – one being a large continent traversed by six major rivers; the other half is Oceanus, which was originally thought to be a river itself, but is actually, as its name implies, an ocean. In it are several land masses that are too small to be continents, but larger than mere islands. They include Elysia (actually an archipelago) where the gods or the Old Ones live, and Tartarus where incurable criminals are kept.  Elysia has a climate and landscape that resembles the southern Mediterranean or the Caribbean on Earth, and Tartarus closer to that of Earth’s Antarctica. The big continent itself is temperate, with a somewhat narrow range of weather. Its great land mass, combined with particular subterranean features, creates its own weather which is uniformly well within the comfort range of humans, but generally cloudy and humid. There is just enough sun available to nourish a range of vegetation of the kind that flourishes in rain forests. The continent seems to expand at the rate of its population growth, which would be impossible under the terms of physics on Earth. In that way, it mirrors the expansion of the universe itself

​

Flora and Fauna: Naturally, humans (or post-humans) are the predominate “life” form in the animal kingdom on Hades; it was, after all, formed from their consciousness. There is one other vertebrate species that live there, however – dolphins. This explains Henry Ford’s physiognomy in his return to Earth in the book, Leeram in Fordlandia. Dolphins live in the rivers and also in Oceanus. The rest of the various life forms in Hades include fish and small creatures with primitive neural systems that exist simply as a means to pollinate various plants. They also can be cooked and make a tasty source of protein for Hadeans when prepared properly.  As for the plant kingdom in Hades, an edible and life-sustaining plant called asphodel grows profusely everywhere. Even the ancient writers here on Earth described asphodel. Over thousands of years, variants of asphodel were developed in Hades, creating “grapes” and other fruits that provided variety to the original diet, not to mention alcohol. 

​

Seasons: Essentially, since the axis that Hades revolves around is exactly perpendicular to its orbit, there are none. The temperature at the meridian is tropical and it grows more temperate to the north and south. The poles (both in Oceanus and therefor on the water) are permanently frozen and (we think) uninhabited. Approximately half the planet is habitable by bipedal mammals. The number and proportion of dolphins is unknown at this time.

​

Rivers: There has been some disagreement in human history on their number and names; The main ones are –

​

1.      The Styx                           The largest one, similar to the Amazon

2.      The Acheron                     More like the Mississippi, with vast arable lands all around

3.      The Lethe                          Eminates forgetfulness, essential for sanity

4.      The Phlegethon                 Lava hot. Source of minerals such as iron ore inland

5.      The Cocytus                      Fast current, narrow and rocky shores. Waterfalls                

6.      The Eridanus                     Desert on both sides, famous for spices

​

Wikipedia has five, but it’s wrong. There are several minor rivers and their tributaries as well, but these are the primary ones. Their other characteristic is that they occasional change their courses, over-spilling their banks. They can wander, sometimes close and sometimes distant from each other, much like tiny rivulets trickling down a dusty slope – but much, much larger. The Eridanus is the most rootless, and the Phlegethon is as hot as volcanic magma. There was much disagreement about them among the ancients. Homer, despite the fact that he had briefly visited the place with his hero Ulysses, had a very gloomy impression (giving the rivers human characteristics like “river of hate, sorrow, lamentation” etc.  Homer writes: “There into Akheron (Acheron) flow Pyriphlegethon and Kokytos (Cocytus), which is a branch of the water of the Styx”; It is an example of the inaccuracies to be found in his writing, since the Phlegethon is terribly hot and its mingling with the Cocytus would have been an explosive event, which he makes no note of. Plato on the other hand, heavily influenced by Orphism, rightly imagined a much more habitable place. As it turned out, Plato’s vision was closer to reality. Other depictions of Hades come from painted vases, pottery and other artworks created during ancient times on Earth – mostly inaccurate, I’m sorry to say.

​

The Capital City of Hades is called Minos. The oldest district in Minos is called Tsolido, named after a holy burial site back on Earth, in a country there called Botswana on the African continent. The earthly Tsolido consists of a group of four hills; the very first settlers of Hades came from Tsolido. Here, Minos grew exponentially as more and more former humans settled there from other parts of Earth as Homo Sapiens multiplied and spread. Minos now contains thousands of administrative buildings, schools and housing complexes. It also contains a faithful and greatly enlarged recreation of the Library of Alexandria. Over time many newer sub-capitals were developed around the Hadean world. They all answer to Minos and are connected by links available only to the Old Ones and the Authorities.

