Legend of Skorr

Skorr now stands as a colony amongst the Deep Stellar Coalition’s protected worlds. In order to secure the devotion and loyalty of her people, it was not diplomacy, but war that yielded the acquisition. Yet no ships fired from orbit. No Coalition warriors with blaster or lightsabers were sent to the surface. Instead, fealty was earned by one who was born upon her surface and returned to call his people to the greater Galaxy.

Not much will be remembered of the battles for Skorr. What will resonate through its history and the annals of our archives is the final battle. It was a clash of profound repercussions. Archetypal in ways that reverberate in the culture well beyond the immediate future. A young, striking, and valiant male returning from the stars to combat his older, brutal, and tyrannical uncle who invoked the power of a primordial evil. Forradamadur, was the last Champion to be chosen by the goddess Pegarus. Oraxdarossarath was the summoner of ancient forgotten evil. For those watching, the final clash for dominance over Skorr was terror and spectacle. A vision that shaped the mythos of a people.

Centuries after the culminating battle, a young historian attempting to gather information for her dissertation will collect the tales of those who witnessed or the tales of those who say they heard from those who witnessed. She’ll spend days collecting familial tales and digging through multiple accounts of the same event, searching for the oldest and truest telling. This young student, in her wisdom and hindsight, will write of a historical myth of Forradamadur who was but a metaphor for the evolution of a culture from brutal and primitive toward an egalitarian society. A male archetype who represented a transition.

Too often, our lens of history lacks context. The blood, sweat, and pain associated with the transitions we triumph are unappreciated. Progress is seen as a step forward forgetting what is stride over to reach a new plateau. Evolution and discovery are violent, often chaotic processes mired in death.

“The hero danced amidst the crackling red arcs of lightning, nimble and swift.” That’s the consensus of the legends on Skorr. A young warrior unable to be deterred in his righteous cause. Yet reference to the Coalition’s medical records tell a different tale. One of pain. Images of intense scarring from burns across ninety percent of Forradamadur’s body suggest agility was triumphed over by overwhelming volatility. His skill, however effective, was unable to prevent agony. A truth, to which, the people of Skorr and a young scholar will never be privy.

It is no fault of the inhabitants of Skorr that the clash, rife with torrents of energy that turned day to night, caused immense fear of cataclysm. Each clash seemed to signal a new terrifying dawn. For Forra’s camp, initially it seemed a righteous omen. Their leader with every strike and movement brought a new light. Yet the longer the clash ensued, the greater the internal terror and uncertainty. A titan from above combating his uncle and the wielder of an ancient once buried evil from forgotten lore thundered upon one another as the fields burned around them. Lost in the retelling is the utter terror that settled like a state of being upon all present. Untold is how silently and aghast they watched.

A daring few dared to crawl and inch closer to witness the contest as close as possible, curiosity overtaking caution. These few would seem to multiply over time, those wishing they were braver or wanting to appear so to others attesting to being nearer than their stomachs could muster in reality. A half dozen becoming a dozen. A dozen growing to a score. A score grew to hundreds. So many swore they were within meters of the Hero and Usurper clashing that the young scholar remarked everyone she interviewed had a great grandparent who told of being close enough to feel the heat from the red lightning. Mythos grew and the tales of their final moments became the foundations for entire philosophies.

In his report to the Hand of the Coalition, Forradamadur recounts little. Losses in number to his force. A defeat of an enemy. A simple retelling of the tactics used to lure his enemy into a trap. His own personal report of the battle was barebones, focusing on what was lost and what was gained. The cost to his own vitality would be reported by the medics in Forradamadur’s evaluation to return to service. Similarly, the young scholar in her dissertation struggles to account for the battle itself. Aside from the feint using literal strawmen and the fantastical defeat of mythic golems and demons, accounts of the battle vary from simple to nye delusional. Swords from the stars clashing with demonic lightning. An epic battle that endured for hours, according to some. The heavens opening and swallowing the Usurper. And even reports of the goddess Pegarus herself returning to fight by the Hero’s side. Epic fantasy obscuring the truth.

It is from the children of Skigga, one of Forra’s wives, and said to be the most loyal, that a sliver of truth might be revealed. Her eldest son wrote a retelling of the events that his mother professed was told her in a moment of tender reflection.