Closing voting later today.
Get any last minute votes and Omakes in by then please.
I don't know if there's been a post on this already, and if there has a link would be appreciated, but what is religion like in the Akashic Pillar? I can't tell if it's a theocracy or worships Gaia or is Christian or what.
Well, also need to remember that when god-like beings (or actual gods) can pop up and say "hi" things with religion probably got... weird.
I'm leery about entering into the whole religion discussion, but right now the only religious groups that are in any way functional on the world scene are those based around reincarnation and Christianity and their derivatives.
The former because pretty much nothing has really changed all that much for them, and Christianity because Pope Augustus DuLac X was one hell of a political badass that somehow managed to unite all of it's myriad factions as well as the World's super powers into the Great Crusade / Unification Crusade.
A thought occurred: Nations are still a thing, right? I mean, even if they technically dissolved all their governments to unite under one banner, nation borders serve a rather important purpose. There's a reason the US is subdivided into a bunch of states, instead of just being one massive chunk, after all.
The individual Nations dissolved themselves as independent entities. As a whole though the old 'borders' are all still there and have been turned into what amount to 'districts'. This serves several dozen purposes such as identifying specific origins like Rei is Japanese, while Anastasia is North American, specifically the 'Old States' region. An Asian could use the names of the old countries to pinpoint their exact origins to officials and friends that want to know.
The government itself is an eclectic mix from dozens of countries across the world. It started first as the "Royal Family and House of Commons' from Europe/Great Britain area and evolved from there.
Each continent has an 'Overseer' or 'Ruler' (mostly due to a lack of any ideas for fancy names from the people that set this shit up a.k.a. Author being a lazy ass) whos job is to regulate their continent. Going up from there, they answer to a council that are voted into office with five representatives from each continent that collectively decide the general direction that the Akashic Pillar is going to head. The 'Rulers' can serve their position for life, but can also be ousted for incompetence or general civilian disapproval called by a vote of those they oversee. The Council Members all serve for ten years and can only serve once. They can also be ousted for incompetence by either those they represent or fellow Council Members. Afterwards they lose the ability to vote and attempting to influence any voting after their term can lead to them getting arrested for 'Attempting to Inhibit the Free Will of Others'. Both Rulers and Councilmen are also unable to decide their own paychecks: instead they get paid what the people they represent think they should get paid, determined by a randomized poll. These are the top rungs.
Below that each continent is divided into the original countries that made up different areas. Larger countries are divided up along their old district lines themselves, such as the United States being dissolved into their individual states, with the District of Columbia being annexed into Maryland. Other large countries that didn't have their own pre-existing districts were also divided up into new ones until a maximum size for each district was reached.
Each district is run depending on how their individual 'Ruler' wants to run it but they cannot have their own individual laws: if one District wants to outlaw or legalize something, then they have to convince all the other Districts to do it as well. Any conflict between Districts cannot involve Violence, otherwise the Counter Force intervenes and metaphorically burns both villages to the ground by ousting the relevant parties and letting the people reset the status quo into what they want it to be.
The Counter Force is also considered a completely Independent Entity and decides what they'll do on their own. The only things they have no say in is who they're allowed to attack and who they're allowed to protect: those orders come straight from the Council.
As you can probably already tell, the Akashic Pillar isn't as stable as it wants everyone to think it is, and it's still working out all the kinks in it's current structure.
TL;DR: The Akashic Pillar is a house of cards glued together dressed up to look like Fort Knox.
On that note,
@crystalwatcher in regards to super abilities like original Gabriel's complete invincibility to anything that isn't a high class demon, are those completely absolute, or are far higher order existences (mainly high tier Divine Entities) able to overload stuff like that?
High order existences can bypass it.
Creatures that are equivalent to Class 5 Demons can readily bypass her Invulnerability at will, such as the Top 20 Magical Girls and similarly powerful individuals. Right now, baring
Indestructible Core, Anastasia is at minimum Equal to a high Class 3 or low Class 4 Demon.
With Indestructible Core, she's hitting low Class 9 in Defense.
I'll let you think on that.
