Imperial Truth

The Imperial Truth is the name given to the official set of secular, rationalist philosophical and cultural beliefs promulgated by the Emperor of Mankind himself during his Great Crusade to reunite all the worlds of Mankind beneath the umbrella of the newborn Imperium of Man in the 31st Millennium. The Imperial Truth was pioneered by the Emperor on Terra even before the Great Crusade began, the Imperial Truth is a collection of beliefs that upholds the core values of reason, science and secular progress over older traditions of religion, superstition and faith that had longed plagued many human worlds that had fallen into darkness during the Age of Strife after the fall of humanity's first interstellar civilisation. The Emperor himself declared that Mankind would never be free to progress and advance to its destined position as the pre-eminent intelligent species in the Milky Way Galaxy until "the last stone from the last church was cast down onto the last priest." He purged ancient Terra of all its ancient religions and superstitious beliefs, even going so far as to personally witness the destruction of the final church on Terra's ancient soil after engaging its resident holy man in a battle of ideas, wit and dogma. The Imperial Truth was spread to all of the rediscovered human colony worlds during the Great Crusade, taught to the men of the Imperial Army, spread by the Astartes, and spread amongst the populations of newly discovered and Compliant worlds by scores of Imperial Iterators, a corps of orators and rhetoricians of supreme skill and passion who were attached to every Expeditionary Fleet of the Great Crusade. This creed only further strengthened the Great Crusade, lending the Emperor's symbolic support to all of the scientists, sceptics and thinkers on whom the Emperor's plans for a united, galaxy-spanning human civilisation hinged. The Emperor needed a New Renaissance to begin across the nascent Imperium to see his ambitious dreams for the betterment of Mankind fulfilled. The Emperor hoped that a new age of science and technological progress would solidify and consolidate the gains he and his warriors had made in achieving a new place for Mankind in the galaxy, a restoration of humanity's righful place as the predominant intelligent species in the known universe.

However, the dominance of the Imperial Truth was already under attack decades before the Horus Heresy had even begun. A text known as the Lectitio Divinitatus calling upon all of humanity to recognise the Emperor's divinity as the God of Mankind had been authored by none other than the Primarch Lorgar of the Word Bearers Legion. Lorgar had been raised on Colchis, a theocratic world dominated by priests and the worship of the ancient Gods of what was called the Old Faith. Lorgar had overturned the Old Faith in pursuit of a new religion called the Covenant of Colchis that saw the Emperor as a God incarnate after Lorgar had suffered from visions throughout his youth of a god-like figure that would eventually stand beside him. These visions, probably psychic in origin, eventually proved true when the Emperor came to Colchis to collect his lost son. In the interim, Lorgar, alongside his mentor and foster father the high priest Kor Phaeron, had launched a successful six-year-long religious civil war against the adherents of the Old Faith on Colchis to force them to convert to his new religion of worship of the Emperor.

After Lorgar finally met his father, he penned the Lectitio Divinitatus which taught that the Emperor was a God deserving of worship. The text spread rapidly through the expeditionary fleets of the Great Crusade, and received more support amongst the civilians and support personnel of the fleets and Compliant Imperial worlds than with the Imperial Army's officers and the Astartes, who believed more strongly in the Imperial Truth because of their closeness to the Emperor. Yet, over time many of the people of the Imperium became convinced that the Emperor was truly a divine being and Emperor-worship cults began to spread, slowly at first but quickly gaining more momentum as the onset of the Horus Heresy approached and the influence of the Dark Gods began to wax. This process was accelerated since the Word Bearers would convert every world they made Compliant for the Imperium to their new faith, which made their progress much slower than that of the other Astartes Legions and ultimately lead to their brutal humiliation as failures in the Great Crusade before the Emperor himself on the world of Khur, one of the planets where they had successfully spread the faith of the God-Emperor. This savage rebuke came only after the Emperor ordered the Ultramarines Legion to destroy the great Khurian city of Monarchia where he had been openly worshipped as the God of Mankind. This humiliation played a major part in Lorgar's corruption and fall to Chaos, allowing his First Captain Kor Phaeron and First Chaplain Erebus to convert him to the worship of the Chaos Gods and the subtle corruption of his Legion. Lorgar had always rejected the Imperial Truth and believed whole-heartedly that religious faith was what truly made Mankind strong in the face of adversity. If the Emperor rejected his worship, than he was determined to find the Gods of the Colchisian Old Faith that he had once warred against and offer them his devotion. He led a portion of his Legion, the Chapter of the serrated Sun, on what became the Pilgrimage of Lorgar to find these true divine beings and he ultimately made contact with them near the world of Cadia close to the Eye of Terror. Lorgar willingly gave his soul to them once he learned that there were truly Gods in the universe and that they welcomed the worship of Men. Soon a secret, devoted servant of the Ruinous Powers who feared the imposition of the Order over the galaxy that the Imperium brought, Lorgar spent the next several decades slowly positioning the pieces of a great plot to convert the Space Marine Legions to the service of Chaos and ultimately bring on the great revolt against the Emperor.

The Imperial Truth slowly died away as the Horus Heresy progressed and religious faith in the Emperor seemed to offer both spiritual succor and real psychic protection against the growing powers and daemonic threats of the Ruinous Powers worshiped by the fearsome Traitor Legions. Just as the Word Bearers had once converted whole worlds to the worship of the Emperor, now Lorgar imposed the bloody worship of the Dark Gods upon every world they captured during the Heresy, forcing the inhabitants to memorise his new work of faith, the Chaotic Book of Lorgar. Once the Horus Heresy ended in the defeat of the Forces of Chaos and the Traitor Legions fled into the Eye of Terror, the Imperial Truth's hold on the hearts of Men retreated even more rapidly. Without the Emperor's guiding influence and constant reaffirmation of his desire for the establishment of an Imperial culture based on secular rationalism, superstition and religion crept back into the hearts of Mankind.

Lorgar had been right about one thing: religion did provide a far surer way to bind humanity together than reason and science. Belief in the Imperial Truth was slowly eroded away, year by year, world by world, until the Adeptus Ministorum was officially formed in the 32nd Millennium and the Imperial Cult was recognised as the state religion of the Imperium by the High Lords of Terra. The Imperial Cult combined the widespread human beliefs in the God-Emperor who protected humanity from the terrible dangers of the universe into a single, unifying religion that would sweep away the Imperial Truth as false and heretical dogma and ultimately lead the Imperium towards a decline into ignorance, superstition, intolerance and tyranny, the very things the Emperor had fought so earnestly against. Ironically, by the 41st Millennium, the Imperial Truth itself would be seen as a heresy punishable by death at the hands of the Ecclesiarchy or the Inquisition.