There was no history on Sadala.
There were no tomes of ancient knowledge, no accounts of the present ways of living — only lies and legends shared around campfires and meals. Eras and ages were drifting boats on time's currents, anchored solely to the names of petty tyrants and their fractured rules. In the tales of old, there were no heroes. No fresh-faced young boys. No wise old women. No jesters, no courtiers, no princes. The halls of fame were for the Butchers, the Destroyers, and the Massacrists — the vilest and cruellest creatures imaginable. The Strongest.
Other than these prized harbingers of moral disease, there were no gods on Sadala. No manuscripts of divine revelation, no priests, no saviours. No prayers uttered; no forgiveness sought. Worship was an impossible task in a world as arrogant, as spiteful, as domineering as this. There were no shrines. No altars. But there was sacrifice, indeed. Diligent, pious, endless sacrifice. Never once looking down, descendants stood atop the corpses of their ancestors.
Men of ideas, let alone those of virtue, were an extinct species on Sadala. No, not extinct — they had never once existed. Of this fact he was sure. The seas and scorching meteors had blessed this wayward planet with an eternal age of unreason. It was almost blissful, he thought — that each and every one of these beasts never knew the depravity of their flickering lives before they were snuffed out forever. But he never blamed them. How could he? These were creatures of instinct, no better than base animals. To say that they ought to act differently would imply that they even could.
Without reason, there is no choice. Without choice, there is no virtue. Without virtue, there is no justice. And without justice, there can be no due punishment. Not once in the history of the Saiyan race had a person been held accountable for their crimes. Crime did not exist. How could it? There were no laws, no judges, no juries — only thousands of clueless executioners.
And he'd been one of them.