The City of Origin - Zeph Nexa
It is widely know that humanity, while currently living on the Outer Plateaus, originated from Var Nexa. This is a shared history in most locations, with almost all cultures having at least a single myth depicting their ancestors scaling the plateau cliffs to settle new homes. Indeed, evidence reports several ruins and sites that appear man made within Var Nexa's explored lands.
However, an actual place of origin hasn't been located. While some theories exist, such as the Lost Port and Primordial Soup concepts, substantial evidence of these simply doesn't exist. This is largely because these theories rely entirely on explored areas. Seeing as the most we know about how much of Var Nexa we've explored, is that we've barely scratched the surface, this seems fruitless at this point. Therefore, in this report, I intend to propose a theory for our origin by collecting information from historical sources that paint a picture of Zeph Nexa, the proposed City of Origin.
This theory focuses on The Four Gates of Zeph-Nexa and the myths surrounding them. Custodians, dedicated to researching one of the gates, for all four have found myths depicting heroes emerging from the gates, one way or another, to explore Var Nexa. Here, I will look at each in turn and discuss their relation.
Myth 1: The Serpent of the Eastern Gate:
A shimmering Lake lay within a sunken plane. The divine serpent's rest. Fallen from the stars, it still reached out to the sky. The waters lay undisturbed, unmoving. The land was quiet, resting in the broken sun underneath the serpent's maw. But this slowly shifted.
First the wind blew. Not a calm breeze, more a slowly building storm. Trees rustled, as if in anticipation. Creatures stirred, eyes towards the lake. Water rippled, as if swelling from beneath, then burst skyward.
All eyes were on what emerged. Swimming like a beast, but with almost no fur. Looking around like a bird, head twitching in all directions. It head to land, crawling onto the surface and basking on the sand like a reptile. Eventually it stood, looking around, ready to explore. Born from the Lake was a human.
This myth is quite clear in its point, depicting how "humanity" emerged from the Lake. This, as a myth, is quite a tidy one. The key questions are which lake this refers to. Some suggestions have come up, such as looking for lakes linked to the Serpent Constellation, with this adding the "divine" aspect.
However I posit the most likely answer is Lake Refool. This lake is the home of the Eastern Gate of Zeph Nexa, that depicts a two headed serpent as its guardian, giving clear connections to the "divine" epithet. The myth also specifies the act of "reach(ing) out to the sky" and the "serpent's maw" - both of which could be explained by Lake Refool's bizarre structure, with half raised directly skyward to form the Eastern Gate.
If we take this as the case, the idea could then expand further. The myth depicts a human emerging from the lake, however if this "lake" is indeed the Gate, this could explain the odd point. Perhaps humanity didn't originate from the lake, but instead a human left Zeph-Nexa (from the far side of the gate) to explore Var Nexa as we do now.
Myth 2: Northern Gate of the Twin Ravens:
This gate has the least amount of information in general, so any myths related to it are sparse. What appears to be the creation myth seemingly refers to the feathers from the Ravens linked to the gate - Hu and Mu - falling to the ground, and humanity springing from them.
"Some carvings found in the Star Fields depicts both humans and Ravens - though the scale makes it difficult to tell the Ravens' size. Of note, the Ravens have apparently shed feathers, with images of humans appearing after. It's unclear precisely what this is meant to indicate."
There's no context to this, so we don't yet know the meaning, other studies suggest that the bodies of the Raven's are linked to the gate itself, which may indicate these pictures show the origin myth that survived in the Starfields.
Myth 3: The Carving Bull of the Western Gate:
The myths of the Western Gate portray humanity as being created from plant life and grown from the ground. In this tale, humanity was said to grow out of the gates. Humanity is depicted as going through several stages of growth, originating as small buds but growing to adapt to different environments and problems, eventually becoming fully human as they're known in the modern day.
Myth 4: Great Whale of the Southern Gate:
In the Lozen Plains to the South of Var Nexa, the most well known of the origin myths can be found. However it is the only origin myth with little to no mention of humanity. This frustrates scholars as it is unclear why this wouldn't fit in with the other gates, that have explicit links to humanity.
However, the myth found in the area is the most extensive, this suggests humans were more active in this area. The presence of humans to such an extent suggests they would have a link to the myths found - particularly those referencing the gates. From this point of view, the myth aligns with the three other gates.
See the full myth here: The Four Gates of Zeph-Nexa
Thoughts:
Given how these myths all depict humanity in relation to the gates, a clear link can be established. The question is, what link is trying to be depicted. While the myths could be taken literally, as actually being the origin of humanity, this is seemingly contradictory, as the myths cannot all depict humanities origin as they all differ.
An alternative may be that these are metaphorical, referring to how the gates provided the resources necessary for humanity - and life in general - to survive. This is most obvious with the southern gate (myth 4), which depicts life being brought to a barren land. However, the lack of humanity stops this. Similarly, the Eastern Gate (myth 1) and the Western Gate (myth 3) show this clearly, depicting key resources for life such as water and plants respectively.
However the Northern Gate (myth 1) appears to contradict this, as no clear resources are present. It's been suggested that this refers to animals as food, but this interpretation seems more like trying to match the myth with an idea, rather than one naturally stemming from it.
Instead, I suggest that this is a mix of literalness and metaphor. The first three myths all depict humanity emerging from something linked to their respective gate, and in the fourth the Great Whale is shown to bring life to the Lozen Plains. We also believe that the four gates link to the City of Zeph-Nexa.
Therefore, I believe these tales are a recount of real events, where certain humans left Zeph-Nexa to explore what we now call Var Nexa, much like our modern Seeker Teams do. It would, from there, make sense that the locations outside the gates had stories of these events, which over time developed into myths.
Of course the evidence for this is circumstantial, particularly for the myths with less detail. However I would argue that the concept of Zeph-Nexa being this "City of Origin" for humanity is the most logical development, and that any further research on the topic of humanities origin must focus on the four gates.
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