CLOSED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE
In the end, everything always turns out this way. Gash wrote. He lay aboard his courier craft -- the Hermes -- scribbling in a small journal in his quarters.
Now, I know why humans invented God and the Devil. I wouldn't mind an explanation as to why everything always happens like this, either. Why everything always falls apart, no matter how hard anyone tries -- no matter what Force is on whose side. He looked up darkly from the book, and pointed his finger at a small glass of water which sat on the table across from his bed. The glass exploded, spraying water and glass about the room. None of the shards hit Gash.
Was he abusing the Force? Everything I have always been taught about the Light Side of the Force has told me that faith in my convictions will always bring deliverance. That, no matter what, the side of Light is infinitely superior -- that it always triumphs over the Dark.
But now, I sit on a Marauder Corvette flying to the middle of nowhere because I have nowhere else to go. The Republic is dead. Dozens of billions of innocent beings are dead. The Empire and its alllies gain superiority each day. I have no God to blame it on, or any Devil.
Or maybe I do. He frowned, and kept writing. I wonder where this was in all of the great visions of the Jedi Masters who went before me? Nowhere. Nowhere, because it was all a lie.
There is no great and mighty balance of the Force. There is no superiority in the Light Side of the Force, no guarantee of victory for those who champion the Light. There is no mythical man in the sky watching out for us, no essence of the Force to steward us. We are utterly alone. Every promise about the religion of our ways made to us by the Jedi Masters of old was a lie. There are no reasons, there is no grand destiny, there is no great plan. The visions and omens which brought about the Jedi Orders of the modern day left all this out, or forgot about it, or we were just selectively lied to. It doesn't matter.
These are the omissions of the omen.
Gash closed the small notebook, stuffing it into his pocket.
Following the ship's landing on the planet, he left it with orders to remain and shut down engines.
The streets of Theed, Naboo, were somewhat crowded, but no more than usual. The city showed no signs of the attack it had suffered many months before at the hands of the Naboo Sith Order, though in his mind, Gash could still hear the screams and shouts of panic, smell the acrid stench of flesh, and see the flashes of colliding lightsabers and Force powers.
But it wasn't there -- none of it. It was just a normal day in the small city. Life went on entirely ignorant of the revelations which had come to pass in the mind of Gash Jiren or other Jedi. The people had faith.
If only they knew that their faith was grounded solidly in absolutely nothing.
Gash hadn't brought his Jedi robes. Instead, he wore simple, plain clothes, a navy-blue shirt and loosely-fit yellow-beige pants. His white hair had once been long, down to his shoulders -- in the typical style of the men on Asthentia, his homeworld -- but was now trimmed short. The red eyes which had once marked him so brilliantly were glossed over by contacts which colored them a very typical green. The sleeves of his dark-blue shirt were rolled up, showing his left arm -- a mechanical replacement. His skin was noticably less tanned than normal.
The things which had once mattered to him now bore no meaning. Tradition was useless and pointless.
Most of all, one thing had changed in his appearance.
The scars -- the marks of both bravery and cowardice that he'd once worn on his face with pride -- were gone, washed away with non-Bacta medical treatment.
They were reminders of a past which now held no meaning for him; lessons which now had lost their bite.
Within minutes, he was at the Jedi Temple.
In the end, everything always turns out this way. Gash wrote. He lay aboard his courier craft -- the Hermes -- scribbling in a small journal in his quarters.
Now, I know why humans invented God and the Devil. I wouldn't mind an explanation as to why everything always happens like this, either. Why everything always falls apart, no matter how hard anyone tries -- no matter what Force is on whose side. He looked up darkly from the book, and pointed his finger at a small glass of water which sat on the table across from his bed. The glass exploded, spraying water and glass about the room. None of the shards hit Gash.
Was he abusing the Force? Everything I have always been taught about the Light Side of the Force has told me that faith in my convictions will always bring deliverance. That, no matter what, the side of Light is infinitely superior -- that it always triumphs over the Dark.
But now, I sit on a Marauder Corvette flying to the middle of nowhere because I have nowhere else to go. The Republic is dead. Dozens of billions of innocent beings are dead. The Empire and its alllies gain superiority each day. I have no God to blame it on, or any Devil.
Or maybe I do. He frowned, and kept writing. I wonder where this was in all of the great visions of the Jedi Masters who went before me? Nowhere. Nowhere, because it was all a lie.
There is no great and mighty balance of the Force. There is no superiority in the Light Side of the Force, no guarantee of victory for those who champion the Light. There is no mythical man in the sky watching out for us, no essence of the Force to steward us. We are utterly alone. Every promise about the religion of our ways made to us by the Jedi Masters of old was a lie. There are no reasons, there is no grand destiny, there is no great plan. The visions and omens which brought about the Jedi Orders of the modern day left all this out, or forgot about it, or we were just selectively lied to. It doesn't matter.
These are the omissions of the omen.
Gash closed the small notebook, stuffing it into his pocket.
* * * * *
Following the ship's landing on the planet, he left it with orders to remain and shut down engines.
The streets of Theed, Naboo, were somewhat crowded, but no more than usual. The city showed no signs of the attack it had suffered many months before at the hands of the Naboo Sith Order, though in his mind, Gash could still hear the screams and shouts of panic, smell the acrid stench of flesh, and see the flashes of colliding lightsabers and Force powers.
But it wasn't there -- none of it. It was just a normal day in the small city. Life went on entirely ignorant of the revelations which had come to pass in the mind of Gash Jiren or other Jedi. The people had faith.
If only they knew that their faith was grounded solidly in absolutely nothing.
Gash hadn't brought his Jedi robes. Instead, he wore simple, plain clothes, a navy-blue shirt and loosely-fit yellow-beige pants. His white hair had once been long, down to his shoulders -- in the typical style of the men on Asthentia, his homeworld -- but was now trimmed short. The red eyes which had once marked him so brilliantly were glossed over by contacts which colored them a very typical green. The sleeves of his dark-blue shirt were rolled up, showing his left arm -- a mechanical replacement. His skin was noticably less tanned than normal.
The things which had once mattered to him now bore no meaning. Tradition was useless and pointless.
Most of all, one thing had changed in his appearance.
The scars -- the marks of both bravery and cowardice that he'd once worn on his face with pride -- were gone, washed away with non-Bacta medical treatment.
They were reminders of a past which now held no meaning for him; lessons which now had lost their bite.
Within minutes, he was at the Jedi Temple.
