The Beach is a metaphysical manifestation of the World of the Dead, between the living world and what comes next.
Overview[]
The Beach acts as a liminal space, a place between the world of the living and what comes after it. It is a manifestation of humankind's consciousness and their personal conception of death. As such, the Beach is a phenomenon common to all humans and unique to each individual. Each person has an instance of the Beach that is personal to them, given form by their thoughts and beliefs. Because of this, the Beach is often described as a "multiverse", as all souls inhabit a personal Beach (in most cases). This is in contrast to the land of the living, where everyone's physical body inhabits the same universe. No other animal life manifests a Beach, and therefore they do not necrotize and form a BT if not incinerated.
There are cases where several souls cohabitate the same Beach, however. Large numbers of deaths at the same time seem to result in shared Beaches due to people's individual Beaches becoming entangled and creating a "strand field". It is easier and more common to create a shared Beach with soldiers who die in battle. The massive amounts of deaths in short periods of time and the common feeling of hatred, resentment, regret and despair cause the soldiers' souls to be stranded in a shared Beach, shaped like a battlefield, where they continue to fight in a repeated cycle, with exits vanishing due to their desires to remain, and thus the soldiers being unable to move past the limbo. These battlefield Beaches are stated to be entirely separate to the Beaches of individuals of the Chiral Network, making them unaffected by the merging of Beaches into a Seam by the network's linking and activation. Cliff Unger showed with his encounters to become present and command soldiers in a Beaches based on World War 1, World War 2, and the Vietnam War, despite never fighting in them and no connection to them, as well as bring the Beaches to the living world through Chiral supercell storms. This is speculated by Heartman to be due to his misery and hatred combined with Sam Porter and BB-28 acting as a catalyst to let him bring these Beaches to the living world, though later it is realised by Fragile and Deadman that he was given his power by Amelie, given a BB doll to link him to her Beach and letting Amelie control him as one of her agents.
The Beach lacks a flow of time, and the matter that originates from it does not either. Those physically stranded on the Beach do not age for this reason. Most Beaches share common characteristics of a shore of dark sand and rock and a cloudy sky, but it is possible for a Beach to not resemble a literal beach at all. Most Beaches seen have stranded marine life scattered, often along with viscera and human remains. The common theme of Beaches appears to be ones of borders and transitioning points (life to death, land to sea, etc.).
The timeless nature of the Beach is exploited by the Chiral Network, which essentially sends information 'back in time' so as to appear to send a massive amount of information instantaneously.
While only naturally born humans (and thus those with a conception of death) have a Beach, the extinction entities of previous Death Stranding Events likely also had Beaches, being directly connected with the other side. The Extinction Entity of this Death Stranding is, in essence, the 'core' Beach, which is connected to all other Beaches to facilitate its function.
The World of the Dead[]
While it is known that those who die pass to the Beach, the Beach is inherently a liminal space to be passed through. It is not known what becomes of souls that fully 'pass on', leaving their beach, and such there is no knowledge of an afterlife further than the Beach, some other state of existence, or even nothing.
Notes[]
- Those who have not been "naturally born" (i.e. from a biological mother) in some sense, do not "die". Because of this, they are said not to possess a Beach. Consequently, if one does not have a Beach, one also does not have a "Ka", or soul.
- It is speculated by the Spiritualist that in ancient times, people "moved freely between the Earth, outer space, and the world of the dead" using Beaches, and that constructions like the pyramids in Egypt and Mesoamerica, the Nazcaan lines, and Stonehenge were gateways built to access the Beach.