​

The Old Ones: the original settlers in Hades are known as the Old Ones. They are everyone who arrived from the beginning of Hadean time to roughly the age on Earth of the Sumerians, Egyptians and early Greeks. When the Romans finally began to arrive, the Old Ones decided to form a ruling class for their own survival. Conflict and their victory followed, and the governing system they built is still in force.

​

The Authorities enforce the will of the Old Ones. (literally “Exousia” in ancient Greek, which is their official language). The Old Ones have trained and deputized the Authorities, who carry out their wishes Since they never reached physical maturity on Earth, children who die there remain children then they arrive in Hades. Their minds, however, mature. Some of them are thousands of years old and have a very disconcerting way of combining great wisdom in the bodies of pre-adolescents. This makes them the perfect cadre to enforce the rules devised by the Old Ones. They hold an eerie but effective command over their putative elders.

​

Health: After the molecular scrambling and complete dissolution that occurs to the body when passing through a wormhole into Hades, humans are reassembled in perfect working order and to the peak physical condition they were capable of in earthly life at the time of their death. Children, as mentioned, can’t physically grow beyond that. There are no serious diseases in Hades, so doctors are reduced to treating injuries, even injuries that would have been fatal on Earth such as drowning, being crushed flat as a pancake in a landslide or burning to a crisp in the Phlegethon. One doesn’t age in Hades, a fact that, once truly assimilated in the mind, often causes insanity. The human brain can’t really process the idea of eternity. The river Lethe’s capacity to cause forgetfulness is essential in Hades for sanity – the ability to function at all. To forget is to be happy. Memories are to be avoided unless their absence creates practical problems for existence.

​

Hadean Technology:  The Old Ones faced a major challenge over a century ago, (Earth calendar).  As people arrived, they brought with them the technology they were familiar with, and starting with the Renaissance, that technology had been accelerating.

The Old Ones, disturbed by the modern world, and with their long view of things, decided to artificially freeze technological development in Hades at a level roughly analogous to the middle of the 19th Century on Earth. They drew that line when they were convinced that anything past it would threaten their dominance. This meant that they would only allow some limited forms of agriculture and technology. There was already an abundance of food for sustenance, (if not flavor) in the great fields of asphodel, which grows naturally everywhere in Hades. Even the Greeks knew about it. The Old Ones, through the Authorities, allowed farmers to grow certain other crops like grapes and selected fruits. Fish were available and small animals could be raised, hunted or trapped for meat. The Authorities also permitted the fermentation of wine and beer, the mining and smelting of iron – even a mild form of steel – and the technology of steam power. Yet they forbade a much older technology -- anything involving explosives (which eliminates guns, cannons, and rockets -- and also the internal combustion engine). The means of instant communication over long distances was only allowed between the Old Ones and the Authorities.

​

Language: Very early on, the Authorities realized that there would be an insurmountable problem in governing Hades as more and more people arrived speaking only their individual native tongues, so a common way of communicating had to be developed. At first, they tried to impose their own – a version of ancient Greek – but as the “source” world developed and atomized linguistically on Earth, it became too difficult to teach everyone the same language. At around that point, Hadean technicians manning the entry ports discovered a way to implant an algorithm into the neural pathways in the temporal lobe of the forebrain at the moment of “rebuilding” that everyone goes through when being reassembled in the Hades end of the wormhole. They were, after all, being recreated to the finest condition that their old bodies were capable of achieving. Adding the ability to instinctively understand languages other than one’s own was easy.

​

Art: The most basic human urge to create art was brought to Hades intact. It was impossible for the Authorities to control, even if they had wanted to. Art has flourished in Hades in all its forms, from painting and sculpture to music, drama, dance and literature. As mentioned, that perfect replica of the Library of Alexandria was built at the same time the old one was destroyed. It has been added to and expanded ever since. It is now a vast cultural center, containing everything from visual art to theaters for drama and music, not to mention studios for the creation of all kinds of art. It is the center of learning in all Hades. Its crowning jewel, the University of Hades is there. Here and there, along the rivers, are smaller versions of that library.

​

This is the stage in which “The Queen of the Styx” takes place. The gods, known as Old Ones and the planet of Hades itself, were created directly by the sheer weight and force of human imagination going back to the first human societies on Earth some 50,000 years ago when the idea of an afterlife was first dawning among homo sapiens. They never physically existed on Earth. The result was that gods in Elysium were constantly being created and superseded by newer gods. Since they are all immortal the first ones slowly lose their influence to the newer ones, giving reign to class differences among them. Zeus and Yahweh  now rotate leadership,