Heaven

Biodata

Power Progression

Heaven distinguishes stage, a thaumaturgist’s personal capabilities, from rank, which determines institutional permissions, computational resources, and think-tank assistance. The following records Xia Xiu’s documented progression within the Heaven Lineage, not growth by Heaven as an organization 5.

Organization and Government

Core Institutions

• Checks on the Assembly: The Ethics Committee and Inquisition constrain its authority, while the Burial Agency serves as its counterweight to the Inquisition 156.
• Scholar-led administration: Site directors are elected from containment specialists, researchers, security staff, and response personnel, but are most often senior researchers 156.
• Central Containment Room: Provides further training for prospective site directors. Most Assembly candidates have worked there 157.
• Angel Sequence: Formal employment certification required to enter the five core institutions. Registration is possible at Angel rank, although low-ranking registrants have little privacy 157.

Structural Weaknesses

Mu identifies several institutional risks behind Heaven’s slow response to threats 156:

• Resolution Assembly: Divided over reform; 0-02 actively seeks change.
• Inquisition: Inquisitors’ powerful personal convictions can become fanaticism.
• Burial Agency: Constant anomaly exposure leaves personnel vulnerable to danger and corruption.
• Ethics Committee: Concern for humanity can produce either decisive action or prolonged hesitation.
• Order of Knights: Non-Angel troops may obey their Heroes rather than Heaven itself.
• Eden: The organization’s complicated structure generates unnecessary computational work.

Internal Reform Movements

• Charlotte reports support among Heaven’s factions for tearing open the Veil, direct intervention in nations, a unified human government, and a great crusade. These are factional proposals, not established policy 152.
• 0-02’s Utopia Project calls for a sovereign belonging to Heaven to replace its cumbersome parliamentary system. An Ethics Committee review later acquits 0-02 of unauthorized interference with Eden 152.
• Xia Xiu openly advocates restructuring the Resolution Assembly and seeks a position that would grant access to Yahweh 156.

Lineage System

Ranks and Classes

Heaven has three orders, nine ranks, and twenty-six Classes. Rank advancement does not always require a corresponding stage breakthrough: an ordinary Measurer can reach Principality through fifteen years of service in the Order of Knights without exceptional merits 5 156.

Rank names and orders are listed in Heaven’s released setting information; lower-order wing insignia appear on Eden’s shared map 69 76.

• Named Classes: Inquisitor, Disciplinarian, Light Attendant, Demon Hunter, Mute Ones, and Silent Nuns 69.
• Gospel Points: Mission rewards used for purchases within Heaven’s systems; cumulative earnings also contribute to rank advancement 37 94.
• Beyond Principality: Further rank advancement requires involvement with the Holy Ark, which registers intermediate- and higher-ranking Angels 139.

Five Standard Books

Heaven possesses all five standard lineage manifestations. A lineage normally needs at least two to establish its own school 4.

The Red Book records Xia Xiu’s identity and abilities, receives directives, and changes appearance with rank and Class. His Great Angel cover depicts a radiant Light Attendant; his Principality cover has golden wings and a halo 4 31 94 139.

Applications and Infrastructure

Operational Support

• Algorithmic planning: Eden supplies operation codes identifying mission targets and address codes specifying their locations. Its Algorithm also analyzes plans and assists thaumaturgical calculations 117.
• Operative assistance: Members can share locations and mark themselves as available to help other Angels 31.
• Containment transfer: Xia Xiu’s Red Book transports March’s corpse to the Sanctum after submission 31.
• Protective monitoring: Leaving Terra’s main plane activates adaptation, vital-sign monitoring, meme-virus detection, and distortion detection modules 107.
• Cover identities: Heaven fabricates Xia Xiu’s Tommy Shelby identity for his Amsterdam infiltration 112.
• Limits: Eden is not a true god. Its workload can delay predictions, and its calculations can be misled; the Assembly retains control over its core lifeline 25 31 63.

Weapons and Resources

Heavenly Armory

• Standard Great Angel allocation: One Heaven Type I Boltgun and one chosen Chainsword, excluding special Class arrangements 94.
• Daily quotas: 100 standard bolts and 100 Chainsword blades. Allowances accumulate, and wartime quotas provide additional supplies 94.
• Maintenance: Chainswords have a hundred-year warranty, trade-in options, and blade-replacement services 94.
• Heavenly Armament designation: Removes a high-ranking weapon’s Destined Hero restriction and can add blessings supported by Eden’s computational resources. The Balmung Holy Sword receives this designation 115.

Strategic Weapons

• Twelve Zodiac Palace Giant Cannon Array: Clustered space-based weapon array controlled by the Thirteen Resolution Assembly 136.
• Swordbearer weapons: Individual space-based weapons controlled by Heaven’s three Swordbearers. Mu’s weapon, Canaan, was forged specifically for him 136 156.
• Divine punishment: Heavenly fire devastates the Sea-born assault near Attis Port. The Sea-born recognize Heaven’s weapons from earlier wide-area strikes against Atlantis 136.
• Path of Indignation: Memetic weapon used to erase and reedit ordinary people’s memories of the Amsterdam coup and factory explosion 123.
• Interface-invasion drop pods: Smash through other interfaces’ defenses to deploy Heaven personnel 107.

