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The Road Home
A Sacred Text of the Nu-Vaal
Most Nu-Vaal who leave their world often bring several holy texts of their religion of the Dead God. The text ‘Despair and Hope’ is rather a collection of writings, hymns, and essays on the end of all things. While the text’s original author, whose name long forgotten, simultaneously mocks and supports the religion of the Dead God, most Nu-Vaal consider his work their most holy text, as it gives both a bleak view of the galaxy and a glimmer of hope on how to survive morally and spiritually.
Each Nu-Vaal carry their own individual text with notes, additions, modifications, and insights into what is written. Over time, the text begins to reflect its owner, highlighting their strengths and faults. It is a common practice for Nu-Vaal to briefly exchange their text with fellow Nu-Vaal, to help give each other insights into themselves. One of the most endearing acts of a Nu-Vaal is to share their personal copy with someone, Nu-Vaal or non Nu-Vaal, on a long term basis for a deep study.
Ironically, the text has been gaining traction on numerous other planets due to the fact that it appeals to a widespread sense of despondency and despair. Planets affected by widespread war have reported a large increase in reading the basic version of the text. Readers tend to admire the text’s straight forwardness in its nihility and the sense of hope it brings them when finishing it. However, neither Jedi nor Sith have seen much use in the text, with the exception of Alhazred of the Jedi Order. The Jedi point out that with the existence of the Force, the universe is not as nihilistic as the text portrays, and the Sith see the texts as sentimental nonsense at best.
Below is a brief summary of the text as well as some quotes.
OPENING
“Ruin will find you. Do not try to deny this. In the end, the void and chaos claims all in its tendrils. We may struggle and strive to hold back the darkness, we may surrender and expedite the end, or we may simply stand back and observe as long as possible; but in the end, Ruin will find you. Look no further than here to come to terms with the fact, for to search other places is a faulty attempt at delaying the inevitable”
The opening section of ‘The Road Home’ starts with the opening lines above. the section is a rather lengthy opening, detailing how the galaxy will end, giving scientific proof of the expansion and death of the universe, examples of numerous planets that have been swallowed by dying stars, and fictional last confessions of men sentenced to death. Nu-Vaal claim this bleak view of the galaxy helps establish the mood of the entire text.
THE DESPAIR OF THE END
“There are those who will claim they can stave off the end. There are those who will give in to the despair the void brings upon us all. They are fools, but they are right to fear the world, for they understand that the end will come. It will not come gently, like many wish it would. It will not be like a lover in the night, but rather a specter of the void: ruthless and uncaring. When the end comes, the gutters will brim with poets, and decency will become as worthless as the mud we will return to. "
"Do not look to heroes for safety. Do not look to our dead god, nor his family, for they too can fall to the storms of the void. Instead, look to those souls who have known fear and failure in ample portion, and yet continue to rise again over and over to reclaim a glimmer of hope for everyone that life can be lived fully.
What many consider the most nihilistic part of the text, this section contains psychological descriptions of despair, malaise, depression, and madness, scientific reports on alien biology as well as the wholesome organic failures a body can experience, anecdotes and short stories on cataclysmic endings on a mass scale as well as on an individual level, and several small, fictional, hymns detailing the end of days on various planets and the feelings of those going through the experiences. The entire work, on its own, is depressing and many Nu-Vaal advise people to not read this section of the text alone.
TENOUS SURVIVAL
“Take care of your choices in travel. Today's oversights are tomorrow's regrets. But when deliberation is exhausted, and you are stuck and unable to choose logically, trust your instincts. When you have concluded your journeys, there will always be a road to take you home”
This lengthy section details practical advice on a variety of subjects, ranging from saving and spending money during times of crisis, to how to restart a civilization, to the scientific method. It includes sketches of pieces of technology, many primitive in today’s galactic standards, accounts of survivors after foretold apocalypses, and several poems of an unknown king that seem to be focused on the choices that all sentient creatures have.
A subsection here also details the importance of knowledge and learning above all things. It is believed that this was a late entry, not by the original author, around the same time the Nu-Vaal attained space travel.
THE UNAVOIDABLE FALL
“The shackles of your denial will restrain you in a weighty gloam of despair. Your unspoken grievances will gain terrible strength over all your life. Like a wronged spirit, they will not rest and accept a simple fate of quiet discontentment. Your obsessions will blind you to life itself, and allow nothing else but mistakes to thrive. Your ambitions will cost you everything you have for everything you want, reaching beyond what they can truly grasp. And finally, when you have begun to realize the errors of your ways, cowardice will prevent you from redeeming yourself and all your misdeeds.”
The most personal of any Nu-Vaal’s text and the biggest insight into Nu-Vaal culture, this section details failure in every myriad way possible. Including confessions of actual Nu-Vaals, details on a wide variety of choice sins such as Denial, Obsession and Cowardice, and lengthy philosophical debates on the various definitions of failure, this section shows that no matter what happens, people will fail in their goals, whether by their own actions or not.
Most Nu-Vaal tend to enrich their copies here with dense personal details, marking it down with insights from their own mistakes in the past and how they relate to what the text says. When the text is exchanged with another Nu-Vaal, this is the section that is turned to first. It is perhaps the most bleakest section of the entire text, as the section gives very little room for anything but the disheartening facts it presents
THE POSSIBLE REDEMPTION
“Hope….it is a seductive thing, and to many, a pointless and maligned thing. But it is our one bulwark against the madness of the galaxy. It is our sole light in the endless void, and the only thing that will fight back the darkness that comes for our very hearts and minds and souls. "
"To gain hope, you must give it. To give it, you must acknowledge your misdeeds and wrongdoings, and seek penance. Be bold. And then, when you fail, be bold once more. You are trammeled and trapped in a stillness that suffocates the strongest of minds. But if you ride out, and focus on the horizon, you will find the path to redemption. And when you do, you will find the road home."
"Remember this: the path to your exculpation need not be a lonely one. Self reliance is a wonderful, but indeed a rare thing. Compassion rarer still, but far more precious than all the treasures of your world. Take pity on those around you. Those who have given into despair are lost and desperate, and are ripe to return from the brink. Those who have held out are champions of the hope we all strive to attain.“
The most hopeful section of the text, it preaches heavily on the ideals of hope, perseverance, cooperation and redemption hinted at in other sections. While it still consistently maintains the same nihilistic theme that the entire text screams out, and several times points out that ‘redemption is not a guaranteed outcome’, it provides an answer to the unavoidable end of everything.
The entire text ends on the uplifting note below
“Ruin will find you in the end, as it will find all things, great and small. Overall, sentience is a weak hypothesis. It is an unbalanced equation and an imperfect angle. We all sow the seeds of our destruction, and seek to deny its reckoning. We make mountains of our mistakes, monsters of our misdeeds. We slip and stumble, we fail and we falter."
"And yet, in each of us, a hopeful light. A hopeful light, a radiant song that holds fast against the hellish shadows that gather between our good intentions and our clumsy misdeeds. A light that says that our redemption is still at hand, and that life can be lived whole. While ruin may find us, and will suffer no abnegation, we can take heart, for the hopeful light in each of us burns brighter than all the stars in the sky, constantly fighting back the unsurmountable void and the limitless darkness we all have within ourselves.”
Intent: To flesh out my Nu-Vaal race's religion as well as give them a personal object that each Nu-Vaal carries with them. I also hope that I can try to implement this into more worlds that are having planetwide crisis such as famine, war, and disease.
