When all people are trapped in the mire of suffering, their souls corroded by the poison called despair, they often seek comfort in a single remedy.
Faith.
And in the Warhammer universe, where supernatural power can be displayed before people's eyes in a very real way, that craving for faith becomes all the more intense and resolute.
Under such circumstances, the Master of Mankind, seated upon the Golden Throne, enduring endless agony while silently watching over humanity through one millennium after another, naturally became the perfect object of worship.
And so, the Imperial Cult was born.
They recited the God-Emperor's holy titles, praised His deeds, and revered Him as the guardian deity of the human race.
With their own hands, devout believers raised immense statues. With their most heartfelt kneeling and their most fervent offerings, they expressed their insignificant gratitude and worship to the Master of Mankind.
What these believers did not know was that this was exactly what the Emperor had least wanted to see.
Even the core scripture of the Imperial Cult came from a text written by a traitor Primarch, the Lectitio Divinitatus.
But to expect humanity to remain rational forever was itself the least rational thing of all.
After many millennia of time, and under the concealment of vested interests, ignorant citizens cast aside the Imperial Truth once preached by the Emperor and instead placed their hearts beneath the shelter of the Imperial Cult.
Among the High Lords' Council of Twelve, the Imperial Cult was the newest of the great powers, yet in an astonishingly short time it seized control over the thoughts of most of the Imperium's people through frenzied preaching and expansion.
Ordinarily, in a universe where faith has power and thought has weight, using faith in the Emperor to defend the mind is hardly unreasonable.
But mortal politics inevitably carries a fatal corruption. Under the lure of power, even the most noble behavior can be twisted into the games of predators.
Relying on its influence at the height of its power, the Imperial Cult began rapidly expanding its wealth and military strength.
That uncontrolled growth provoked the dissatisfaction of many other factions, including the Inquisition.
Yet for a very long time, that dissatisfaction was only expressed through political balancing, taking form as rows of numbers toyed with by the High Lords and documents casually approved or rejected at their leisure.
That game of power lasted for a very long time, and through it the contradictions between both sides grew wider and wider.
Ancient Terra had a famous saying: politics is war without bloodshed, and war is politics with bloodshed.
When the lever of politics is no longer enough to soothe one side's fury, then only sword and fire can sort out the tangled web of interests.
And the man who would ignite this irreparable disaster of war was Goge Vandire.
According to Gaia's memory, in the early years of his political life, this man, who could barely be called a great schemer, remained patient and hidden, skillfully maneuvering through the complex web of power on Holy Terra.
Then, by virtue of his experience and ability, he eventually became one of the supreme rulers of the Imperium of Man.
But only after he reached the summit of Terran power did people realize that beneath that human skin there was no loyalty and no devotion at all, only monstrous greed and desire.
He purged the upper ranks of the Imperial Cult through extremely bloody means, then forced the remaining leadership to recognize him as the new Ecclesiarch.
And when the office of High Lord, which commanded the veins of the Imperium, and the office of Ecclesiarch, which controlled the minds of the people, were both held in the hands of one madman, it was only natural that what awaited the Imperium of Man would be unimaginable chaos and despair.
That was the beginning of the Age of Apostasy.
That was the opening note of that catastrophic civil war.
That era, later remembered as the Reign of Blood, plunged countless worlds once standing beneath the Emperor's light into darkness and wailing that would last for millennia.
And Gaia, at this moment, stood precisely at the starting point of that storm of blood and fire.
That was far too much of a coincidence.
Resting her chin in one hand, Gaia wandered through the upper deck while familiarizing herself with the ship, all the while thinking about whether she could do something about the brutal civil war that was coming.
After thinking it through again and again, she concluded that there were only three ways to use her knowledge of the future to change what was coming.
The first was to assassinate Goge Vandire directly. This would be the most effective method, but the difficulty was absurdly high.
Setting aside the fact that she might run into certain giant men in loincloths inside the Imperial Palace, the assassins of the Officio Assassinorum alone would be more than enough to kill her hundreds of times over.
The second was to prevent Vandire from deceiving the Brides of the Emperor on San Leor, the group that would later become the Adepta Sororitas, and thereby weaken his future power.
The despicable Vandire used a defensive field item known as the Rosarius to stage a little demonstration of miraculous invulnerability before those loyal battle-sisters, convincing the innocent nuns that he was a saint personally chosen by the God-Emperor.
The third was to simply seek out Sebastian Thor, the future Living Saint who would found the Confederation of Light and overthrow Vandire.
That method was the safest, and perhaps it might even earn her the merit of backing the winning side.
But the problem was that by the time things reached that point, Vandire would already have ravaged the Imperium almost beyond repair, meaning her foreknowledge would be nearly worthless.
Gaia frowned deeply, and in the end made up her mind.
Priority would go to the second plan.
If she got the chance, she would carry out the first.
The third would remain her fallback.
"But there's one small problem. No matter which plan I choose, Warp travel is absolutely necessary."
"Leaving aside whether Solomon would even listen to me, this ship only has one of the three essential components for Warp travel, a Gellar Field generator. It doesn't even have the most basic Navigator."
"If we jump blindly, then even if I'm not aboard, the chances of something going wrong are basically certain."
Her head immediately began to ache.
Gaia thought until her mind hurt, but no matter what she did, she could not get around the same obstacle.
Without Warp travel, none of her ideas could be carried out.
Unless a Navigator dropped from the sky, none of it would ever happen.
...
In the vast and silent sea of stars, a jagged crimson tear suddenly split open, filled with formless black mist. A battered transport vessel tore through the veil between reality and unreality and limped onward into the distance.
Two small but vicious raider ships burst out of the rift behind it like wolves scenting blood, and in the next moment two precisely guided torpedoes slammed into the transport's engines, instantly crippling them.
After a further wave of bombardment, terrifying flames erupted from the lower decks of the transport ship, and wicked tongues of fire devoured the lives within like ravenous ghosts.
Seeing this, the two raider ships came alongside the transport and began boarding operations.
In despair, a broad distress signal was transmitted from the transport:
"...This is the Navigator House... House Hayek... we have been separated from our escort ships... we are under attack by pirates..."
(End of Chapter)
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