Other Resources

• Inquisitor augmentation: Includes implanted third lungs capable of extracting more oxygen from oxygen-depleted or toxic air 56.
• Antler Regrowth Potion: Exclusive potion that keeps Flamehorn Deer alive after antler removal and enables repeated regrowth for wand production 68.
• Financial support: Angels can request private accounts from Eden. Even the lowest Angel rank receives 30,000 Youyang Currency monthly, tax-free, alongside supernatural subsidies 197.

Policies and the Veil

Mandate and Restraint

• Heavenly Duty: Burial Agency operative Evan describes its duty as eliminating anything that threatens Terra 32.
• Humanity over state interests: Heaven is portrayed as a transcendent organization concerned with humanity’s protection rather than service to a particular government 141.
• Limited intervention: Heaven generally avoids entering Veil conflicts voluntarily while the Veil Law’s fundamental operation remains intact 141.
• Individual discretion: Eden does not dictate its Angels’ inherent choices or oppose them acting on what they believe is right 141.
• Ethical justification: Mu states that Heaven serves rather than rules the world and opposes unnecessary cruelty; the Ethics Committee decides when cruelty is necessary 156.

Concealment and Anomalous Communities

• Containment: Heaven maintains an international containment network. Berlin is specifically identified as one of the few Youyang powers without a Heaven garrison or containment site 69 144.
• Risk-based classification: Old Era supernatural practitioners at high risk of losing control can be treated as anomalies and targeted by the Inquisition or Burial Agency 210.
• One Hub, Two Systems: Under concealment agreements, Hubs retain substantial administrative, legislative, and judicial autonomy while Heaven and regional governments handle supernatural leaks and anomalous incidents 210.
• Media concealment: Jointly established Censorship and Rumor-Mongering Departments produce tens of thousands of cover stories worldwide each year 210.
• Geographic limits: The Veil does not encompass all Terra; Diva and Oletin lie outside its effective coverage 178.

Criticism

• Serpent’s Hand: Condemns Heaven’s personnel as “book burners,” “jailers,” and “wardens,” arguing that humans and otherworldly inhabitants should not live under concealment 114.
• Pansy Jane: Regards Heaven as a supernatural monopoly that controls other factions and denies ordinary people access to the truth 120.
• Charlotte: Accuses Heaven of pursuing humanity’s long-term interests without caring about the process, while emphasizing its internal divisions 152.

History

Emergence and Farlan’s Dragons

Amos’s memories place Heaven’s emergence as a major supernatural power in Terra Calendar year 211. In that account, Heaven had expelled an Ether Sovereign from Terra five years earlier. Bennett also reports that Heaven had reached Crystal Heaven and installed large objects there 193.

Heaven subsequently supported the human rebellion against Farlan’s dragon rulers, providing Lineage construction technology to Favored who established the predecessor of the Knight Guard. Mu led the killing of the Red King and the wider slaughter of the dragons during the Farlan Hundred-Year Dragon-Slaying War. Fafnir’s survival and hatred later became central to the Crimson King’s performance 178 193.

War with the Ghost Spirits

During the Middle Ages, Heaven launched a large-scale purge against the City of Sin Ghosts. The organization retaliated against Heaven’s Containment Rooms, beginning a conflict lasting more than fifty years. Heaven’s superior resources ultimately forced the Ghost Spirits to announce their dissolution 57.

The Ghost Spirits later rebuilt through mundane businesses and a syndicate based in the hostile Diva Empire. Diva’s support made direct confrontation difficult, turning the conflict into a covert war over anomalous weapons 57.

Recent Operations

Notable Members and Relationships

• Xia Xiu / Xiu Abraham — Personally recalled by Revelation; advances from Angel to Principality and seeks eventual entry into the Resolution Assembly 4 139 156.
• Mu — Third Swordbearer, Seraph, and defender of the Unknown Lands. Heaven’s senior-most veteran and a mentor to numerous leaders 156.
• Saint Valentine — First Swordbearer; the previous documented member personally recalled by Revelation before Xia Xiu 137.
• Kasim Muhammad — Second Swordbearer and Mu’s student; formerly one of the Inquisition’s six grand inquisitors 156.
• Fenn — Principality who commands Heaven’s Flower City operation 76 86.
• Lemuel Gaumont — Inquisition agent entrusted with the Balmung Holy Sword; confronts Mr. Night and participates in the Amsterdam events 86 115 123.
• Diva and Oletin Empires — Hostile powers whose tyranny and military expansion drive Heaven toward war 57 162.
• Thirteenth Department — The only Normal State power listed in Heaven’s crisis sequence; nevertheless cooperates with Xia Xiu during the Berlin investigation 141 144.
• Haunted Spirit Street — Its plans collapse after new Sanctum leaders strengthen regulation of nonhuman entities and activities at the Veil’s margins 42.

Culture

• Formalwear: Heaven members are especially associated with suits, often purchased from Aedisi. Terra slang calls them “suits,” “men in black,” and “formalwear freaks” 48.
• Voluntary return: Members living outside the Sanctum are invited home rather than forcibly recalled through ordinary recruitment. Many facilities remain usable only at headquarters 43.
• Training: Angel candidates selected across Terra receive systematic education in the Unknown Lands before joining the lineage 158.
• Practicality over ceremony: An instant-draw proposal for armory weapons received 99% support because members disliked reciting scripture before attacking. Recitation remains compulsory only for the first link 94.