| Scarback Scriptures | |
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| Information | Scripture Book |
And the roots grew.
The seeds travelled from a home we’ve forgotten, finding soil on Qresh.
And the roots grew.
From one world to two moons, one mother tree to unite us all.
And when we rise her branches hold us,
And when we tire her trunk shelters us,
And when we die her roots will carry us home.
Praise the trees.
- Scarback Blood Blessing
Background[]
The Scarbacks have numerous religious texts that they consider to be sacred and central to their religious tradition. One of the largest repositories of scriptures is maintained in the monastery on Leith.[1]
Scriptures[]
The Twelve[]
“Twelve went to fight the devil in Arkyn, one came back”
A story in the scriptures regarding twelve monks that went away to fight the devil.[2] The monks have a particular symbol that represents this scripture.
The Mother Tree[]
The Mother Tree is a central part of Scarback theology and is referenced in various prayers, such as the Blood Blessing.[3]
One story, written in the Old Word, refers to the "Sap of Life", which comes from the Mother Tree. In the scripture the sap is described as a green elixir that confers eternal life.
The Truth of the Scriptures[]
Alvis Akari thought the scriptures of the Twelve and the Mother Tree to be religious metaphor, but his studies in the monastery led him to believe that this could be an early reference to the Green Plasma used in the Red 17 program. He also surmised that the Scarback practice of cutting and scarification was not performed as penance, but as a way to show that they had not been infected with the plasma by showing they could still bleed and scar.[4]
Khlyen confirmed to Dutch that the twelve were a raiding party. They came to Arkyn and were able to steal a tree growing in a pool of original Arkyn plasma. Eventually, Aneela tracked down where the monks kept the tree and recovered it, hiding it for herself.[5]
The Mother Tree scripture
Dutch believed that the scriptures had to hold a clue to where the tree was hidden. Alvis showed her the scripture of the Mother Tree and told her the scriptures and other reference documents in the monastery indicated the tree was stolen back by the Devil, and the Scarbacks were on a holy mission to find it again. In the scripture of the one tree it was written "The Devil covets the sap of the tree. Judgment is written in the stars." Dutch noticed small holes in the pages of the scripture to which Alvis told her that the old scribes would used pin-pricks as a grid to make the writings and illustrations line up. Dutch looked at a backlit page and realized that it wasn't a grid, it was a Star Chart encoded into the scripture. Johnny was able to cross reference the holes to a chart of the Crow Nebula, the location of Archive where Aneela has kept the tree in secret.
Trivia[]
The series art department designed the Old Word language script used in the Scarback Scriptures.[6]
The tree in Aneela’s vault was built by the production design team who sourced dozens of large trees to create one, giant, beautiful trunk.[7]