The City of Heaven
The City of Heaven was the name given to a large district of The City of the White Tree that grew up in fits and starts in the early years of The Last War as a refuge for asylum seekers arriving in White Tree. The name was unofficial and ironic, intended to represent the hopes and dreams of asylum seekers and refugees arriving in White Tree. The White Tree Accords purported to provide support to any displaced person seeking help when they arrived in White Tree. Most refugees arrived to find no shelter, and limited access to food and water.
It was never expected or intended to become a permanent settlement, but instead developed as multitudes arrived in the area seeking shelter or help having been displaced from their homes by war, political, or economic activity. By around 750 FEA, it had become so overcrowded that the The Council of the White Tree, which was ostensibly the ruling authority, began to forcibly move inhabitants out to the newly established Ring Cities.
The city had strong links to both the Ring Cities and The City Beneath, which grew up in the sewer and underground system around the roots of the White Tree. Many of the inhabitants of all three left after the High Ashad Isha made her Call to Refuge in the last years of The Rending War. It was considered destroyed during or shortly after The Rending.
by Timon Studler
Demographics
As a city of asylum seekers and refugees, the population of the City of Heaven was highly unstable and depended on a range of external factors. Many young men arrived during periods of unrest and conflict in various empires during periods of conscription, for example. Although most settled in the City and eventually may have raised families, there remained a disparity in terms of wealth, class, gender, and ethnicity. Those who were rich enough to afford to travel in style were sooner able to access the formal bureaucracy of the White Tree and benefit from the Accords.
As the Ring Cities grew up around White Tree, the demography shifted again. The Ring Cities created something of a barrier, introducing a new step in the process of seeking refuge under the Accords. Arrivals in the Ring Cities would then seek for ways to make the trip across the Plain of the White Tree to establish themselves in the City of Heaven, viewing it as a hoped-for destination in the same way that the White Tree City itself had been viewed by earlier generations of arrivals.
Infrastructure
Infrastructure in the City was very limited and originally cobbled together by residents and new arrivals, who put their various skills together to establish access to water from springs, or by hacking into the pre-existing system in White Tree City itself. The same was true of power, which could be accessed by hooking into exposed wires and other systems. An underground conflict arose, never settled, as White Tree construction specialists and architects developed new "hack-proof" and "hook-proof" technologies to prevent the City of Heaven residents drawing on the system. These would then be subject to new and ever more complex hacks in response to ensure supply to the system was maintained.
Despite this, the City of Heaven never had a formal, organised sewage network and many areas relied on pit toilets, wells, and open sewers running between makeshift houses. These had to be cleared by soilers, a group who would collect refuse, night soil, and other waste and sell it on to tanners at the eastern boundary of the city. Waste was also shipped out into the area that then became the Ring Cities.
by Photo by Timon Studler
History
The City of Heaven was never intended to exist. At the founding of the White Tree, the leaders of the Five Empires and the various factions agreed that some provision should be made for persons displaced by conflict, environmental collapse, and other issues. At the time, large populations were displaced and on the move as a result of The Last War, who were seeking help and support in often overwhelmed and impoverished cities and towns throughout Iscarion.
It was expected that the Five Empires would provide the bulk of the financing for initiatives intended to support the most vulnerable and most affected by conflict and the resulting environmental and ecological fallout. An office and station was established on the southeast root system of the White Tree, and it was officially declared that those seeking shelter could formally apply for re-homing throughout the empires by attending there.
Modern scholars, especially Tsiao Chua, have suggested that the Five Empires had predominantly honest intentions to honour the White Tree Accords. They were not expecting that so many people would see the opportunity presented and decide to take it up. When many people, who were not displaced by conflict or disaster but simply wanted a better life than the one they had (which was usually one of desperate poverty), decided to take advantage of the promise of the Accords, the Council of the White Tree's Refugee Authority was eventually overwhelmed.
This was likely exacerbated by the impact of economic and developmental changes within the empires, especially the Empire of Basat, which began to comb its most impoverished reaches in the hunt for a workforce for its ever-expanding mining operations. Anybody who wished to avoid mandatory military service, start a new life, or found themselves displaced by lack of resources at home, made their way to the White Tree.
Arriving in an arid high desert, where most resources were being pumped into symbolic maintenance of the White Tree itself, newcomers had to fend for themselves. The Refugee Authority's office was staffed by only ten bureaucrats, and had little to no funding. The process of obtaining asylum was slow and complex, mired in difficulties as the empires fought to avoid taking on too many people. As a result, arriving in White Tree required sitting outside the office and waiting, often for months or years, to receive some kind of land assignment in one of the empires or indefinite leave to remain in the City of the White Tree itself.
Whilst waiting, people took advantage of the huge quantities of landfilll and other waste dumped by the Last War and began to build shelters in which to wait for a decision one way or another. Over time, these unofficial shelters became homes, built on top of or around each other, leading to streets, and eventually whole districts. People took advantage of any patches of land to build micro-farms, sourcing their own food, as well as digging wells and establishing their own unofficial guilds and factions to provide supplies to new arrivals.
RUINED SETTLEMENT
50–0 FEA
Founding Date
1500 FEA
Alternative Name(s)
The City of the First Lost
Type
Quarter
Population
150-250,000
Inhabitant Demonym
Angels
Location under
Owning Organization
Related Professions
Comments