Modern Heaven and Modern Hell.
Heaven and Hell represent the two polar opposite forms of society, government, and conduct. However, they both represent perfect solutions, while the Real Plane, which I will call Earth for simplicity’s sake, represents the failure to choose one solution or the other.
Heaven is the perfect communist state. There is no such thing as property, and gods are known to sleep in random houses or outside or whatever. There is also no currency; all trade is done just as trade. Although Nisuna is the honorary “leader” of Heaven, she is only a spokeswoman for the most part, and otherwise has relinquished all her ruling powers. In the past, Heaven was not this way, and it has taken several billion years to reach this state.
The architecture of Heaven is very simple, consisting of little pod-houses resting on clouds. Each house accomodates a couple families. They are roughly arranged in circles, but towns are very ill-defined. There are a few old palaces that are now largely used as museums or amphitheaters.
Because there is almost no leadership, it falls on everyone to act responsibility out of their own good will. That is, they choose to be good because there is no reason to be bad. Punishment does exist, mostly for angels (which will be discussed later), but it is in the form of community service.
Heaven emphasizes independence and self-expression. The gods have different talents and many only have mutual respect in common. This is considered totally okay.
Heaven is, in its own way, absolutely perfect. Every one is equal and satisfied.
Hell is the exact opposite. Hell is the perfect fascist state. It is ruled with an iron fist by Queen (or Empress) Faxuda, generally considered to be the Devil. She is actually a very complex character and has an interesting love-hate relationship with Nisuna. All responsibility for Hell rests in her hands, so she spends most of the day making decisions in the interest of the state. Because she does not make decisions selfishly, there is no corruption, and everyone is equal under the law. Education is completely regular and no one comes out smarter or stupider than anyone else.
Punishment is extremely severe and deters demons from committing crimes. Thus, the demons act in accordance with moral law because of fear of punishment rather than out of their own good will. Most of the work-camps are for the punishment in the normal sense that we would imagine bad people going to Hell to be punished. However, the punishment is not torture for torture’s sake, just really, really hard work that generates the power for the enormous city-towers.
In Hell, the demons live in very tall, spire-laden hexagonal towers. Each tower can house several hundred thousand demons and can be many kilometers tall. Each level serves a distinct purpose, but everyone lives in equal quarters except for Faxu, who lives in a giant citadel in the capital city.
Economy-wise, every person is alloted a certain quota of the total production. Again, there is no money because there is no need to have it (since everyone gets the same stuff in the end).
Hell emphasizes organization and efficiency. Every demon has a particular role, and the fulfillment of this role is necessary for the proper operation of Hell.
Thus, Hell is also perfect in its own way, and the demons are rather happy living there.
Now we come to Earth. Earth is composed of creatures that are essentially half-god and half-demon. So what do they produce? They produce republics, democracies, monarchies. They can approach Heaven and Hell but never quite succeed since they waver.
Evil and corruption can be explained as the clash between the god-like tendencies and the demon-like tendencies.
Governments tend to be intermediate; when there is a move towards greater governmental power and regulation, people insist on the need for independence and self-expression; when there is a move towards less government influence, people insist on the need for a regular law that prevents unequal rights and decreases the gaps in education, wealth, etc.
Humans have conceptions of Heaven and Hell but cannot decide which is better. Both would be perfect, yet humans find both to be unsatisfactory. They wish to have everything, and because of that, they sacrifice stability. Thus, the human world is always in constant change.
Note that both Heaven and Hell, as ideals, have been largely achieved by other organisms besides humans. Many algae exhibit Heaven-type communism among the semi-independent cells, while many insects exhibit Hell-type fascism. The cells of a human being are fascist to a rather alarming degree.
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