Sea of Stars - IC

[Destro_Yersul]

Spoiler: questions

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"Did you ever see the Emperor? What do you remember of him?"
It's a big galaxy. No, I never saw the Emperor, but ... he was no where and everywhere, you know? One man, holding together the entirety of a galactic Imperium. Words cannot describe him. I can tell you all about it - how everyone trusted that one man to take care of everything. And he never failed at that. But that doesn't convey it, not really.

He was the Imperium.

"That fits with what we know of Him," Mathias said. "Things would have been quite different, had the Great Betrayer not turned his back on the Imperium."

"Describe the Imperium. How did you see Xenos races? How does this match up with the Imperium of today?"

The Imperium is the project of the Emperor to create a safe stable space for all mankind.

I do not see xenos. What I mean is, there is no single way in which I see all aliens. I hate the orcs, and I hate the eldar. For different reasons. The orcs are vermin with half a brain, destructive and unproductive. The eldar .. meddle. You know what I mean? They'd happily sacrifice every last human for some contrieved plan of theirs. And they'd never tell us the trust. Just because. They could - they just wont.

Today? I don't even know about today. Ask me in ten years. But like I said: There's no doubt in my mind the Imperium has forgotten what it is. The Imperium of Man is the single most powerful force in the galaxy - we do not need to fear every little thing. We are strong, and the emperor guides us!

"I do know, believe me. There are some things worth fearing, and some worth hating. For the most part, though, I think we can agree. Thank you for your candor."

"Did you venerate the Emperor as the God of Mankind?"

You do realise he specifically told us not to, right? Then .. well, yea? Kinda. He was substantially larger than life, whether he wanted us to acknowledge it or not.

At this, Kohl looked up suddenly. "Really? Don't tell any Ecclesiarchs that. It's a central tenet of the Imperial Creed that the Emperor rewards those with faith in him. Though, you probably know that by now. It seems the sort of thing the good Lord Captain would have mentioned. There's a lot of interesting philosophical discussion to be had on the subject of what to do when God tells you He isn't a god, and not to worship Him. Very surprising, though. I wonder if there are any sources to corroborate that, other than the remaining crew..." The scribe lapsed into silence, staring at the wall. Felidae could almost see the wheels in his head ticking over. "On the balance of it, the Ecclesiarchy is good for the IMperium. Still. Very interesting. Best if you keep it to yourselves."

He paused for a moment, making a note on his slate. "Mind-wipes can be arranged, you know, and the clerics are always happy with a few more heretics to burn."

"Do you believe there is anything worth learning from Xenos?"

Duh! Obviously - yes. I just ... it's so dumb. Say these fish guys have some clever way of working with genes, right? It seems that might actually be the case. So - just because it's xenos - we burn it!

And then, somewhere in the galaxy, in a hundred years, some lucky cog dude comes up with the same idea - only someone figures out that's what the fish guys did, so it's HERESY. And so we burn it - again!

"Another central tenet of the Imperial Faith is that tampering with the divine human form is one of the worst sorts of sacrilege. I can think of only two organisations which get around that. For one, it's allowed because the Astartes were creations of the Emperor in the first place, and are frankly required to keep the Imperium safe. For the other... well, cybernetics are medically useful, and technically the replacement of biological parts with mechanical ones doesn't involve any genetic manipulation."

"As long as it wasn't used on humans, though, I see no problems. Developing more efficient crops for agri-worlds is an entirely worthy endeavour." Kohl makes another few notes as he says this. "Was any of this in that information package your Magos put together?"

Say - you seem like someone with a good deal of knowledge and influence. So riddle me this: So the Emperor gets offed, and the Mechanicus drops him in stasis so he's not really dead, but definitely not alive either. And everyone just decides that yep, that's fine. We'll just keep him like this forever.

Is that about right? Ten thousand years. And no one came up with a better solution?

"The Ecclesiarchy teaches that he is still alive. It is his mental power which provides the Astronomicon. Without the Emperor on teh Golden Throne, Warp Travel would be impossible, and the Imperium would fragment. You would need a psyker of an equal capability to power the Astronomicon in His stead," Kohl said. "Thus, I answer your question with one of my own. What alternative Emperor-level psyker do you suggest we use instead?"

Perhaps Hannabel had a point. Kohl's interest didn't necessarily mean anything. He was obviously here because of the things that he knew. On the same basis there were a lot of things Anika would expect to be more interested in then Macharius. But she would have expected Mathias to be more invested in this. Between taking notes she will continue to watch Kohl.

The more Anika watched Kohl, the more she became convinced that the scribe was hiding something. He was very good at it, acting the perfect subservient, but there was something in his bearing that she had often seen in department heads during her Lexica days. Subtle hints of tone and inflection that he probably wasn't aware of, but which led her to conclude that he at least outranked Mathias. She sat in on all of the interviews, as much as she could, and it was always there.

The other crew gave similar answers to Felidae; none had ever personally met the Emperor, though a few had witnessed a Primarch in action. One man claimed to have met Vulkan, providing an accurate description of the Primarch of the 18th legion, and describing him as a compassionate commander who genuinely cared for the people of the Imperium. Their views on Xenos echoed Felidae's; humans were obviously meant to govern the galaxy, and were superior to all Xenos, but coexistence was possible. There had been a civilization called the Interex, an enemy of the Imperium, but one in which humans and aliens had peacefully coexisted. They were destroyed by Horus before his betrayal of the Imperium. None of the crew were sure whether this had been an initial act of betrayal by Horus, striking against a dedicated enemy of Chaos, a righteous battle against an enemy of the Imperium, or a tragic misunderstanding. By the end of the interview process, Kohl was forced to admit that there might not be enough surviving information to know the truth for sure.

As the interviews were nearing completion, the Manticore's Sting exited warp just behind the Navy frigates. They had reached the third marker with no signs of pirate activity, but the Navy insisted on maintaining alertness. The two Swords had taken point on every occassion, requiring Macharius' ships to provide backup. They did the same here, powering in from the jump point towards the marker. This particular waypoint was near an uninhabited star system, and was where they were supposed to find the Mechanicus. Commander Tam had been reluctant to provide much detail on Magos Zurin, only saying that he was doing some research or other on the native lifeforms of this particular world. While it was possible that the Navy didn't know what the Magos was up to, many of the Sting's crew had quietly expressed the opinion that the Navy did know, and simply didn't want to share the knowledge with them.

As the planet came within range of the auspex, the officers ordered a sensor sweep. The Sting and the Talon reached out into the void, powerful augurs sweeping space. There were no signs of any active ships, which was strange. One of the few details that Tam had shared was that the Mechanicus contingent was supposed to have a light cruiser on support duty.